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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Aug 13, 2014

Past victimhood blinds Japan to present-day racial discrimination

Until Japan gets over itself and accepts that racialization processes are intrinsic to every society, it will never resolve its constant and unwarranted exceptionalism.
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2014

Sumitomo joins Goldman in expecting the aluminum market to swing into a deficit

The global aluminum market will swing into a deficit this year for the first time since 2006 as cuts in output deepen and demand from automakers grows, according to trading house Sumitomo Corp.
WORLD
Aug 13, 2014

Israel's Gaza blockade to be challenged

Pro-Palestinian activists said Tuesday they would send ships this year to the Gaza Strip to try to breach Israel's naval blockade, repeating an action that four years ago ended with Israeli marines boarding a vessel and killing nine Turks.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 13, 2014

Japan's economy suffers biggest decline since 2011 as tax hike bites

The Japanese economy suffered its biggest contraction since the March 2011 earthquake in the second quarter of this year as the hike in sales tax to 8 from 5 percent took a heavy toll on household spending, stoking fears that any rebound may be too modest to sustain a solid recovery.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 13, 2014

WHO hopes for more Ebola drug doses, vaccine progress by end of year

World Health Organization experts fighting the world's worst outbreak of Ebola hope for improved supplies of experimental treatments and progress with a vaccine by the end of the year.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama should follow Nixon's lead and do the right thing

Richard M. Nixon's White House efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal in 1972 look positively penny-ante compared to President Barack Obama's coverup of government-approved torture 40 years later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Who will give refuge to the last pagans of Iraq?

Already the Islamic State has practically eliminated the Shiite Muslim and Christian populations from the lands it controls. The worst of the persecution has been aimed at the Yezidi, a religious group whose pagan roots go back at least to the late Bronze Age.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

How vodka limits hastened the USSR's demise

When the Soviet Union finally disintegrated at the end of 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the new Russian leader, decided not to repeat Mikhail Gorbachev's error of restricting access to vodka. Some say it was Gorbachev's sober way of life — and his attempt to impose it on his countrymen — that makes Russians dislike him in retrospect.
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Aug 12, 2014

International woodblock art; an airport space for kids; heating up the hoodie

exhibitions
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 12, 2014

U.N. names panel to investigate alleged war crimes in Gaza

The United Nations on Monday named three experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 12, 2014

China has more than 150 economic fugitives in U.S., daily says

More than 150 people suspected of economic crimes from China remain at large in the U.S., the China Daily said Monday, as officials pledge to step up efforts to hunt down those who take their ill-gotten gains abroad.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2014

Never trust a realist when it comes to politicians

If you're looking for one big reason the U.S. seems to be on the wrong track, try the marginalization of idealism that coincided with the collapse of the peace movement and the American Left at the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / ANALYSIS
Aug 11, 2014

Japan tallies weak yen as prices rise without export gain

It was called "endaka" — a Japanese term for currency strength that sapped the economy — and reversing it was supposed to help end deflation and stoke growth.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2014

Microsoft's emerging markets problem: Few want to pay for genuine product

On a trip to Beijing a decade ago, Bill Gates was asked by a senior government official how much money Microsoft Corp. made in China. The official asked the interpreter to double check Gates' reply as he couldn't believe the figure was so low.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 9, 2014

Okinawa: pocket of resistance

The battle over Henoko Bay looks set to challenge the power of the archipelago's protest movement.
EDITORIALS
Aug 9, 2014

The waterworks are wearing out

The cost of maintaining and repairing Japan's water infrastructure is expected to be at least ¥1 trillion annually after 2020 as the 40-year life span on most pipes andd equipment runs out about the same time.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2014

A Russian bureaucrat rebels on Facebook

President Vladimir Putin's standoff with the West, which has turned Russia into a corporate state in defensive mode, makes the rebellion of a lone bureaucrat in the Economics Ministry all the more impressive.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

Nuclear disarmament is a humanitarian imperative

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement's involvement in the nuclear debate — specifically the humanitarian impact — dates back to the moment the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

A war is not inconceivable

Washington's demonization of Vladimir Putin has been so successful in the press, and it has been so secret about the American role in Kiev, that it has left the U.S. and EU public convinced that the Ukraine crisis has been the result of Russia's desire to expand.
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 8, 2014

Shame index dumps Sony for Panasonic in first revamp

Sony Corp., which has posted losses in five of the past six years, was rejected in the first reshuffle of Japan's profit-oriented stock index while Panasonic Corp. made the cut.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 8, 2014

Snowden receives three-year Russian residence permit

Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, wanted by the United States for leaking extensive secrets of its electronic surveillance programs, has been given a three-year residence permit by Russia, his Russian lawyer said on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2014

Why ASEAN has not condemned Thailand

It is not a given that ASEAN won't condemn Thailand's recent military coup. At present, though, most neighbors regard the events as an internal matter while more than two-thirds of Thais surveyed report being happier now than before the intervention.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2014

Hunting tigers won't ensure reform in China

To effect change in China, Xi Jinping must built a coalition capable of advancing his declared goal of reviving pro-market reforms.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2014

Is Israel's offense morally defensible?

To say that Israel's actions are less clearly wrong than those of Hamas is not to say much. While pursuing its legitimate military objectives in Gaza, Israel should be showing more concern for Gaza's trapped civilians.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2014

Israeli nationalism shows weakness, not strength

The conduct of its latest Gaza war suggests that Israel, which is blessed with a robust high-tech sector, embodies the greatest contradiction today between the imperatives of old-style territorial nationalism and a modern globalized economy.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2014

China meat supplier probe hurting McDonald's sales

McDonald's Corp., poised to resume selling beef and chicken in China this week after a supplier was accused of repackaging old meat, says the matter is hurting the chain's results in Asia.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
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