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Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 29, 2017

Spare a thought for the secretaries

Few recent scandals have been as entertaining as Lower House lawmaker Mayuko Toyota's verbal and physical attack on her secretary as revealed in a recording leaked to the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho. With the recording coming to light in the week before the Tokyo assembly elections, Toyota decided...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2017

Renho exit not enough for DP to defuse crisis

With Renho on the way out, the Democratic Party has to reassess and redefine its basic direction. Otherwise, its very survival may be in doubt.
Reader Mail
Jul 28, 2017

Japan, Taiwan and Okinotorishima

I applaud The Japan Times' courage in publishing Mark Valencia's opinion piece "Hypocrisy in the South China Sea" in the July 22 edition. Indeed, I dare venture such hypocrisy and thereby lack of moral high ground is why no one has felt able to push for the enforcement of The Hague ruling.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 28, 2017

Sources say Russia used Facebook accounts in attempt to spy on Macron campaign

Russian intelligence agents attempted to spy on Emmanuel Macron's election campaign earlier this year by creating phony Facebook personas, according to a U.S. congressman and two other people briefed on the effort.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2017

Takatoshi Ito, who sold Kuroda on inflation targets, now contender for top job

During countless shared lunches and impromptu meetings, Takatoshi Ito made a detailed and persuasive case that sold Haruhiko Kuroda on the inflation targeting regime he's pursued relentlessly as governor of the central bank. That was back in 1999, when Kuroda ran Japan's currency policy at the Finance...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 25, 2017

Former defense chief Ishiba overtakes Abe as top choice for prime minister in poll

Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba overtook scandal-hit Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as the best person to lead Japan, an opinion poll showed Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 25, 2017

Abe is stumbling but no challenger exists

Voters are ready for a viable alternative to the LDP, but the leading opposition party is failing to deliver.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2017

Putin's no good, but where's the alternative?

No Russian political leader is offering a vision ambitious and inspiring enough to compete with Putin. Perhaps that's why he finds it so easy to suppress dissent and hold on to power.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2017

Public questions Japan's duck and cover drills

On July 7, during a public assembly in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, Shunichi Tanaka, head of Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority, was asked how his organization would respond to a North Korean missile attack. Tanaka replied that it would make more sense for North Korea to hit Tokyo with a missile than...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 21, 2017

Inada resists calls to resign over alleged SDF activity log cover-up

Defense chief Tomomi Inada denies participating in the alleged GSDF log coverup, clinging to her position ahead of a Cabinet reshuffle in which she is widely expected to exit.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2017

Trump's climate decision won't matter

U.S. President Donald Trump probably pulled America out of the Paris climate accord to bolster his sagging popularity ratings, but the rest of the world may benefit as well.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jul 19, 2017

To find the joys of 'real Japan,' get on your bike

Japanese society and culture seem intrinsically suited to bicycles, which require a degree of safety of environment and intimacy that are alien to many thunderously car-based, brash and crime-ridden Western societies.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2017

Trust is falling in Western democratic institutions

One clue to understanding the loss of trust in the professional integrity of the Western media is their unrelenting efforts to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 16, 2017

Australia urges China to release dissident Liu Xiaobo's widow

Australia on Sunday called for China to lift curbs on the widow of Nobel Peace Prize-winning dissident Liu Xiaobo, who died of liver cancer in custody last week.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 15, 2017

Japan should abandon nuclear umbrella

Japan should propose a nuclear weapons-free zone for Northeast Asia.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2017

Islamic State remains dangerous in defeat

Islamic State soon won't have a physical presence on war-zone maps — but it will live on in other forms.
EDITORIALS
Jul 13, 2017

The Democratic Party's woes continue

The Democratic Party remains unable to turn popular criticism of the Abe administration into support for the opposition.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 12, 2017

China sends military personnel to Djibouti to man its first overseas base

Ships carrying Chinese military personnel for Beijing's first overseas military base, in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, have left China to begin setting up the facility as China's rapidly modernizing military hones its global reach.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2017

Are the state planners back again?

Demands for new types of leadership and a return to strong government intervention and protection can be heard all round.
Japan Times
SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jul 11, 2017

Incoming QBs unlikely to measure up to Prescott initially

File it under "Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while," if you must.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 10, 2017

Japan on the wrong side of nuclear weapons ban treaty

The Japanese government's stance on the U.N. nuclear ban treaty is a deeply flawed misreading of international sentiment and a deep betrayal of Japan's own history, legacy and people.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 10, 2017

Maekawa details Kake scandal allegations in special Diet hearing

A former top education ministry bureaucrat says again that top officials in the government must have manipulated key decision-making processes to help out a school run by a close confidant of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 10, 2017

Weakened May appeals to opponents to help deliver Brexit success

U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May will call on opposition lawmakers to help steer Britain out of the European Union as she seeks to reset after her standing was diminished by last month's disastrous general election.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2017

Tokyo poll offers Abe an opportunity to take a long, hard look in the mirror

We have witnessed Abe's peak and he is now a diminished leader, with the aura of invincibility he projected since December 2012 now gone.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 7, 2017

Cultural construction boom aims to offset Hong Kong's business-like image

The theater stage is bathed in a luscious lavender hue, a color that in Chinese tradition signifies nobility and mystery — and portends things to come. A young couple, pure of heart, fall in love only to see their romance thwarted by the machinations of a corrupt bureaucrat. They declare their devotion...

Longform

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