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COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 24, 2014

Abe's security strategy lacks strategic thinking

The Abe administration's first National Security Strategy basically continues the longtime status quo policy, indicating that the prime minister remains trapped in the ongoing domestic polemics of peace vs. self-defense.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 20, 2014

Limits on 'stop and frisk' open to interpretation by Japan's police and courts

The rules that apply to 'stop and frisk' questioning are set down in the Police Duties Execution Act of 1948, but since the clauses are ambiguous and contradictory, there have been a lot of arguments about the legal limits on this kind of behavior,
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 18, 2014

Microsoft to cut 18,000 jobs this year as it chops Nokia ranks; stock surges

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella kicked off one of the largest layoffs in tech history Thursday, signaling he intended to shake up the aging PC industry titan, but leaving questions about how exactly he would transform it into a nimbler, Web-based rival to Apple Inc and Google Inc.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 17, 2014

Man who named GPIF returns to fund, with new approach

The man who helped name the world's biggest pension pool is back as one of its money managers, and says the fund's new approach to buying stocks will rub off on other retirement investors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2014

Reflections on the dark side of a tropical island

Naomi Kawase was once Japan's best-known female director abroad; now she is one of its most internationally prominent directors, regardless of gender.
BUSINESS
Jul 16, 2014

Hokkaido looking to sale operating rights for busy New Chitose Airport

The Hokkaido Prefectural Government is pondering a sale of the rights to operate the nation's fourth-busiest publicly run airport, sources said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 16, 2014

Apple, IBM put aside differences with landmark deal

Apple Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. are putting aside a rivalry started at the dawn of the personal-computing era to get more businesses to embrace iPhones and iPads.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2014

Why capturing CO2 emissions remains frustratingly expensive

Deploying carbon caputure and storage technology will be essential if the rise in average global temperatures is to be limited to no more than 2 degrees Celsius by the middle of the century. Yet CCS remains frustratingly expensive.
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2014

Composer Sakamoto has cancer, cancels all engagements

Musician Ryuichi Sakamoto announces that he has throat cancer and is canceling all engagements to focus on battling the disease.
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2014

North Korea test-fires more missiles, but abduction talks likely to continue

North Korea's launch Wednesday morning of what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles prompted a fresh protest from Tokyo, but appears unlikely to derail ongoing talks over the abduction of Japanese nationals.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 8, 2014

Islamists show online savvy in displaying menace, soft side

Tweets and online videos are emerging as weapons of war in the Islamic State's campaign to seize a swath of Iraq, with the al-Qaida offshoot's use of social media dwarfing efforts by other militant groups.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 4, 2014

Pakistan waging a risky war at home

Pakistan's launch of a full-scale military operation in the North Waziristan Tribal Agency, to eliminate terrorist bases and to clear out foreign fighters, will trigger yet another refugee crisis. And that risks spreading the terrorist threat to other parts of Pakistan.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 30, 2014

North's missiles may have sent different message

As Japanese and North Korean envoys prepared to hold talks Tuesday, Tokyo faced the difficulty of assessing Pyongyang's seriousness in its promised inquiry into the fates of abducted citizens while apparently snubbing Japan and other neighbors Sunday with a pair of missiles fired into the ocean.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2014

Dealers hedge their bets on Abe's casino plan

For trainee dealer Taichi Yahagi, the odds of making a better living turning cards at a baccarat table in Tokyo are looking up.
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2014

Japan called out on terror finance woes

Japan refuses to plug holes in its defenses against money laundering and terrorist financing and should pass laws that can do so, the Financial Action Task Force warns.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 28, 2014

U.S. says will no longer make, buy anti-personnel land mines

The United States said on Friday it would no longer make or buy anti-personnel land mines and that it would strive to eventually join the global treaty banning the weapons, but it stopped short of agreeing to destroy its stockpile of 3 million mines.
WORLD
Jun 27, 2014

Fishermen 'waste $1 billion' a year

U.S. commercial fishermen are throwing away about $1 billion worth of edible fish each year, according to a conservation group that is advocating for incentives to stop the waste.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 19, 2014

Spike in conflicts sees 'global peace' eroding fast

World peace has deteriorated steadily over the last seven years, with wars, militant attacks and crime reversing six earlier decades of gradual improvement, a global security survey reported Wednesday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 19, 2014

Hong Kong democracy 'referendum' set to rile Chinese rulers

Hong Kong holds a controversial "referendum" on democracy on Friday, a prelude to an escalating campaign of dissent that could shut down the former British colony's financial district and further anger China's Communist Party leaders.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jun 18, 2014

Japan's 'no immigration principle' looking as solid as ever

In contrast to Hidenori Sakanaka's unbridled optimism, I argue that Japan has little prospect of becoming a 'migrant nation' anytime soon.
WORLD
Jun 17, 2014

Any airstrikes on Iraq will be risky for Obama

The airstrikes that President Barack Obama is considering against Islamic militants in Iraq could prove as messy and inconclusive as the war the U.S. thought had ended in 2011.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 17, 2014

Koreas' disputed sea border never too far from action as threat of war persists

On a clear day, residents of Yeonpyeong Island can see North Korea, 10 km away. They can also sometimes watch South Korean warships chase North Korean and Chinese fishing boats. These waters in the Yellow Sea are among the world's richest for blue crab.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

Hostages' families face impossible choices

An American journalist who was kidnapped by the same Afghan Taliban faction that held Bowe Bergdahl for five years argues that the real solution to ending kidnappings for ransom is to reduce the world's pockets of ungoverned spaces.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2014

Developing nations reversing the brain drain

Something remarkable is happening in some developing countries. The brain drain has reversed its flow, and there is reason to be optimistic that the vicious cycle of migrating talent can be broken.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2014

Challenges of 1944 remain

Many of the challenges facing the world in June 1944 have still to be fully met. Occasions such as the recent memorial ceremonies at Normandy evoke sad memories as well as valuable self-reflection.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 10, 2014

Tensions mount over security talks

A showdown looms as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pressures the ruling coalition to agree to overhaul Japan's pacifist security stance, possibly as early as Friday.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan