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COMMENTARY
Oct 17, 2010

Time to let the neighbors deal with the North Korean problem

PARIS — North Korea has officially unveiled the youngest son and heir apparent of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il. Yet again the impoverished dictatorship has captured the world's attention. But the United States should leave the problem of dealing with Pyongyang to the North's neighbors. The so-called Democratic...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2010

Don't count Thai Prime Minister Abhisit out

BANGKOK — For a man who has faced seemingly endless efforts to oust him by both parliamentary ballot and by bullet, by the slippery devious machinations that are meat and drink to Thai politicians and by street protesters who took over the commercial heart of Bangkok for more than two months, Prime...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2010

Deals with Bangladesh to help India burnish South Asian image

LONDON — India and Bangladesh have reportedly agreed in principle to swap each other's enclaves that are spread along the border areas and re-demarcate 6.1 kilometers of boundary — in effect resolving an issue that has bedeviled Indo-Bangladesh ties since independence.
EDITORIALS
Sep 23, 2010

Arrest of a public prosecutor

On Sept. 10 the Osaka District Court acquitted Ms. Atsuko Muraki, a former welfare ministry's bureau chief, of instructing her subordinate, Mr. Tsutomu Kamimura, to fabricate and issue a certificate that recognizes an organization as a group for the disabled, thus enabling it to use a postage discount...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2010

Dim outlook for Japan's muddled leadership

OSAKA — Having seen a new prime minister every year for five consecutive years, Japan has just narrowly avoided having its third in 2010. Prime Minister Naoto Kan has been elected president of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), surviving a challenge from Ichiro Ozawa, the DPJ's most potent...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 7, 2010

U.S. Navy 'Friendship Festival' draws line at the French

Could it be that the Friendship Day festivals held at the U.S. Navy Negishi Housing Base are not as friendly as the name suggests?
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 3, 2010

Dying to work: Japan Inc.'s foreign trainees

"The Industrial Trainees and Technical Interns program often fuels demand for exploitative cheap labor under conditions that constitute violations of the right to physical and mental health, physical integrity, freedom of expression and movement of foreign trainees and interns, and that in some cases...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010

Lebanon's Hezbollah finds itself in a corner

BEIRUT — The future of Hezbollah, Lebanon's powerful Shiite political and paramilitary organization, has never looked more uncertain. Indeed, given rising tension with Israel and possible indictments of its operatives by the international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2010

America's man from Japan

Edwin O. Reischauer, U.S. ambassador to Japan (1961-66), set the bar very high for all of his successors. Born and raised in Japan by missionary parents, when U.S. President John F. Kennedy called him into diplomatic service, he was already a prominent scholar who pioneered Japanese studies in the U.S....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 15, 2010

A light of hope for abused children

In the dock, Katsuyuki Okuno cut a strange figure as he listened baby-faced, chubby, graying, frightened and seemingly unable to understand what he had done.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 27, 2010

The long-range vision of Monocle

For a jet-setting, award-winning media, design and branding entrepreneur, Tyler Brûlé is pretty accessible. When he called last week, a few days before the opening of his highly anticipated Monocle Shop Tokyo within the new Francfranc Village building in Aoyama, he was at the site making last-minute...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
May 17, 2010

Political hazards follow the dissing of bureaucrats

Nearly eight months have passed since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power on a slogan of shifting decision-making power and processes from bureaucrats to elected politicians with a view to reducing or eliminating excessive reliance on bureaucrats. As a result of this shift, three distinctly different...
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2010

Middle East peace by any means available

RAMALLAH, West Bank — Something is happening with the Middle East conflict. A breakthrough appears at hand, though all the parties still seem to be clinging to their traditional positions.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2010

Foreigner suffrage opponents rally

Conservative intellectuals and key executives from five political parties were among the thousands who gathered in Tokyo on Saturday to rally against granting foreign residents voting rights for local elections.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 28, 2010

Death of Yeats end of Irish literary revival, says Pound, Noh enthusiast

June 5, 1939
COMMENTARY
Mar 17, 2010

China's diplomacy suffering an identity crisis

Chinese diplomacy generally comes in all sizes and shapes, but until relatively recently the size was small and the shape a question mark.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 2, 2010

Attorney glut may hit foreign firms

COLIN P. A. JONES One of the interesting things about being part of Japan's new law school system and its role in greatly increasing the number of Japanese attorneys is this: Nobody seems to have bothered asking the Japanese people if they actually need more attorneys. The original target of increasing...
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2009

Quick work, lacks vision to end debt woes

Analysts had mixed opinions for the 2010 annual budget plan the Cabinet approved Friday, saying the Democratic Party of Japan-led government worked quick but failed to show how it will alleviate the nations' mounting debts.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2009

The challenge of Seoul's G20 chairmanship

BERKELEY, Calif. — On Jan. 1, South Korea takes over the Group of 20 chairmanship from the United Kingdom. Korea is not the first emerging market to chair the G20, but it is the first to do so since the global financial crisis. And it is the first to do so since the G20 emerged as the steering committee...
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2009

Understandings with Pyongyang

The Dec. 8-10 visit to Pyongyang by the U.S. special representative for North Korean policy, Stephen Bosworth, did not produce a concrete result on the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The United States and North Korea reached "common understandings" on the need to resume the stalled six-party...
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2009

Cabinet sets budget policy, including ¥44 trillion bond cap

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama adopted on Tuesday a basic policy on compiling the fiscal 2010 budget, including a ¥44 trillion limit on issuing new bonds.
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2009

Breaking the Pyongyang pattern

U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak reaffirmed in Seoul on Thursday that they will seek a "definite and comprehensive resolution" to the North Korean nuclear issue. Mr. Obama urged the North to return to the six-party nuclear talks, adding that he will send special representative...
EDITORIALS
Nov 18, 2009

APEC goes through the motions

The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is roundly dismissed — like so many other top-level multilateral meetings — as a glorified photo-op. But there was more hope than usual that this year's meeting would break the pattern and even produce concrete results. The positive role...
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2009

Obama, Dalai Lama figure in Indo-China rift

CHENNAI, India — New Delhi recently allowed Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, to visit the Buddhist monastery town of Tawang in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. This region, which lies on the Indo-Tibetan border, has long been claimed by China as its own — or at least parts...
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Oct 22, 2009

Rich harvest of autumn anime

From fantasy adventures to high-school romance, this autumn's crop of anime has it all.
COMMUNITY
Oct 20, 2009

Foreign parents face travel curbs?

I think it is safe to say that the countdown has begun — the countdown to it becoming more difficult for you to leave Japan with your children. Difficult, that is, if you are non-Japanese and traveling without their other parent (or his or her written consent).

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