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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2015

Ending the refugee shipwrecks

The most comprehensive solution for ending refugee casualties at sea would be to eliminate the causes of the illegal traffic or, failing that, to involve more countries in helping the refugees.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / LOCAL POLLS '15
Apr 20, 2015

Naturalized Kabukicho denizen hopes to teach China lesson in democracy

Komaki Lee gained fame as a pioneering 'Kabukicho guide' who showed foreign visitors the ins and outs of the capital's seedy nightlife entertainment district in Shinjuku Ward. Now he's going into politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Apr 19, 2015

Historically, Japan is no stranger to blacks, nor to blackface

I am a black Japanese half. I was bullied because of my skin color in elementary school, so I have a strong complex about my skin color. If Japanese truly adored blacks, it wouldn't bother me. But do Momokuro really adore blacks? I think if you asked them if they wished they had been born black, they...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2015

Israel's neglected Holocaust survivors deserve better

The Israeli government virtually ignores the nation's Holocaust survivors, a quarter of whom live in poverty.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2015

Publish 'Mein Kampf' and end World War II

The publication of 'Mein Kampf' in Germany as part of a scholarly project could be a good starting point to ending taboos and their populist use by politicians.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Apr 18, 2015

At last, Japan gets it

The Japanese entertainment industry is finally growing up, says Shin Unozawa, and he should know. Unozawa joined Bandai Entertainment back in 1981, and serves as chair of the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA), co-hosts of the Tokyo Game Show.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 16, 2015

Shizuoka blooms with culture at theater event

With sunlight dappling fresh green leaves, flowers in bloom and birds singing, spring and early summer is when Europeans leave their homes to enjoy the arts at great annual events such as Germany's Theatertreffen and France's Avignon Festival.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 15, 2015

Thomas Pynchon meets The Dude in 'Inherent Vice'

"Inherent vice," a term used in marine insurance law, means anything you can't avoid: chocolate will melt, glass will shatter and fruit will spoil. For "Inherent Vice" the movie, the thing that can't be avoided is a comparison to "The Big Lebowski."
WORLD
Apr 15, 2015

A quick walk to high ground could save thousands on West Coast if tsunami hit, study finds

Thousands of people living along the U.S. Pacific coastline from Northern California to Washington state could survive powerful tsunami, as long as they are prepared to walk briskly to higher ground, a researcher said on Tuesday.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 14, 2015

Kerr employing Jackson's philosophy with Warriors

Sometimes the basketball congnoscenti will mock the Phil Jackson coaching tree as a withered oak in winter, assistants like Jim Cleamons, Kurt Rambis and most recently Brian Shaw with short head coaching tenures.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2015

Have we seen the end of the U.S. tax revolt?

With only 1 percent of Americans rating taxes as the nation's top problem, it appears that the U.S. tax revolt is all but over.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2015

What good is an Arab armed alliance?

Will an Arab military alliance leave the Middle East better or worse off, particularly given today's growing Sunni-Shiite divide?
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 14, 2015

Boko Haram abducted at least 2,000 women and girls, report says

Boko Haram Islamic militants have kidnapped at least 2,000 girls and women since the start of last year, turning them into cooks, sex slaves and fighters, and sometimes killing those who refused to comply, Amnesty International said on Tuesday.
WORLD
Apr 14, 2015

U.S. presses for probe into row at U.N. over whistle-blowers who warned of computer shipments to North Korea

Whistle-blowers at the United Nations patent agency say their concerns that computer shipments to North Korea may have violated sanctions were stifled for years.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2015

Would U.S. pay too high a cost in TPP pact?

Only when the U.S. is prepared to ensure fair treatment for its own companies, should Washington offer free trade consideration to yet more budding competitors.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 13, 2015

Chinese hackers likely behind decade-long cyberattack on Southeast Asia, India: report

Hackers, most likely from China, have been spying on governments and businesses in Southeast Asia and India uninterrupted for a decade, researchers at Internet security firm FireEye Inc. said in a report released Monday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2015

America's political system is broken

The fact that U.S. presidential candidates must adjust their positions to conform to the banal, the uninspired, the illegal, with total disregard for the will or the greater good of the people, demonstrates that the American political system is broken.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2015

Robots leave behind Chinese factory workers

Chinese factory owners are increasingly turning to automation, leaving millions of low-skill workers with an uncomfortable sense of impending obsolescence.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2015

The reality of Mexico's climate change promise

Mexico has become the first developing nation to meet the United Nations' challenge to publish a road map for combating climate change.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 12, 2015

California learns from Australia on coping with long-term drought

Australian farms and cities manage almost every drop of available water to make the most of supplies on the driest inhabited continent. No wonder California is looking Down Under for help with its record drought.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 11, 2015

Takuboku Ishikawa: engaged observer

The society of Takuboku Ishikawa's era was in dramatic political flux, and its complex issues became his personal obsessions. After his death, Takuboku's preoccupations came to be seen as a symbol of the social and emotional upheavals of his times.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 11, 2015

Abe gets negative reviews ahead of U.S. visit

At the end of this month Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Washington, D.C. He can expect the red carpet treatment because he has ticked more boxes on the Pentagon's wish list than all his postwar predecessors combined.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 11, 2015

Invoking Manchuria's cross-dressing spy

She was born the daughter of a Manchu prince in Beijing in 1907. Later, as she grew up in Japan, she earned notoriety for her flamboyant challenges to gender roles and her military exploits as a princess-spy. Even today Yoshiko Kawashima still stokes controversy, and Phyllis Birnbaum's new biography...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Greece's worst option would be IMF default

The uncertainty over this week's payment to the IMF is just the latest episode of a multiyear tragedy for Greece and its creditors as they try to navigate a situation that has been managed too timidly for too long.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Iran's long-postponed rise is all but inevitable

Only a cataclysmic war will prevent Iran from fulfilling its long-postponed destiny as a major economic, political and scientific nation.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2015

Relearning to love nuclear weapons

The shocking thing about nuclear weapons is that they seem to have lost their power to shock.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2015

High price of cold-hearted capitalism

At the root of Germanwings pilot Andreas Lubitz's likely decision to kill himself is that he lived, as we all do in the Western world, in a disposable society.

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