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Reader Mail
Dec 22, 2016

Putin's hand in Trump's election

It now seems certain according to the world's most prestigious intelligence agency that one Russian single-handedly hoodwinked the entire population of the United States of America by manipulating its presidential election in Donald Trump's favor.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Dec 21, 2016

U.N.'s Ban offers strongest hint yet of run at South Korean presidency

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon gave his strongest signal yet on Tuesday that he will seek the South Korean presidency next year as a corruption scandal that reached the highest level of government continues to roil the country.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Dec 21, 2016

Quotes of 2016, from 'Die, Japan' to 'Trump shock'

Some of the good, bad and ugly of what various people said or shouted out loud in 2016.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Dec 21, 2016

Tokyo's international community needs a voice — and places to call its own

Let's pull together as a community and return to our once-confident roots.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2016

Romance dance routine featuring Santa-clad Ambassador Kennedy an instant online hit

U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and other embassy staff across Japan made a splash on social media Tuesday by releasing a Christmassy, U.S. Embassy version of a koi (falling in love) dance routine aired in a popular Japanese TV drama series.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies / FOCUS
Dec 21, 2016

Honda keeps twin SUVs coming as China rewards 'badge engineering'

In China's auto market, carmakers are employing a strategy that's long been eschewed by the rest of the world: If a new model is helping you win, introduce a twin.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 21, 2016

Japan experiencing budding startup wave as fundraising environment improves

A wave of startups is emerging in famously risk-averse Japan as cash-rich corporations increasingly delegate the task of keeping pace with technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics to smaller, nimbler businesses.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2016

Fukushima's ¥8 trillion cleanup leaves foreign firms in the cold

Cleaning up the Fukushima nuclear plant — a task predicted to cost 86 times the amount earmarked for decommissioning Japan's first commercial reactor — is the mother of all salvage jobs. Still, foreign firms with decades of experience are seeing little of the spoils.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Dec 20, 2016

Fighters superstar Otani receives top prize at Japan Professional Sports Awards extravaganza

Baseball sensation Shohei Otani, one of the brightest stars of the nation’s sporting scene in 2016, was the recipient of the grand prize at the annual Japan Professional Sports Awards at a Tokyo hotel on Tuesday.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Dec 19, 2016

Free-agent compensation choices usually risky bets

The Orix Buffaloes will hope taking right-handed pitcher Kazuyuki Kaneda from the Hanshin Tigers as compensation for the Tigers signing former Buffalos outfielder Yoshio Itoi in free agency ends up being a productive outcome for the loss of such a talented player, but history isn't really on their side....
Japan Times
JAPAN / JAPANESE IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Dec 19, 2016

New program creates career path to international organizations

Takahiro Shinyo, vice president at Kwansei Gakuin University in Hyogo Prefecture, experienced an act of unexpected kindness in Germany when he was serving as Japan's ambassador to the country in 2011. It was a food charity event, organized by his fellow ambassadors of Southeast Asian countries to Germany,...
JAPAN / JAPANESE IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
Dec 19, 2016

Comments from workers of international organizations

According to statistics of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, more than 800 Japanese are working for international organizations. Such professionals include those doing clerical work at the organizations’ Japanese units, appointed to lead an organization by using expertise gained through their careers...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 19, 2016

Japanese buzzwords capture the zeitgeist of then, now and what's to come

Take a journey through the buzzwords of years past and present — and hazard a guess at what's coming in 2017.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 19, 2016

Yahoo seen cutting cost corners with security tech discredited long before massive hack

In the summer of 2013, Yahoo Inc. launched a project to better secure the passwords of its customers, abandoning the use of a discredited technology for encrypting data known as MD5.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 18, 2016

Japan's pop music scene saw a power struggle in 2016

Media, both domestic and overseas, spent a lot of time focused on the streaming services arriving in Japan in 2016. Months of "Can these platforms thrive in CD-loving Japan?" speculation reached a climax in September, when global market leader Spotify finally debuted here. There was a big press conference,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2016

Four years of Abe in power

Four years on, Abe's grip on power seems as strong as ever. The question remains how and where he will use his ample political resources.
BUSINESS
Dec 18, 2016

U.K., looking beyond Europe, to hold regular trade talks with South Korea

The U.K. and South Korea are set to begin regular trade talks, with luxury brands a particularly promising topic, as Britain prepares to expand its commercial reach once it has left the European Union.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 17, 2016

Western culture and the end of Japanese 'harmony'

Japan grew up with wa (harmony). Conflict and competition are the creative engines of Western civilization; Japan traveled a different route to the tumultuous present.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 17, 2016

The politics of protest in Asian democracies

Across Asia we are witnessing political turmoil and vigorous political contestation. South Korea's "candlelight revolution," involving millions of citizens demonstrating for several weeks in Seoul, instigated the landslide vote to impeach President Park Geun-hye by the National Assembly on Dec. 9. In...
COMMUNITY / Voices / OVERHEARD
Dec 17, 2016

Youth must be served

'Come along everyone, let's go back to class now.'
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 17, 2016

Beijing throws down the gauntlet, seizes U.S. undersea drone in South China Sea

China's navy has seized a U.S. underwater survey drone in international waters in the South China Sea, prompting a formal diplomatic protest and a demand for its return Friday, in a confrontation likely to exacerbate already rising tensions.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Dec 17, 2016

Trump builds team of bosses and big egos to shake up Washington

With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump's Cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Dec 16, 2016

FBI monitored Muhammad Ali in 1966, documents reveal

The FBI kept tabs on the late boxer Muhammad Ali in 1966, including his divorce and his speech at a Miami mosque, in its investigation of the religious group Nation of Islam, according to documents released by the agency.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Dec 16, 2016

Abe-Putin summit ends with economic deals but no isle steps

Visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed Friday to start talks on potential "joint economic activities" they could launch on the four disputed Russia-held islands off Hokkaido, saying it could be an important first step toward resolving their decades-long territorial...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2016

CIA should come clean about Russian 'hacking'

If the CIA has indisputable evidence that Russia threw the U.S. election, it should put up or shut up.
Reader Mail
Dec 16, 2016

Japan's media can do better on gender equality

The University of Tokyo decided to offer housing subsidies of ¥30,000 per month for each female student admitted to the university. By this new arrangement, the university hopes to increase the overall rate of female students, who currently account for less than 20 percent of the total.
Reader Mail
Dec 16, 2016

Toyosu culprits deserve prison

Regarding "Polluted water in Toyosu food market facility basements to be pumped out" (Dec. 11), what's really troubling about this whole scandal is the fact that if Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike hadn't blown the whistle on "Toyosu gate" those trying to cover up the toxic pollution would have gone ahead and...

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers