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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 28, 2020

News outlets clash over tone of COVID-19 coverage

The government's COVID-19 subcommittee held a news conference on Nov. 9 to discuss nationwide increases in infections this winter. The government itself seems hesitant to call this sudden spike the "third wave," a term that has become normalized in the media, but the subcommittee definitely sees it as...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 21, 2020

A frank conversation is needed on euthanasia

In October, New Zealand voters approved a referendum proposal to legalize medically assisted suicide, thus joining a small group of countries and territories that allow euthanasia under specific circumstances. The proposal sprang from a lawsuit brought by a lawyer dying from a brain tumor, and while...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 14, 2020

Subsidizing fertility treatment leaves Japanese gynecologists in a bind

Fertility treatments are not covered by national health insurance because, in most cases, infertility is not defined as an ailment.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2020

The potential for a policy failure on vaccines is huge

Leaders must make decisions about who will get a coronavirus shot first and provide adequate explanations to those denied the vaccine.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2020

No, we shouldn’t report partying neighbors to the pandemic police

The pandemic has prompted European citizens to accept changes in social behavior that would have seemed impossible only a year ago. People have stopped shaking hands, started wearing masks and learned to talk at some distance. They have adhered to government rules keeping them at home and closing down...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2020

Oracle’s TikTok deal pours Trump toxin into capitalism

The idea a country's leader decides which deals get done — and that it's contingent on how friendly the company is with the leader — is how it works in Putin's Russia.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2020

High crimes against journalism and decency

Jeffrey Goldberg's insane 'Trump called troops suckers' piece is a new low.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2020

Iceland has very good news about coronavirus immunity

The emergence of a handful of people reinfected by SARS-Cov-2 — including individuals in Hong Kong, Italy and the U.S. — has sparked panic over the future course of the pandemic.
SUMO
Jul 29, 2020

History shows Abi's flouting of virus protocols will likely be last straw for Japan Sumo Association

Many of those who have transgressed against the JSA's myriad rules (whether official or unwritten) in the past have found themselves out of the sport in short order.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jul 25, 2020

Redefining the kimono in modern times

While many associate the kimono with Japanese tradition, renewed interest in the garment at home and abroad is giving it a new lease on life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2020

‘The Keeper of the Dragonflies’: The essence of cross-cultural relationships, warts and all

Thomas Noah Wood is the pseudonym for the American writer Thomas Dillon, whose name may be familiar to readers of The Japan Times. Dillon wrote about daily life in Japan through the lens of international marriage in “When East Marries West,” a column which ran from 1998 to 2015. Unlike the good-natured...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2020

'Smart lockdowns' are the future in Europe

EU countries are experimenting with new ways of dealing with COVID-19. Germany, Portugal and Italy have all enforced selective or "smart” lockdowns, shutting down smaller regions in response to new outbreaks as opposed to bringing their entire countries to a halt.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 23, 2020

Don't be 'giri-giri' when it comes to applying for your coronavirus cash

In order to get your pandemic-related cash payment from the government, you're going to have to know some key Japanese terms.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jun 6, 2020

Japan Times 1995: Police storm jet, rescue hostages in Hokkaido

Riot police storm a hijacked All Nippon Airways jumbo jet in dramatic predawn rescue, rescuing 364 captives to end a nearly 16-hour standoff.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2020

The pandemic is exposing the limits of science

The financial crisis tarnished the field of economics; will COVID-19 do the same for medicine?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2020

Lockdowns haven’t proved they’re worth the havoc

The U.S. survived the 1968 pandemic without shutting down society, and there isn't much evidence that shutdowns are truly effective this time.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 24, 2020

How U.S. citizens in Japan can apply for coronavirus aid payments from home

Lifelines gets answers from two taxation experts regarding the payments from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2020

Lockdown critics may have some valid points

It's always worth listening to smart people with ideas that go against the grain.
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2020

Lagarde can't solve the COVID-19 crisis

Managing the COVID-19 crisis goes way beyond the powers of central banks.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2020

Spain’s tragedy was all too predictable

The prime minister dithered before imposing lockdown measures that could have saved thousands of lives.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 30, 2020

We live in neither East nor West

With COVID-19 pulling the world apart, it's the people, from healthworkers to thoughtful neighbors that can bring it back together.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2020

Agon Shu prays for relief from natural disasters at Fire Rites Festival

French poet Francois Villon once asked, “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” as he pondered the evanescence of existence. The thousands of people who made their way along the winding mountain road to the Agon Shu Buddhist Association’s Fire Rites Festival on the morning of Feb. 9 may have been...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2020

Italy's lockdown tests the limits of democracy

Restrictions on 17 million people are the most draconian in the West, but they're far less strict than China's. The onus is on citizens to comply.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2020

Nino Caruso's monumental contribution

More than 100 pieces, documents and designs have been selected for the Nino Caruso exhibition 'Forms of Memory and Space — the world's first retrospective of the Italian ceramist-cum-sculptor's work since his death in 2017.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 21, 2019

Review: 'The Nutcracker and the Mouse King' at the New National Theatre, Tokyo

A truly entertaining production of “The Nutcracker” should leave you questioning whether the performance was just a dream. “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” a take on the holiday classic staged by the New National Theatre, Tokyo, in the run-up to Christmas, is no exception. Performed for the...
SUMO / INSIDE SUMO
Dec 18, 2019

Hakuho more than deserving of special elder status

When you think of sumo, what's the first word that comes to mind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Nov 30, 2019

Japan Times 1969: Supreme Court rules that people have right to refuse being photographed

The Supreme Court ruling came in a case involving a student who injured a policeman who photographed him without his consent.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Sep 30, 2019

Xi military parade to showcase China missiles spooking the U.S.

In Beijing, President Xi Jinping's grand military parade through the capital will be cheered as a display of national pride after 70 years of Communist Party rule. In Washington, many will see a growing threat to American dominance in the Western Pacific.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 31, 2019

'Life for Sale': Yukio Mishima's comically psychedelic take on the adventure novel

'Life for Sale' — first serialized in Weekly Playboy in 1968 — was, for long years, dismissed as mere 'entertainment.' Yet the surprising bestseller is a terrific example of Mishima's fecund imagination at its most free-wheeling and unfettered best.

Longform

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