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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2014

Make no mistake about Thailand's problem

The Thai military has not played the role of 'democratic defender' following its recent coup. Instead, its intervention shows its desperate move to maintain power ahead of the imminent royal succession.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2014

Prompt treatment can stop Ebola epidemic

Early diagnosis, prompt supportive treatments and modification of some burial practices can halt the largest-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 11, 2014

Defiant al-Maliki deploys special forces to key areas of Baghdad: police

Special forces loyal to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki were deployed in strategic areas of Baghdad on Sunday night after he delivered a tough speech indicating he would not cave in to pressure to drop a bid for a third term, police sources said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Aug 6, 2014

Think you've got rights as a foreigner in Japan? Well, it's complicated

If you imagine paying taxes in Japan entitles you to welfare, you may want to take a seat.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2014

Christian heritage of Japan

The government's announcement of its intention to make Christian sites in Nagasaki its official candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status in 2016 spotlights a side of Japanese history that many around the world have little awareness of.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 28, 2014

Massachusetts monks tap ancient brewing tradition to sustain aging members

Tucked off a two-lane highway in a hilly, wooded section of central Massachusetts, a group of Roman Catholic monks has embraced a centuries-old tradition they hope can sustain their aging members in a world of rapidly rising health costs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / Q&A
Jul 25, 2014

A closer look at the Supreme Court's welfare benefits ruling

Opinions are divided over how the Supreme Court ruling last week declaring permanent foreign residents of Japan ineligible for welfare payments will affect the foreign communities in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 25, 2014

Islamic State crushes, coerces opposition

Using its own version of soft and hard power, the Islamic State is crushing resistance across northern Iraq so successfully that its promise to march on Baghdad may no longer be unrealistic bravado.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 21, 2014

Chores, charges and chin-wags: the chōnaikai ties that bind

Perhaps fearing that the entire council could fall apart, some neighborhood associations resort to drastic measures to keep members active and in line. The culture clash is not foreigner vs. Japanese, but traditional vs. modern.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jul 20, 2014

NPO chief builds a barrier-free world for the disabled and disadvantaged

The founder of two nonprofit organizations in Japan working across Asia, Michiyo Yoshida has become an expert on international philanthropy, teaching courses on NPOs at universities in Sapporo and traveling all over the nation to counsel others.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2014

Speech rules turn college into no-thought zone

In the U.S., vague bans on 'offensive' language and other 'politically correct' measures that most people think of when they imagine college speech codes are increasingly being joined by quarantine policies that restrict all student speech, regardless of its content.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 16, 2014

Brazilian called world's oldest: 126

A Brazilian rest home for the elderly believes one resident may be the world's oldest person: a former agricultural laborer born in a community of runaway slaves 126 years ago, at a time when Brazil still had an emperor.
EDITORIALS
Jul 14, 2014

South Sudan self-destructing

The major importers of oil from South Sudan — including the U.S. and China — should help the youngest country on the African continent achieve a national reconciliation, to pre-empt a full-blown civil war.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 13, 2014

Belfast parade ends without clashes for first time in years

A flash-point Protestant parade in Northern Ireland's capital ended without violence for the first time in decades on Saturday when marchers agreed to turn around before passing a Catholic area of Belfast.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2014

Old silk town embraces farm reforms in test of revival scheme

Tomiyoshi Kurogoushi sighs as he looks over the terraced rice fields in the mountains of west Japan that were tended by generations of his family. Most are now covered in weeds and silver grass.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jul 9, 2014

Under Abe, Japan reconnects with the world of harm

It would be tragic if the process Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has set in motion destroys one of the truly great things about Japan: the fact that so little of its economy and society is devoted to harming other people.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jul 7, 2014

Letters: adoption from Japan, book bores, returnees, workers' rights and fleeing U.S. guns

Some letters in response to recent articles in the Community section about a wide range of subjects.
EDITORIALS
Jul 7, 2014

Not a solution for mental patients

The health and welfare ministry's plan to renovate some wards of mental hospitals into residences to reduce the official number of long-term in-patients will only prolong the 'former' patients' isolation from society.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 29, 2014

Cartoonist Ernst captured 'fish-out-of-water' gaijin as they floundered

Having often been told by the Japanese that he would 'never understand' their culture because he was not one of them, American cartoonist Tim Ernst decided to embrace this notion and deploy it creatively.
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Jun 27, 2014

Foreigners invited to Yukata Day in Nishinomiya

The Nishinomiya City International Association in Hyogo Prefecture will hold a Yukata Day from 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on July 5 in which foreigners can learn how to wear the summer kimono and enjoy a tea ceremony afterward.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 26, 2014

Broader foreign aid urged

Japan should expand its use of overseas development assistance by targeting new regions and projects and consider funding noncombat operations led by foreign military forces, a panel said Thursday in a report to Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Jun 22, 2014

All-consuming school clubs worry foreign parents

School club activities — something that most Japanese parents accept as a normal and desirable rite of passage in their child's development — can leave foreign parents quaking in their boots at what lies ahead.
Reader Mail
Jun 21, 2014

Everybody must take on bullying

Reading Walt Gardner's June 1 article, "Bullying weakens Japanese, U.S. schools," made me feel really sad — not only because bullying of students in Japan, no matter who they are, seems to be rife at the moment but also because it is a problem that just does not seem to go away.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2014

Americans should be worried about polarization

Americans should worry about a new Pew report on political polarization not because there's too much genuine ideological competition, but because our most energetic citizens appear to be dividing every more coherently into factions that can't stand each other.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jun 18, 2014

Still dreaming of a Japan with juries — and without U.S. bases

At 84, Chihiro Isa hopes to see two things in his lifetime: the jury system reinstated in Japan and U.S. forces gone from Okinawa.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 15, 2014

Oh, the places we'll go in 2020 — unless, of course, we won't

In 2020 the Tokyo Olympics will be here! And all our troubles will be gone. Unless, of course, they won't. Because, sometimes, they don't.
EDITORIALS
Jun 13, 2014

Iraq collapsing

Islamic militants have overrun northern Iraq, taking control of the country's second-largest city and sparking fears of the collapse of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat