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COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 31, 2014

Asia's emerging democratic axis

A Japan-India democratic axis, with U.S. support, could reshape the Asian strategic landscape and block the rise of a Sino-centric Asia. A rudderless India is in search of its own Shinzo Abe.
WORLD
Jan 25, 2014

'Abe-genda': nuclear export superpower

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is now in New Delhi to celebrate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Indian Republic. His presence speaks volumes about closer diplomatic, security and economic ties and, at least from Tokyo's perspective, a common agenda on responding to the rise of China. India remains...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 24, 2014

Don't let ANA off the hook for that offensive ad

If ANA had really wanted to 'change the image of Japan,' it should have avoided racializing its product. Instead, it's just business as usual.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2014

Reforms open SE Asia's 'last frontier'

Newly democratizing Myanmar is a suitable destination for Japanese direct investment as it is Southeast Asia's "last frontier," two researchers based in Singapore said at a symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jan 19, 2014

China, South Korea face familiar woes in English quest

Japan isn't alone in its struggles with teaching English. China and South Korea have experienced similar frustrations, but their responses and results have been quite different.
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Jan 19, 2014

Best thing for Senkakus: Never let push come to shove

On Jan. 12, Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera observed the annual drill held by the Ground Self-Defense Force's elite 1st Airborne Brigade in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 11, 2014

Seasons come and go — but when?

Another new year has arrived and a Hokkaido blizzard is tearing past my window, drifting snow onto every surface as if it means to drown out the world in whiteness. Thankfully it also brings a muffling silence into which thoughts pop and crackle.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 6, 2014

The empire strikes back: the top issues for non-Japanese in 2013

2013 saw the enfranchised elite consolidating their power further than has ever been seen in the postwar era, while Japan's disenfranchised peoples slipped ever lower down the totem pole, becoming targets of suspicion, fear and loathing.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 4, 2014

Kenya Hara: the future of design

Sitting at a plain white table in a meeting room high up on the 12th floor of a narrow building in central Tokyo, product designer Kenya Hara asks me to picture a shallow plate in my mind. "Now imagine a slightly deeper plate," Hara says, "that gets deeper and deeper and eventually becomes a bowl."
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 28, 2013

In memoriam: Those we lost in 2013

2013 saw the loss of a number of personalities who stood at the top of their respective fields. As the year quietly draws to a close, we reflect on those we lost, their contribution to the world and their ongoing legacy.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2013

Another backward step by Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit Thursday to Yasukuni Shrine, Japan's war shrine, is a thoughtless act that could lead Japan into isolation in the international community. It also revealed his shallow understanding of the immense destruction that Japan's wars in the 1930s and 1940s brought about and...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 19, 2013

Rift growing between allies

The gut feeling of American military leaderes is that if only to prevent war between the U.S. and China, they don't want Japan's Self-Defense Forces to possess offensive-strike capabilities.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 7, 2013

Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy that won't go away

Dec. 8 (Japan time) is the 72nd anniversary of Pearl Harbor, the infamous attack launched by Imperial Japanese forces against the United States that continues to reverberate in the popular imagination.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2013

English part of equation for science students

Even as Japan was praised for its English presentations during the bidding process to host the 2020 Olympic Games in September, it is no secret that Japanese are still said to be poor at communicating in English.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Nov 29, 2013

Prolific Swedish ambassador indulges passion for haiku

Over the years, Swedish Ambassador Lars Vargo has published 15 books related to Japan, but for the past decade, his love affair with the country has largely been told in one literary form: haiku.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2013

Aussie LNG an energy lifeline — for now

With its nuclear power plants mostly idled since the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, Japan continues its quest to increase imports of liquefied natural gas, especially from Australia.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Nov 28, 2013

China's move to establish air defense zone appears to backfire

It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness. But Beijing's creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, eliciting a strong joint response by the United States and Japan.
BASEBALL
Nov 26, 2013

Kawakami was Japanese baseball's first Zen master

Most foreign fans of baseball in Japan may not know the name Tetsuharu Kawakami, who passed away recently at the age of 93, but perhaps it's time they did.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 23, 2013

Resisting the historical deniers

Shin Kawashima recalls his heart sinking with the reelection of Shinzo Abe. A specialist in Asian diplomatic history at the University of Tokyo, Kawashima has spent years trying to narrow the gap between Japan and China's strikingly different interpretations of wartime history. The election could undo...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 21, 2013

JFK's message echoes today

President John F. Kennedy, more than many others then or now, recognized the exponential power that Japan and the U.S. possessed when working together.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 9, 2013

Pan-Asian dreams: The Greater East Asia Conference

Seventy years ago, on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6, 1943, Japan hosted a meeting of Asian leaders in Tokyo, hub of the Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere — the name it gave its wartime empire under the guise of Pan-Asian liberation.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices
Nov 4, 2013

No safe country for foreign women: the debate

Holly Lanasolyluna's article published Oct. 23 attracted an unprecedented number of online comments. More than 5,000 people also answered the accompanying poll about safety in Japan. Here are just some of the mails and comments.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Nov 2, 2013

Can Japanese really be such cold sushi in the sack?

Sex in Japan is a knotty issue — even if you're not a fan of tying up your lover with rope, also known as shibari. No matter how you write about it, it raises ire. If you point out that Japan has a vibrant sex industry in which every sexual act other than vaginal penetration can be legally bought and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 27, 2013

MasterCard debit card holders shouldn't panic

A reader from Australia, JF, contacted Lifelines with a question about using her MasterCard debit card here. She is coming to Japan soon and was concerned about a notice she had seen on MasterCard Japan's website, indicating that certain types of cards issued overseas could not be used in ATMs here:...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 19, 2013

Abe ought to show a red card to hate speech now

Last week I ended this column by noting that Myanmar (also known as Burma) can ill afford bigotry and intolerance. Neither can Japan. The outpouring here of hate speech targeting ethnic Korean residents is a disturbing development even if it is not representative. And certainly, it is encouraging that...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2013

Ban lifted on 'nikkei' who got axed, airfare

The government lifts its ban on the return of Japanese-Brazilians who received financial help in 2009 to fly home when they were thrown out of work during the global financial crisis.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years