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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2008

Political inertia, public indifference

Japanese politics and politicians continue to face an overriding question: What kind of nation should Japan become? The question needs to be discussed among all political parties in ways that inspire the public. Unfortunately, that is not about to happen. Preoccupied with short-term responses to immediate...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 1, 2008

Seeking a life in balance

A task force set out earlier this year to bring more balance to the the grueling lifestyles that have become engrained in Japanese society over the past century. In November, a set of employment guidelines were formally adopted by the government.
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2008

Hope for moral recovery in 2008

I would like to write a few lines of appreciation to The Japan Times for keeping our interest keen and alive in observing the conduct of our fellow citizens, both good and bad. As the high priest of Kiyomizu Temple (Kyoto) lamented last month, the Japanese should feel ashamed that 2007 has been symbolized...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 1, 2008

Getting a cut, breaking a leg

Kumiko wants to know what happened to a hair salon she used to go to near Hiroo Station in Tokyo. It was right by the JR subway station, up a flight of steps.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THIS FOREIGN LAND
Jan 1, 2008

Inevitably, newcomers play growing role

This is the first in a four-part series focusing on issues confronting Japan's growing foreign communities and their increasing impact on society as a whole.
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2008

Teachers still being kept in the dark

Regarding the Dec. 26 article "Firm reneges on promised jobs for Nova teachers": G.education Co. certainly appears to be continuing in the footsteps of the English-teaching company Nova with regard to the treatment of teachers. I was a Nova teacher and had to leave Japan in November after the schools...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2008

Inflammatory actions at sea

SYDNEY — "The whale war" is what irate Australians are calling a fierce row over Japan's whaling operations in the Southern Ocean, off Antarctica. Even normally pro-Japan Aussies are saddened at the way whale hunting is lowering respect here for Australia's most favored nation in Asia.
EDITORIALS
Jan 1, 2008

A year of opportunity

While many of the trends that created anxiety in 2007 will continue, the new year holds considerable promise and opportunity. The arrival of new faces on the international political scene offers hope for new choices and new policies.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 31, 2007

Brady, Moss make TD plays look easy

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Stripped to the essentials, it's just a throw and a catch.
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2007

China's public diplomacy

China's public, or soft-power, diplomacy has traditionally consisted of "people's diplomacy," meaning the cultivation of people friendly to China within other countries. Under this method, China would nurture people sympathetic to its ideas within a country and use these figures to exert influence on...
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2007

Killing cycle claimed Bhutto

WATERLOO, Canada — Born amid the mass killings of partition in 1947, Pakistan has never escaped the cycle of violence, volatility and bloodshed. Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007) is the latest casualty of that murderous cycle.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 31, 2007

'08 to see nightmare of globalization, or alert central banks?

Looking back at what I wrote in this space this time last year, I find that I was dreaming of a Japan of the United States, in which the regions become city states unto their own and make Japan a generally more interesting place. The dream still remains but a dream. But I keep hoping.
COMMENTARY
Dec 31, 2007

Censorship serves to flag our own limits

LOS ANGELES — It appears that many mainland Chinese moviegoers are traipsing over to Hong Kong in droves to view the uncensored version of Ang Lee's latest blockbuster, "Lust, Caution." With their feet, in effect, they are voting for lust — and as if wishing for official Beijing caution to be gone...
EDITORIALS
Dec 31, 2007

The falsity of 2007

The kanji for the Japanese word "nise," meaning fake or false, has been chosen by the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation as the kanji that most appropriately defines domestic events in 2007. Unveiled at Kiyomizu Temple in the ancient capital, the choice underscores flawed ways of thinking...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Dec 31, 2007

Fukuda keeps thaw with China on track

JINAN, China — Shinzo Abe's trip to China as prime minister in October 2006 was dubbed "the ice-breaking trip" to mend diplomatic relations damaged by predecessor Junichiro Koizumi. Then came Premier Wen Jiabao's "thawing-ice visit" to Japan last April.
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2007

37,000-year-old baby mammoth here for study

The frozen carcass of a 37,000-year-old baby mammoth unearthed this summer in Siberia has arrived in Japan for tests that researchers hope will shed new light on the internal structure of the ancient beasts.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan