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Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 1, 2013

Where does Manning rank in the annals of espionage?

Cleared of the most serious charge — aiding and abetting the enemy — but convicted of most everything else, including espionage, Pfc. Bradley Manning is now facing sentencing, which could land him behind bars from roughly zero to more than 100 years.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 19, 2013

The quest is to clone a mammoth: The question is, should scientists do it?

The idea would make headlines around the world and bring tears of joy to the planet's journalists. An adorable baby woolly mammoth, tottering on its newborn legs, is introduced to the media.
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2013

What political parties have to offer

Voters shouldn't let the Upper House election campaign lull them into thinking that the Liberal Democratic Party no longer cares about constitutional revision.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013

Hague Convention on child abduction may shape Japan's family law — or vice versa

Giant Hello Kitty-emblazoned kudos to Japan for finally signing the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. Now comes the hard part: actually making it work.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 4, 2013

By opening up the debate to the real experts, Hashimoto did history a favor

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has been busy making headlines around the world with his controversial views on Japan's wartime sex slaves (or "comfort women," for those who like euphemisms with their history). Among other things, he claimed there is no evidence that the Japanese government sponsored the...
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

JICA helps Africans develop their future

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an independent governmental agency that coordinates official development assistance (ODA) for the government, has played an important role for the country in its relations with foreign nations. The following is the story of a JICA staff member who worked...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 26, 2013

Xenophobia stretches from the street to the dinner table

The territorial disputes between Japan and its nearest neighbors over the islands of Takeshima (Dokdo in Korean) and the Senkakus (Diaoyu in Chinese) have gradually faded from the front pages; but this does not necessarily mean there have been no repercussions.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2013

When the 'Iron Lady' bent to the will of Beijing

With regard to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Margaret Thatcher got some good advice from Singapore: Be neither defiant nor submissive.
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Apr 15, 2013

Online, Chinese heap scorn on North Korea

The views posted on Chinese Internet sites about the diplomatic faceoff with long-term ally North Korea have been anything but diplomatic.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 17, 2013

Japan's rollercoaster modern history has kept coming off the rails

At the end of this month, Roger Pulvers will be leaving Counterpoint. In his last three columns since his inaugural weekly Counterpoint on April 3, 2005, he will consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Mar 9, 2013

'Kony2012' and the fight for truth in the Internet age

A year ago, Jason Russell was a nobody. Not a nobody, precisely, but just ordinary. Normal. He was a healthy father of two, living in San Diego, and was happy in his work as a director for Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization he'd helped found.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 5, 2013

Buying property in the age of Abenomics

According to most business media, now is the time to act if you are thinking about buying a home. Though the Liberal Democratic Party has yet to confirm that it will go ahead with the consumption tax increases the Democratic Party of Japan passed last year, it seems likely that the first hike to 8 percent...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 26, 2013

No room for subtleties when laying off workers

Thanks to a feature that appeared on the front page of the Dec. 31 issue of the Asahi Shimbun, oidashi beya is the first topical neologism of 2013 if you don't count "Abenomics." It's not clear if the term, which translates as "expulsion room," was coined by the newspaper, but since then the blogosphere...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jan 20, 2013

China may prevent Korean unification: U.S. report

A recent report by Republican staff members in the U.S. Senate warns that China, because of its deepening economic ties with North Korea as well as its ancient claims on Korean land, could attempt to "manage, and conceivably block," the eventual unification of the two Koreas, if ever the Kim family falls...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 7, 2013

Relatives of U.S. lawmakers lobby on bills before Congress

In 2007, in the wake of the biggest lobbying scandal in decades, Congress limited the ability of family members to lobby their relatives in the House of Representatives or Senate. But it declined to ban the practice entirely.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 25, 2012

LDP returns with all its old baggage

They're baaaack. After warming the opposition bench for more than three years, the Liberal Democratic Party has returned to power, hungrier and more eager than ever to rule.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2012
Dec 7, 2012

Many voices but no clear messages

With so many parties — and their seemingly mix-and-match policy positions — vying in the Dec. 16 Lower House election, voters are facing a difficult choice. Even so, all the sudden mergers and policy rejiggering suggest the new parties would be no better than their predecessors at breaking the tradition...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2012

Noda will schedule election for Dec. 16

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said Wednesday he plans to dissolve the Lower House on Friday and schedule the general election for Dec. 16.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 18, 2012

Shilling for our side over the Senkakus

Akihiro Suzuki does not think war will come, but if it does, he believes Japan will prevail.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 27, 2012

Noda's hapless diplomacy

Strange though it may seem, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, who heads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, is seeking support and advice from former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori of the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party in his bid to restructure Japanese diplomacy in general as well as improve...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2012

Upper House passes bill to hike sales levy

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda achieved a major goal Friday when the Upper House passed his administration's social security and tax reform bills that will double the sales tax to 10 percent by 2015.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell