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COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2012

Possession underscores nuclear contradictions

Can the differing world reactions to India's missile test and North Korea's attempted "satellite launch" be explained by the familiar saying that success has a thousand fathers while failure is an orphan? The more likely explanation is that the two tests are forcing the international community to confront...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Apr 29, 2012

Foxtrotting around Asukayama

Rising amid flat farmland, Asukayama had long been an untended haunt of foxes and their small prey when, in 1720, Yoshimune Tokugawa, the eighth shogun to rule in Edo (present-day Tokyo), had the hilly upland planted with 1,200 cherry trees, 100 maples and 100 pines, to create a public park for flower-viewing....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 28, 2012

Springtime comes — and goes — on the Love-Love Island

Spring has sprung on Shiraishi Island. The cherry blossoms have bloomed and gone, their fallen pink petals pushed back into the good earth by passersby. We have attended the Kobo Daishi Spring Festival at the temple to be purified. The fishermen have changed from going out in their boats in the warmth...
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2012

Increasing condemnation of the Cuba embargo

At the recent Summit of the Americas, Latin American governments roundly condemned the U.S. embargo on Cuba. — only days after Pope Benedict XVI had added his voice against the embargo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 27, 2012

'Thermae Romae'

Reading manga can teach you a lot, be the subject wine ("Kami no Shizuku [Drops of God]"), gourmet food ("Oishinbo") or the arcane world of feudal-era concubines ("Sakuran"). But the Japanese bath? Isn't that a subject Japanese are immersed in almost from Day One? Why would they need to read about it...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2012

How much should one's birth gender matter?

Jenna Talackova reached the finals of Miss Universe Canada last month, before being disqualified because she was not a "natural born" female. The tall, beautiful blonde told the media that she had considered herself a female since she was four years old, had begun hormone treatment at 14, and had sex...
Reader Mail
Apr 15, 2012

Pondering a flawed creation

It is very nice of Dipak Basu, in his April 12 letter "A respectable view of 'heaven," to tell us benighted Westerners "raised through Judaistic principles" what we believe, but he is so far out of touch that he might as well be on another planet.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2012

Asian rivals elbow Japan aside in Washington

In the year of a U.S. presidential election, Japan is increasingly being overshadowed by its Asian neighbors in Washington just as the capital is increasingly functioning as a forum on global issues, according to a leading American expert.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 8, 2012

Lack of strong ties spurs business of dying alone

New businesses arising to meet new needs tell us much about the times we live in. A cleaning company named Green Heart, for example, thrives on a peculiar expertise. Its website explains: "Sadly, it often happens that unclaimed bodies go long unnoticed. In summer after two days, in winter after four...
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2012

Myanmar marching forward

The news from Myanmar continues to be positive. Parliamentary by-elections went ahead as scheduled, and despite some claims of vote irregularities, the results appear to be in line with most expectations. At the same time, the government is proceeding with economic reforms that could have even more widespread...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2012

Startups test global waters in contest

In a test of Japanese startups' global competitiveness, a dozen firms took part Friday in a contest to pitch their ideas — in English — to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs.
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2012

India and the Iran sanctions

Writing in The Diplomat on Feb. 20, R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state in the Bush administration, lamented the fact that India was going to continue to purchase oil from Iran.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012

Japan's 'spiritual recrudescence'

SOLDIER OF GOD: MacArthur's Attempt to Christianize Japan, by Ray A. Moore. Merwin Asia, 2011, 167 pp., $35.00 (paperback) India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, the largest the world has ever known, was won mainly by attrition, though some of the later additions to it, like Burma, were...
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2012

10th anniversary of the ICC

Winston Churchill said, "History is written by the victors," but justice may be decided that way, too. In the 10 years since its inception, the International Criminal Court has found detractors who claim the court is biased. Supporters of the court argue that a permanent international criminal court...
JAPAN
Mar 31, 2012

3/11 cast a spotlight on the importance of international cooperation: Sadako Ogata

The March 2011 disasters have increased Japanese awareness of international cooperation, says Sadako Ogata, and the departing president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency hopes this will lead the government to play a larger role in assisting developing nations.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2012

Japanese-Americans continue to grapple with mixed legacy

For a long, quiet moment, a white-haired gentleman stood and gazed at the words engraved in a low granite wall. Few passersby noticed the memorial, tucked on a tiny patch of federal parkland near Union Station in Washington. But every time Grant Ichikawa returns to the spot and stands before the statue...
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2012

Bizarre logic of America's 'freedom' campaign

The Afghans are a proud people with a long and formidable history of resistance to foreign occupation. The fact that they have always prevailed should not distract from the horror they still routinely experience.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 25, 2012

Right and justice shine through the infernal prism of wartime Poland

One of my most treasured possessions is an old photograph. Taken in 1910, in Krakow, Poland, it shows five generations of my ancestors on my mother's side, beginning with my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Pinkus Krengel, who was born in 1818.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 23, 2012

Unlocking the secrets of the Inca civilization

The pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas are very much in the public's mind this year due to the so-called Mayan Prophecy that suggests the world will end on Dec. 21. Perhaps any fear-mongering will have the positive effect of sparking increased interest in the region. Luckily, media company TBS...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 23, 2012

Unlocking the secrets of the Inca civilization

The pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas are very much in the public's mind this year due to the so-called Mayan Prophecy that suggests the world will end on Dec. 21. Perhaps any fear-mongering will have the positive effect of sparking increased interest in the region. Luckily, media company TBS...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012

Local diversions during the Okinawa fest

A fun-filled week is upon Okinawa as the fourth annual Okinawa International Movie Festival descends on the prefecture's main island. Like last year, the festival's concept is centered around "Laugh & Peace," in celebration of the sense of courage and joy for life that comedy and film can instill....
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2012

Nearing the end of tyranny?

President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Bashar Assad in Syria and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are detested by many of their fellow countrymen who would like to see them overthrown and tried for human rights abuses. They depend on a close coterie of guards and aides who have to be kept happy....

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