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Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jan 8, 2014

Honda's moment arrives after long wait to join AC Milan

Keisuke Honda has waited a long time to get his shot with one of Europe's biggest clubs, but his patience should stand him in good stead as he begins life with Italian giants AC Milan this week.
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Jan 3, 2014

Suzuki, Murakami exemplify power, passion that make skating magnetic

It has been almost two weeks now, but the emotions aroused by the recent Japan national championships in Saitama remain vivid.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jan 2, 2014

Abe's diplomatic overtures are likely to fall on deaf ears

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe saw relatively smooth diplomatic sailing in 2013, but he flushed his year-long effort down the drain with his surprising visit to Yasukuni Shrine.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 2, 2014

The conspicuous tendency to wish China well

If China fails and falls, the rest of the world will suffer more than a headache or a short-term setback. We need to be cautious about pessimism that might fuel self-fulfilling prophecy.
Japan Times
SPORTS
Jan 1, 2014

The most viewed sports stories of 2013

The sports story most read online in the year in which Japan won the bid for the 2020 Olympics should come as no surprise. Baseball fans had plenty to celebrate, and figure-skating followers had no shortage of drama. Let's hope to see some Sochi gold medals in this round-up next year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Dec 29, 2013

Education in 2013: an 'A' for ambition, but Japan will have to do better

Will 2014 be the year we start to see a genuinely forward-thinking, globalized outlook for education in Japan? The rapidly changing global economy, regional tensions and shrinking population suggest huge challenges await the country's youth on their emergence into the job market in the coming years.
Japan Times
BASEBALL
Dec 28, 2013

The Batting Stance Guy waxes poetic on Youkilis, NPB

Kevin Youkilis' batting stance is, shall we say, a little different than most.
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2013

Another backward step by Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit Thursday to Yasukuni Shrine, Japan's war shrine, is a thoughtless act that could lead Japan into isolation in the international community. It also revealed his shallow understanding of the immense destruction that Japan's wars in the 1930s and 1940s brought about and...
COMMENTARY
Dec 27, 2013

America's one-sided application of diplomatic law

The entire Indian foreign service bureaucracy has been antagonized by the arrest and search of a colleague in New York. As U.S. relative power wanes, is diplomatic trust worth breaking with a growing number of friends and allies?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Dec 25, 2013

Tokyo, the city that's not as crazy as everyone thinks

As a Japanese friend of mine who has lived all over Japan once said, 'People from the Kansai area are like Latin people, but in Tokyo they're more like Germans.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2013

Top billings of 2013

Although all Japan's 50 reactors have been shut down since September, cleaning up in the wake of the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is making very slow progress and tens of thousands of people still live in temporary accommodation or are internally displaced. In addition,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 25, 2013

Kumakawa blends ballet and business — with panache

Being good at business may be "the most fascinating art," as Andy Warhol said — and few likely know that better than Tetsuya Kumakawa, dancer extraordinaire turned extraordinary businessman.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 24, 2013

Nelson Mandela: peace at last

The Catholic Church consecrates saints with less pomp than was lavished on former South African leader Nelson Mandela during a week-long media orgy. Mandela was no saint; he was just the right man at the right time.
BUSINESS
Dec 24, 2013

AK-47 inventor Kalashnikov dead at 94

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the former Red Army sergeant behind one of the world's most omnipresent weapons — the AK-47 and its variants and copies, used by national armies, terrorists, drug gangs, bank robbers, revolutionaries and jihadists — died Dec. 23 at a hospital in Izhevsk, Russia. He was 94.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013

Help Ukrainians stand up for Western values

Make no mistake, Ukraine's so-called oligarchs still support President Viktor Yanukovych, and they will be prime beneficiaries of the $15 billion in bailout loans and lower natural gas prices that he secured from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013

'Frenemies' in the Mideast

The recent interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the so-called P5-plus-1 countries, led by the U.S., has provoked unprecedented criticism of U.S. policy from two of its strongest Mideast allies: Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Figure Skating
Dec 23, 2013

Suzuki outperforms Mao, grabs first national title

In a night filled with great drama, the script did not go quite according to plan.
Figure Skating
Dec 21, 2013

Hanyu delivers fantastic performance in men's short program

Yuzuru Hanyu shattered his own world best with a score of 103.10 in a spectacular short program at the Japan nationals on Saturday night and firmly established himself as the favorite for the gold medal at the Sochi Olympics in the process.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 21, 2013

Bob Woodward and Noam Chomsky discuss current U.S. administration; women's relay race near Fuji; CM of the week: Pizza-La

This week, NHK's "Asian Voices" series (BS-1, Mon., 1 p.m.) will present a special discussion of whether or not the United States' reputation as the world's defender of freedom and justice has been compromised by recent revelations of widespread government surveillance of citizens and the use of drones...
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 15, 2013

Anti-apartheid movement recalls struggle

Key figures in the British anti-apartheid movement have spoken of their sadness at the death of Nelson Mandela, whom they described as a reluctant poster boy of a campaign that ended up focusing the world's attention on the horrors of apartheid South Africa.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2013

Young, dead and dealing with the consequences

A veteran director of feature episodes in the classic "Ultraman" tokusatsu (special effects) series, Kazuya Konaka may not be the most obvious choice for a drama about teen suicide, but a look at his filmography, including 1998's "Nazo no Tenkosei (The Dimension Travelers)" and 2008's "Tokyo Shojo...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 11, 2013

The noisy posters of the silent 1920s

When the Communists seized control of Russia in late 1917, they found themselves in a difficult position. According to Marxist theory, the revolution should have happened hundreds of miles further west in one of the more industrialized countries, such as Britain or Germany, with a working class that...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2013

No nation in Asia is an 'island'

I read Takeru Toki's Dec. 5 letter, "Leaders provoking antagonism," with deep interest, and again it made me think very seriously about Japan's relationship with China and South Korea.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 11, 2013

Skier Ito sustains knee injury

Miki Ito, one of Japan's prospects for the Sochi Olympics in freestyle skiing, suffered a right knee injury, the Ski Association of Japan announced on Wednesday.

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