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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2010

White House magic at halftime

NEW YORK — In September 2008, the global economy and financial system was hit by an earthquake, whose epicenter was in the United States. It was the end of the Bush administration. The presidential election was two months away. The timing, from the point of view of crisis management, could not have...
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2010

Still a closed country?

At the end of September a first group of 18 refugees from Myanmar arrived in Japan as part of a commendable government initiative to take in roughly 90 such immigrants over the next three years. These members of the Karen ethnic group have been living for many years in a refugee camp in Thailand after...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 24, 2010

Saving biological diversity: a challenge for survival

Eight years ago in Johannesburg, government delegates from around the world gathered for the World Summit on Sustainable Development — and made a promise "to substantially reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2010

Poverty still pervades booming South Asia

WASHINGTON — South Asia presents a depressing paradox. It is among the fastest growing regions in the world, but it is also home to the largest concentration of people living in debilitating poverty, conflict and human misery. While South Asia is far more developed than Sub-Saharan Africa, and India...
JAPAN
Oct 22, 2010

Salarymen feeling pressure of elderly care

For Itsuo Kandatsu, cooking three meals a day is a task he performs for his wheelchair-using mother and disabled brother. But the 49-year-old Tokyo resident isn't a house husband.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Oct 22, 2010

Hill, Apache ready for season to tip off

The Tokyo Apache and the Niigata Albirex BB begin the 2010-11 bj-league season a week later than the other 14 teams. And so they've both had extra time to make preparations for their first game.
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2010

Japan's poverty problem

Poverty in Japan is deepening. The welfare ministry announced last month that as of June, 1,907,176 people in 1,377,930 households were on welfare, receiving livelihood assistance (seikatsu hogo). This is the first time that the number of people on welfare has topped 1.9 million since fiscal 1955, when...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2010

The return of Musharraf

LAHORE, Pakistan — Pakistan's former president, Pervez Musharraf, has decided to return to Pakistani politics, if not quite to Pakistan. He announced his decision at London's National Liberal Club, an institution founded in the 19th century by William Gladstone and other stalwarts of Britain's parliamentary...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 18, 2010

Lawyers' livelihoods to get needier

Six years ago, the LDP raised the bar of number for the number of practicing lawyers in Japan but is passing the bar still that attractive?
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2010

Measure of a healthy planet

Since their appearance on Earth, humans have developed by using plants and animals for food, clothing, residences, medicines and other purposes. Ecosystems are the basis of human existence. This basic fact does not change no matter how much industrial civilizations may progress. An important measure...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2010

The wonders and virtues of green tea

This diminutive book is packed as tightly as an obento box with an array of mini-essays.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 17, 2010

New Russia's political maneuvering harkens back to the U.S.S.R.

If I had to choose the event in my adult lifetime with the greatest historical import it would be, hands down, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In 2005, then president of Russia Vladimir Putin was not exaggerating when he called it "the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century."
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2010

Biodiversity declined 60% in tropics, WWF report says ahead of COP10

Wildlife populations, especially in the tropics, have declined drastically in the past four decades and the trend was especially marked in low-income countries, according to a report released Wednesday by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 14, 2010

Labour's left foot forward?

New party leaders never want for advice. Since his election as leader of the British Labour Party last month, everyone has words of wisdom for Ed Miliband. This frenzied fight to mold the Miliband message is hardly surprising; a series of poor policy and presentational decisions when Labour last lost...
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2010

More light on the next leader

North Korea is increasing the public exposure of Mr. Kim Jong Un, the third and youngest son of the country's leader Kim Jong Il and his heir apparent, through the mass media. The process represents North Korea's efforts to consolidate Mr. Kim Jong Un's political standing and legitimacy.
JAPAN
Oct 13, 2010

Nagoya gathering debates biosafety rules

NAGOYA — A five-day international meeting on biosafety is taking place in Nagoya, with the aim to reach an agreement on a new set of rules to assign responsibility and help determine compensation when an ecosystem is damaged by the introduction of legally modified organisms.
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2010

Sharper prod to quit smoking

The tobacco tax was raised by ¥3.5 per cigarette on Oct. 1, raising the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes by ¥110-¥140 to ¥410-¥440. This record tobacco price hike means ¥40,000 more spending a year for a person who smokes one pack a day. But this offers a good chance to quit smoking for smokers...

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