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COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 14, 2013

The message Asians hope Abe will say to Obama

Neither Japan nor China can give up its claims to the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, but stoking up conflict in today's world economy would hurt them both.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 13, 2013

Japan as a normal country

The U.S. should reject the notion of preparing for war in the Pacific, and let Japan and its neighbors cooperate to counter Beijing's geopolitical ambitions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 10, 2013

The evolution of Japan's turn away from Confucian ideas

'The evolution of political thought in this relatively isolated island nation during the period in question is unique to the point of being somewhat freakish,” writes political thought scholar Hiroshi Watanabe of the University of Tokyo.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 6, 2013

Harden the loser in trade from OKC

The Houston Rockets are going to make the playoffs, and without trading for James Harden there basically was no chance they would. The Oklahoma City Thunder still are among the top five contenders for the NBA championship, but not likely as strong a contender as they were the day before they traded Harden....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2013

To regain its vitality, U.S. must lose its paranoia

A Marine officer cannot square the pettiness in the discourse of U.S. elders with the nobility of the men and women he served with in Afghanistan.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 4, 2013

Composting food waste growing trend in America

Roy Derrick maneuvered his forklift with a pallet of neatly boxed expired produce and flowers and dropped it into an industrial compactor at Safeway's cavernous return center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. As the compactor hummed, compressed food and floral scraps spilled through a chute into a 12-meter...
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 4, 2013

Navy SEAL author of 'American Sniper' shot dead

He said he killed 160 people, perhaps many more, making him one of the leading U.S. military snipers of all time. In the course of four combat deployments to Iraq, he said insurgents nicknamed him "the devil of Ramadi" and placed a $20,000 bounty on his head.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 4, 2013

Extroverts fail, and introverts flounder, but the rest of us will probably succeed

Spend a day with any leader in any organization, and you'll quickly discover that the person you're shadowing, whatever his or her official title or formal position, is actually in sales. These leaders are often pitching customers and clients, of course. But they're also persuading employees, convincing...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 4, 2013

U.S. cats kill billions of birds and mammals annually

Outdoor cats account for the leading cause of death among both birds and mammals in the U.S., according to a new study, killing anywhere between 1.4 billion and 3.7 billion birds each year.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Feb 3, 2013

Japan's suicide statistics don't tell the real story

According to the National Police Agency (NPA), Japan's annual total of suicides dipped below 30,000 people for the first time in 15 years in 2012 — to 27,766. While the fall is great news, part of me wonders: Has there really been a drop in suicides or should we look at it as a drop in homicides?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 1, 2013

'Jack Reacher'

Every time I witness the presence of Tom Cruise in Tokyo, I imagine the possibilities of him moving here as a permanent resident. He loves sushi (apparently a frequent customer at Sukiyabashi Jiro). He knows the streets of Ginza. He's clearly work addicted. Unlike in the U.S. no one here will ever direct...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 1, 2013

Mortgage fraud culture has its walk of the stars

A few criminal convictions have sent a powerful signal in the fight against insider trading. The stars of wider-scale bank mortgage fraud have walked.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jan 30, 2013

Calls grow for U.S. to release first WTC bomber

Before bin Laden, there was the blind sheik. A generation ago, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman stood as the embodiment of Islamist terrorism: a bearded, religious extremist with a trademark red and white cap and dark sunglasses who helped orchestrate the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 and plotted...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 28, 2013

Blame it on the hara: harassment vocabulary makes us all victims

Japan has a new hara. No, the nice couple down the hall didn't just have a baby; according to recent news, yet another form of harassment is supposedly becoming a social problem.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 28, 2013

Facts stack up against China's Senkaku claim

Regarding "Refer Senkaku issue to ICJ to avoid a train wreck," Hotline to Nagata-cho, Jan. 8): Brian A. Victoria's analogy—two steam locomotives rushing toward each other at full speed—is perfect, not so much because he predicts a collision but because it symbolizes that one of the trains is off...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 26, 2013

Nothing much compels reader to sympathize with characters

RIVER OF FIRE and Other Stories, by O Chonghui. Translated by Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton. Columbia University Press, 2012, 224 pp., $27.50 (hardcover)
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2013

The unloved dollar standard

The role of the U.S. dollar as international anchor is faltering as emerging markets grow increasingly frustrated by the Fed's near-zero interest-rate policy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Jan 24, 2013

Fish dish that predates your fridge

Before refrigeration became widespread in the late 1950s, fresh, unprocessed fish was only available to the well-to-do or people living on the coasts.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013

Woman's tragedy speaks to Indian aspirations

It's common these days for people to compare India with China and conclude that maybe democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013

How the Vietnam war will shape Obama's second term

The men who fought in Vietnam, a war that symbolizes America's overreach and failures abroad, haven't ascended to the presidency in the way that the World War II generation did. But now, under President Barack Obama, Vietnam veterans Chuck Hagel and John Kerry could get a chance to pull America back...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 23, 2013

Garnett an enigma despite unquestioned greatness

So why are so many people applauding a guy who makes fun of cancer patients, calls other men's wives sluts and punches opponents in the groin?
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 21, 2013

CIA drone war exempt from counterterror 'playbook'

The Obama administration is nearing completion of a detailed counterterrorism manual that is designed to establish clear rules for targeted-killing operations but leaves open a major exemption for the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, U.S. officials said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 21, 2013

Panama Canal expansion spurs race to fit supersized ships

This is a story about big, and how one of the biggest construction projects in the world, the remaking of the Panama Canal, will let bigger boats sail into deeper harbors, where authorities are spending billions dredging channels, blasting tunnels and buying cranes from China the size of 14-story buildings...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 19, 2013

Impossible forests where tides ebb and flow

A ripple flows gently inland across an expanse of dark-gray mud. It washes in, then drains back, dampening the surface; it briefly fills, then empties from, tiny holes made by innumerable small crabs. The ebb is over, and the flow tide has begun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 19, 2013

Meiji Japanese who sought to improve China

ASIA FOR THE ASIANS: China in the Lives of Five Meiji Japanese, by Paula S. Harrell. Merwin Asia, 2012, 407 pp., $35 (paperback)
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 19, 2013

Israel prepares for next act in the great moving right show

Dalya Steinberger's journey across Israel's political landscape began more than 20 years ago when she cast a vote for Labor, one of almost a million people who helped propel Yitzhak Rabin to the leadership of the Jewish state. A year later, in 1993, Rabin signed the historic Oslo Accords, shaking hands...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 16, 2013

CV frauds revealed by diligent online fact checks

In recent years, there have been several cases where Japanese media icons, especially those who shine across national and language borders, have been accused of falsifying their personal histories, and they have consequently lost whatever popularity they had gained through the mass media and/or books....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jan 14, 2013

Advising Abe on the wisdom of a nuclear restart

Readers offer some advice to the new prime minister on the contentious issue of nuclear power in post-3/11 Japan.

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