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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2016

Appointments will determine Trump's legacy

If President-Elect Donald Trump wants to transform policy, especially involving international affairs, he must not appoint those determined to uphold today's interventionist status quo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Nov 20, 2016

We Americans are 'baka' but we ain't that baka ... ?

After the euphoria of Barack Obama's tenure, it's back to politics as usual — but at least Donald Trump's open about his racism.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 19, 2016

Will Trump join forces with Abe or push him toward Putin?

What do intellectuals know?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 19, 2016

Manipulating the brain to hasten learning

For some athletes, success has come from a dedication to practice and the repetition of a particular routine. Baseball icon Ichiro Suzuki or English soccer star David Beckham are two examples that immediately spring to mind.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 19, 2016

Little evidence for risks, or benefits, of habitual barefootedness

Studies on the long-term effects of habitual barefoot walking or running are scarce, and there is only limited evidence for more foot problems and no evidence for higher injury rates among people who are often barefoot, according to a new review.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 19, 2016

The shifting sexual norms in Japan's literary history

More than 3,000 women and almost 900 men — that's the number of lovers the main protagonist in Ihara Saikaku's 1682 novel "Koshoku Ichidai Otoko" ("The Life of an Amorous Man") tallies up as he reminisces. Saikaku, born in Osaka in 1642, became a renowned poet who wrote about the fluid, open sexuality...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Nov 19, 2016

'Legless in Ginza': A Tokyo travelogue that avoids tired cliches

Invited for a two-year stint at the University of Tokyo, professor Robin Gerster set about "orientating" himself in Japan by exploring the possibilities of adapting the country to his own needs.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2016

The suffragette Clinton should have followed

One of the reasons Hillary Clinton may have lost is that she was too much like Susan B. Anthony and not enough like Anthony's more daring mentor and partner, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2016

How Trump's win boosts the Putin myth

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, both pursuing their ultimate ends of personal power and enrichment at the expense of the ordinary people, are natural allies.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2016

Russia joins U.S. in denying international law

The U.S. has never accepted the International Criminal Court's jurisdiction, and Russia has now adopted the same stance.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2016

Japan's top buzzword candidates for 2016 range from Pikotaro to 'the Trump phenomenon'

The 30 nominees for Japan's top buzzwords of 2016 were announced Thursday by the Jiyukokuminsha publishing house, covering a variety of new popular terms ranging from the "Shin Godzilla" film to the "Zika fever."
Japan Times
WORLD
Nov 17, 2016

Nixon's Pentagon chief Melvin Laird, 'Vietnamization' advocate, dies at 94

Melvin Laird, who as defense secretary under President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973 helped extricate U.S. forces from the morass of the Vietnam War in a policy he dubbed "Vietnamization," has died at age 94.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 16, 2016

What Abe should tell Trump

Abe must convince Trump that the U.S. global role is not some expensive alimony but an investment that generates a higher rate of return than any building in New York City.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 16, 2016

'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' delivers giddy escapism

When the Harry Potter saga reached the end of its eight-movie run in 2011, only a Muggle would have predicted that we'd heard the last from J.K. Rowling's world of wizardry. Never mind the obsessive fandom that the novels and films inspired, they were also seriously big business. As cinematic franchises...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2016

No, everything won't be alright

With his Cabinet and closest advisers coming from the paranoid far right, there's no chance of 'President Trump' ending well.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 15, 2016

U.S. and Asia: delicate balance, perilous pivot

What can East Asia expect from the Trump presidency?
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 14, 2016

Preparing Asia for an America led by Trump

As the Trump era begins, Australian and other regional policymakers should adhere to a simple mantra: More self-reliance. More Asia. Less U.S.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 12, 2016

South Sudan and Japan: a tale of love and civil war

If you can call South Sudan "stable," you can call anything stable. You can call anything anything.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2016

Rise of the anti-Trump Left

The election of Donald Trump sets the stage for a civil war within the Democratic Party in which its liberal progressive wing is likely to emerge victorious.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 11, 2016

America's silent majority demands change

The incoming U.S. president cannot afford to disregard the strategic interest that the U.S. enjoys under the its security arrangement with Japan.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2016

Donald Trump and a world full of distrust

The West's political systems will remain on life support until their entrenched elites feel sufficiently vulnerable to stop ignoring the needs of those who have been left behind.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Nov 9, 2016

Trump defied traditional politics in path to White House

Supercharging the bluster, hyperbole and media mastery that made him one of the world's best-known businessmen, Donald Trump upended U.S. democratic traditions during his 17-month quest that eventually led to the White House.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Nov 9, 2016

So-called egalitarian Japan is still honor-bound

Abolished and later resurrected system of awards may shape as well as reflect trends in society.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2016

Why al-Qaida is now more dangerous than IS

Policymakers and terrorism scholars are debating whether al-Qaida or Islamic State is the more dangerous threat to the United States and the West. After the various bombings and attacks across the West, many experts insist Islamic State is the more serious problem. That is a mistake. Al-Qaida presents...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2016

Erdogan derailing Turkey's promising future

"In Turkey, we are progressively putting behind bars all people who take the liberty of voicing even the slightest criticism of the government," wrote author Orhan Pamuk, Turkey's first Nobel Prize winner. "Freedom of thought no longer exists. We are distancing ourselves at high speed from a state of...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Nov 8, 2016

Looking back at Magic Johnson's stunning HIV announcement 25 years later

Sports is fun, and sports is games. But it can often be so much more than just fun and games, the toy store of the real world. Sometimes it can be the leader of society, and not just its weather vane, not the remnant Of the public's conventional wisdom but the leader in societal change for the better....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2016

Consensus rule blunts ASEAN's effectiveness

Although the requirement that all decisions be made by consensus enables disparate member states to unite while protecting their national interests, it also limits ASEAN's effectiveness in dealing with emerging security threats.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 5, 2016

The unbearable burden of 24/7 work

There was no nonsense about the 1990s in Japan. The economy had crashed, the bubble had burst. "The age of human relationships is over," declared a corporate executive to Aera magazine in 1996, defending the cost-cutting layoffs then gathering speed. "This is the era of the discount store. The only sales...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 5, 2016

Modi and Abe are at the nuclear altar again

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Japan for a summit with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Nov. 11 and 12, and it is expected they will finally seal the deal on an elusive civil nuclear cooperation accord. When Abe visited India last year there was widespread speculation that the agreement would...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 5, 2016

Defining J-horror: Early encounters with the unhuman

The scene: It's night; someone is alone in a dimly lit room. There's an eerie stillness, a creeping anxiety. Then, behind them, you notice a strange shape: a hunched-over figure, lurking in a corner. It is standing deathly still. The head is obscured by what looks like tendrils of jet-black hair. A chill...

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake