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December 13, 2024
 

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Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2013

What hindrances in Japan?

Regarding Kevin Rafferty's Sept. 16 commentary "Abe's 2020 vision challenged": You get fingerprinted and photographed in a whole lot of countries these days, not just Japan or the U.S. — it's unfortunately the way the world has gone, by and large. And getting luggage inspected 20 to 50 percent of the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 18, 2013

Fujiwara breaks TV taboo, slams secrets bill

Norika Fujiwara has broken an unwritten rule of the television business: sharing her political views. The popular model and actress has come out against a bill that stiffens penalties against civil servants who leak classified information.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2013

China's Net crackdown shows fear trumps reform

China's new government is threatening jail terms for Web comments deemed defamatory. But by Beijing's definition, 'defamation' could mean anything that any politically connected person doesn't want to see made public.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2013

'Freddy vs. Jason' maker documents new horror: Fed's role in meltdown

Flashback to Christmas 2002. America was recovering from the twin shocks of the tech bubble crash and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The stock market was rising, real estate was heating up and optimism was rebounding.
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2013

America's love of war

Regarding the Sept. 5 commentary by Henry Allen titled "Tragedy of America's 'good and virtuous wars' ": All wars are tragic, perhaps none more so than those fought in the name of civic virtue. The U.S. Navy's new recruiting slogan boasts that it's a global force for good! The American writer historian...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2013

Low U.S. support for Syria action

Regarding the Sept. 7 commentary by Ted Rall titled "Breaking bad: Why a U.S. strike would be illegal": Most Americans are opposed. One poll I read only showed 6 percent positive support among registered voters for a strike, which is abysmal. Also, the U.S. is heavily in debt and just can't keep spending...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 9, 2013

If you're jōzu and you know it, hold your ground

Communicating in Japanese is not all that difficult. What's difficult is communicating with Japanese people, writes Debito Arudou.
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Japan has much to do to raise FDI

Regarding Shinji Fukukawa's Aug. 31 commentary titled "Knock down barriers to FDIs": I agree completely with the views on foreign direct investments expressed by Fukukawa, who is one of the most perceptive and visionary of Japan's ex-government officials. He correctly points out three of the "structural...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 29, 2013

Government must take over Fukushima nuclear cleanup

It is literally a matter of national security that the decommissiong of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant be taken over by the government with the assistance of an international task force of experts.
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2013

What's important to the elite?

As William Pesek makes very clear in his Aug. 14/15 article "Fukushima replaces economy as Abe's legacy issue," it is truly mind-boggling that Japan's most senior leaders don't seem to be able to acknowledge the worst crisis in their nation's history since the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2013

Newspapers need connoisseur patrons for now

The central challenge for a serious journalistic enterprise is how to get people to pay for the work. For now, we're relying on patrons to save a great newspaper.
Reader Mail
Aug 7, 2013

The 'blackface' political shtick

Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso's recent suggestion that Japan's politicians take a play from the National Socialist German Workers' Party and quietly try to slip constitutional revisions under the public radar have sparked a storm of international indignation.
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 6, 2013

Discovery adds to woes of baby formula firms in China

Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd.'s warnings of tainted ingredients in some products of the world's largest dairy exporter is the latest blow to baby formula sellers amid Chinese consumers' concerns about food safety.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 30, 2013

It's time for conservatives of Japan to get over the war

If conservatives renounced revisionist nationalism in favor of their inherited democracy, many outside of Japan could live with a more powerfully armed Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2013

Right royal load of parochial hot air

BBC World television coverage of the birth of the new British prince, including the mindless prattling and cooing about what he would look like, was a disgrace.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2013

How Republicans lost their economic edge

While Barack Obama is unlikely to be celebrated in history for his economic record, his presidency marks the end of Republican orthodoxy on such matters.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 21, 2013

'Motor City Madman' rocks political world

On the final morning of the 2013 National Rifle Association annual convention in May, the day was bright, the mood was festive and Ted Nugent was neither dead nor in jail.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2013

Returning to Egypt's preferable state of tyranny

Former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi knows neither Thomas Jefferson's advice that "great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities" nor the description of Martin Van Buren as a politician who "rowed to his object with muffled oars." Having won just 52 percent of the vote, Morsi pursued...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 14, 2013

Japanese players show streetball flair

Masayuki Kabaya wanted Hideki Mitsui to shoot the rock. Actually, he was daring him to shoot it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2013

Institutional incapacity weighs down recovery

What's holding back economic growth worldwide? Details vary from place to place, but a leading reason is a kind of self-willed institutional incapacity.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 12, 2013

Okinawan musician, club owner keeps folk traditions going strong

The back streets of Naha were dark, making it more difficult to find Shima-Umui, a music club run by Okinawan folk singer Misako Oshiro. The torpid air and smell of papaya rinds from a nearby bin spoke of the subtropics. A small sign, barely visible from the street, directed customers to the basement...
Reader Mail
Jul 10, 2013

Overboard on fear and loathing

I always enjoy Robert J. Samuelson's commentary pieces, but his July 3 article, "Beware the Internet and the danger of cyberattacks," is a rare miss for an otherwise insightful journalist.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2013

Russia's survivalist in the Kremlin

Given Russia's experience with militant groups, Vladimir Putin believes Russia's domestic stability requires strong Mideast leaders who can keep extremists in check.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2013

Propaganda: artifice by design

The word "propaganda" derives its modern use from the name of a 17th-century Roman Catholic institution, the Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, or Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith. Established during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648, a sectarian conflict that devastated Europe following...
WORLD
Jun 28, 2013

Snowden had contempt for leakers

When he was working in the intelligence community in 2009, Edward Snowden, the U.S. National Security Agency contractor who passed top-secret documents to journalists, appears to have had nothing but disdain for those who leaked classified information, the newspapers that printed their revelations and...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 26, 2013

A mother helps son in his struggle with schizophrenia

The mother drives her son everywhere because he is not well enough to drive. He sits next to her, and at the red lights she looks over and studies him: how quiet he is, how stiffly he sits, hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting slightly, a tic that occasionally blooms into a full fluttering motion he makes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013

Writers' elegant letters to each other suffer from lack of venom and indiscretion

The demise of letter writing is the cause of widespread lament.
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2013

Getting U.S.-China relations right

The U.S.-Chinese summit boiled down to Beijing seeking respect as a great power and Washington wanting Beijing to take more 'responsibility' as a great power.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 6, 2013

How far does the apple drop?

"I don't like Graffiti" states French artist Zevs, who is known for his street-art work and is currently showing at The Container in Daikanyama.
JR East announces 10-year plan to drastically overhaul Suica
The East Japan Railway Shinjuku Station in Tokyo. Within the next 10 years, JR East will develop automated walk-through gate technology so that passengers can enter the train platform without having to tap their Suica card or phone on the ticket gates.
Prince Hisahito to enroll at University of Tsukuba
Prince Hisahito, who is second in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne, is currently a third-year student at the University of Tsukuba’s affiliated high school.
Tokyo remains third in global city index for ninth consecutive year
The silhouettes of Mount Fuji, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building and Shinjuku skyscrapers are seen during sunset in Tokyo in November.
South Korean police blocked from raid on president's office
Protesters attend a rally calling for the impeachment of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in front of the headquarters of the ruling People Power Party in Seoul on Tuesday.
Union blasts Nippon Steel’s $5,000 per worker bonus in U.S. Steel deal
The United Steelworkers union claims that Nippon Steel's latest offer is tantamount to bribery.
London calling: Sumo's U.K. trip brings back memories of 1991
Japan’s national sport made its second foray into Western Europe, and first to the U.K., with a five-day tournament at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall in October 1991.
‘Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron’ documentary meditates on auteur's creativity and legacy
“Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron" provides an in-depth look into the octogenarian auteur’s creative process and personal reflections.
Yurie Collins: ‘Everyone seems sedated, fed-up … that’s why they turn to comedy’
Yurie Collins is a bilingual comedian based in Tokyo. In addition to being a prize-winning roast comic, her dating-themed "Tokyo Hoe Tales" shows have proven to be a hit with women of all nationalities.
Winter chill, hot baths and the risk of heat shock: How to stay safe
A health ministry survey showed that 5,824 people age 65 and older died in a bathtub in their home or other residential facilities in 2022, more than double the number of people who died in a traffic accident.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

People in cities across Japan will pop into their local convenience store for any number of products they believe will help them with a night of drinking.
Hangover cures are everywhere in Japan — but do they work?
By Thu-Huong Ha

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