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Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

U.S. taps servers in vast data-mining program

The National Security Agency and FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio and video chats, photos, emails, documents and connection logs. U.S. taps firms' servers, mines Internet data
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 8, 2013

Mara the elephant slowly gets back on her feet

Treatment for Mara, a baby female elephant with fractures in both of her front legs, continues at the Toyohashi Zoo and Botanical Park in Aichi Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

Screen violence is in the eye of the beholder

Some people avoid violent films, while others watch little else. Professional movie reviewers, who may see hundreds of films annually, cannot afford to be so picky. If you are covering the Cannes Film Festival competition, as I did one year for the Screen International daily critics' poll, you cannot...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 6, 2013

Urban shift aided PM but brought corruption

The protests triggered in Turkey by plans to redevelop a park into a shopping mall at first seem an unlikely cause for public anger. In reality, the demonstrations over Taksim Square's Gezi Park go to the very heart of Turkey's modern discontents.
Reader Mail
Jun 6, 2013

Avoiding corporal punishment

Regarding the June 2 article "Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time": The writer concludes: "The trick is to determine in modern society where hard training ends and assault or violence, which is and always has been a criminal offense in Japan, begins. And that is not an easy thing."...
Reader Mail
Jun 6, 2013

Memories of a Pakistani village

The May 31 AFP-JIJI article "India's Africans keeping ancient customs alive" brought back memories of my visit to two Shidi villages in Sindh province, Pakistan, some years back.
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 2013

No place for hate speech

In demonstrations repeatedly held in Tokyo's Shin-Okubo district, home to many Korean shops and restaurants, participants have shouted threatening words such as "Kill both good and bad Koreans," "Koreans, get out," and "Sink them in Tokyo Bay."
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Jun 5, 2013

China constitution debate hits nerve with ruling party

After a country's new leader proclaims the overriding authority of the constitution — a document that guarantees freedom of speech and press — it's worth noting afterward when the same government heavily censors all discussion about that constitution.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013

As evidence of Agent Orange in Okinawa stacks up, U.S. sticks with blanket denial

In April 2011, these Community pages published the first accounts of sick U.S. veterans who believe their illnesses were caused by exposure to Agent Orange on Okinawa during the Vietnam War era.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2013

Sunny spin to an oily Earth

Politicians seem to be the last people in the world understanding clean energy or what kind of planet they will bequeath to their grandchildren.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2013

Africa also has stake in UNSC reform: Abe

Japan and African nations must cooperate to push forward United Nations Security Council reform in order to realize better global governance, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 3, 2013

Join Wall Street, save the world: The rise of the benevolent class

Jason Trigg went into finance because he is after money — as much as he can earn. The 25-year-old certainly had other career options. An MIT computer science graduate, he could write software for the next tech giant. Or he might have gone into academia in computing or applied math or biology. He could...
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2013

Mayor's unconvincing retort

The May 28 front-page article "Hashimoto looks to deflect sex slave blame" seems to suggest in some way that Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has a valid point, when it should be made clear that he does not.
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2013

Wrong address on student letters

Regarding the May 29 Kyodo article "Nagasaki youths key to hibakusha message": Rather than sending their signatures to the United Nations Office in Geneva, the students collecting signatures for the abolition of nuclear weapons should be sending their petition to Washington.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 1, 2013

'Cosplay' summit's characters given life

The first group of official characters to represent this year's World Cosplay Summit was recently revealed. Every year, people from all over the world don costumes worn by their favorite "anime" or TV game characters while attending the event in Nagoya.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 1, 2013

Everyone's own path to enlightenment

What is Buddhism?
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 2013

Japan's cyber security strategy

The government's efforts to adopt a cyber security strategy deserve praise as long as the constitutional protection of communications privacy is not undermined.
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

The power of ideas over time

In his May 23 letter, "Watching what the church does," Barry Ward cannot refute Jennifer Kim's comments (May 16 letter, "Catholic link to human rights"), which show the debt owed by modern human rights conventions to Judeo-Christian teaching. So, instead, Ward fumes over historical wrongs committed by...
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

Perception of a poisoned ocean

Regarding the May 22 Kyodo article "Researchers find high cesium in some Pacific plankton": Even small amounts of radioactivity in plankton are a big problem because of bio-magnification, as it travels up the food chain as larger animals eat smaller animals.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
May 29, 2013

Four core 2008 Clinton staffers would pass on a 2016 bid

Howard Wolfson, the 2008 communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton, has said he will not return for a 2016 presidential campaign. Neither, for that matter, will Neera Tanden, the campaign's policy director. Ditto for Mark Penn, the chief strategist, and Patti Solis Doyle, the embattled campaign...
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2013

Abenomics vs. bad economics

The good news is that the Japanese economy and stocks are recovering. The bad news is that austerity hawks still view 'Abenomics' as a mere flash in the pan.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 28, 2013

When can you fight a job transfer?

A foreign reader writes: "My husband is working for a company that has branches in Shinagawa, Narita and Ibaraki. He used to work at the Shinagawa branch, and then he was forced to move to the Narita branch.
EDITORIALS
May 27, 2013

Firebombing victims waved off

Japan's top court waves off allegations by civilian victims of the 1945 Tokyo firebombing raids that state relief to them was inferior to what military victims got.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
May 27, 2013

South Korea's 'export' crisis

South Korea ranks at the bottom of OECD member nations in 'technology trade balance,' which doesn't say much for the design capabilities of manufacturers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 26, 2013

Xenophobia stretches from the street to the dinner table

The territorial disputes between Japan and its nearest neighbors over the islands of Takeshima (Dokdo in Korean) and the Senkakus (Diaoyu in Chinese) have gradually faded from the front pages; but this does not necessarily mean there have been no repercussions.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2013

Language debate goes nowhere

I assume that one purpose of publishing The Washington Post article titled "English-language education proposal has French up in arms" on The Japan Times' front page May 20 was to stimulate the ongoing debate about English education in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2013

Angelina Jolie: a brave woman and a role model

An article written by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie provoked headlines around the world when she chose "not to keep my story private" and revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy to lower her risk of breast cancer, which was high due to her genetic inheritance. The impassioned letter, published...
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2013

Bill threatens the lives of the poor

By tightening procedures to receive livelihood assistance, a bill just submitted to the Diet could end up raising the suicide rate and the number of deaths by hunger.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 25, 2013

More women taking to plane spotting at Centrair

More women have joined the groups of men taking photos of landing and departing aircraft at Central Japan International Airport (Centrair).

Longform

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