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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Food Sustainability in Japan
Mar 7, 2021

Your dinner has an origin story and blockchain tech can help you find it

Tracing the journey of how your food gets to your table is becoming easier with the help of apps that allow shoppers to make more informed decisions.
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2021

Lost in translation: Japan fumbles pandemic communication with foreign communities

Growing concern over access to up-to-date, accurate official information highlights the government's larger struggle to convey pandemic-related policies and support.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Dec 6, 2020

10 spots across Japan perfect for your next workation

Can't take a break from work? Here are 10 places in Japan where you can get that vacation feel without using any of your paid time off.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Feb 17, 2020

Bureaucrats are to blame for copy-happy hotel clerks

With data privacy being a huge issue, you may feel uneasy about hotels photocopying your passport. However, Colin P.A. Jones says the rule is more about bureaucratic culture than privacy.
Japan Times
Special Supplements / G20 Osaka Summit Special
Jun 27, 2019

Chuo's two new faculties to promote further internationalization

Society is undergoing dynamic changes and so that its students can "Be ahead of the world," Chuo University has introduced two new courses to best enable today's learners become tomorrow's leaders.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2019

Genetic tests for cancer therapy

Rules should be introduced to ensure the confidentiality of patients and prohibit all forms of unfair treatment based on genetic information.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Oct 6, 2018

Goichiro Toyoda taps technology in bid to save Japan's health care system

Goichiro Toyoda, 34, has an impressive resume. A graduate of the prestigious University of Tokyo faculty of medicine, Toyoda worked as a brain surgeon in Tokyo before leaving to become a research scholar at Children's Hospital of Michigan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 15, 2017

Medical big data to be pooled for disease research and drug development in Japan

Last month a bill aimed at facilitating medical research through the use of patient records stored at medical institutions cleared the Diet.
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Jul 30, 2016

A decade after its founding, WikiLeaks is alienating even its friends

It has been 10 years since Julian Assange founded WikiLeaks, the website that has gone on to serve as the world's most prominent digital repository of leaked government information. The organization has been celebrating a decade of existence over the past week by putting on display everything that makes...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 21, 2016

Japan's cybersecurity upgrade — too little, too late?

The Internet facilitates rapid data-sharing and increased communication between individuals, firms and government entities. This generates significant risks but, for most of the 2000s, Japan did not take commensurate countermeasures. The complacent attitude toward information technology security has...
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2016

Fears over personal data security

People are understandably worried about the security of the My Number system, and the government has done little to reassure them.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 11, 2015

Secrets law, one year later

The controversial state secret law that took effect last year has already had a chilling effect on the media: no one is even talking about it anymore.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 22, 2015

Embassies help foreigners in Japan overcome language barrier in times of disaster

Devastating floods that forced thousands of evacuations near Tokyo in September revealed shortcomings in disaster management when it comes to helping residents who do not speak Japanese.
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2015

Oversight for secrets too weak

Oversight committees are so weak they may not be able to compel the government to reverse improper designations of state secrets.
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2015

Launch secrecy oversight panels

The designation of some government information as 'secret' continues as allowed under a new law, but the sole mechanism for overseeing the process has not been launched.
JAPAN / Politics / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Oct 26, 2014

Kansai's fears of new law no state secret

With less than two months to go until the new designated state secrets law comes into force, how, exactly, it will work in practice is the subject of extensive debate and concern. Much of the commentary focuses on how the fundamental rights of individuals will be affected.
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2014

Weak state secrets oversight

An expert panel's proposal to create at least two oversight bodies staffed by Japanese bureaucrats falls far short of what's needed to prevent the arbitrary designation of government information as state secrets.
Donald Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, on July 27. A sophisticated breach of American telecommunications systems has extended to the presidential campaigns, raising questions about the group behind the attack and the extent of its efforts at collecting intelligence.
WORLD / Politics
Oct 27, 2024

What to know about the Chinese hackers who targeted the 2024 campaigns

The far-reaching operation has been linked to the Chinese government and attributed to a group experts call Salt Typhoon.
Defense Minister Gen Nakatani (right) shakes hands with European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell before their meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Friday morning, ahead of the announcement of Japan and the EU's new defense and security partnership.
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 1, 2024

Japan and EU launch defense and security tie-up amid mutual China concerns

The move is aimed at developing, deepening and strengthening cooperation and dialogue across all areas of security and defense, Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya says.
Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a live interview with U.S. commentator Tucker Carlson in the finale of the Tucker Carlson Live Tour at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Thursday.
WORLD / Politics
Nov 4, 2024

Election falsehoods take off on Youtube as it looks the other way

The largest video platform has become a home for election conspiracy theories, half-truths and lies, which provide it with revenue.
Royal Canadian Navy Commander Vice Adm. Angus Topshee inspects an honor guard with Maritime Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Adm. Akira Saito during a meeting at the Defense Ministry in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2024

Canada Navy chief sees more chances for multiservice exercises with Japan

Ottawa has been gradually boosting its military engagement with Asian partners since unveiling its Indo-Pacific Strategy in late 2022.
Security forces members detain a demonstrator as people protest against the management of the emergency response to the deadly floods in eastern Spain, in Valencia, Spain, on Saturday.
WORLD
Nov 10, 2024

Spain's flood disaster was its worst in recent history. Here's what went wrong.

By the time many received the government's flood alert, water was already surrounding cars, submerging streets and pouring into their homes.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer known for his anti-science stances, lacks public health experience and has a history of promoting harmful conspiracy theories, such as anti-vaccine activism.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2024

RFK Jr.’s junk science will put every American at risk

His promotion of bizarre conspiracy theories could turn the government into an “accelerant for misinformation.”
The primary motivation for potentially adding Japan to the Five Eyes alliance is the considerable intelligence contributions the country could make concerning China, North Korea, Eastern Russia and East and Southeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 30, 2024

If ever invited, should Japan make it 'Six Eyes'?

The primary motivation for potentially adding Japan to the alliance is the considerable intelligence contributions the country could make.
Lakers forward Rui Hachimura drives to the hoop against Suns guard Devin Booker during a game on Nov. 26.
BASKETBALL
Dec 4, 2024

Rui Hachimura's criticisms of Japan Basketball Association cause a stir

The JBA has said that there was "miscommunication" between it and the Los Angeles Lakers forward.
A flyer created by the Metropolitan Police Department to warn people about <i>yami baito</i>, or "dark" part-time jobs
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 17, 2024

Japan to let investigators go undercover to crack down on yami baito

Until now, undercover operations have been allowed only for drug- and gun-related criminal investigations.
Tsuyako Shimabukuro (front, second from left), head of the Eguchi community association in the town of Chatan, Okinawa Prefecture, and other community leaders discuss their efforts along with members of the prefectural association of families of missing persons with dementia.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Dec 30, 2024

Okinawa communities battle a rise in missing elderly with dementia

In the prefecture, 118 such cases were reported to the police last year.
A Wizzair Airbus A320-200 plane lands in Riga International Airport, Latvia, in 2019.
WORLD
Dec 24, 2024

European airline pilots and crews voice concerns about Middle East routes

The safety debate about flying over the Middle East is playing out in Europe largely because pilots there are protected by unions, unlike other parts of the world.

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