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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2011

Kan's foreign policy plate full, waiting to be attacked

The foreign policy agenda of Prime Minister Naoto Kan and his Democratic Party of Japan-led government in 2011 is stacked with pressing bilateral diplomatic issues with the United States and China, as well as broader, strategic goals, including curbing global warming and promoting regional free trade....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2010

Novel based on late management guru Drucker resonates to the top

Five years after his death, management guru Peter Drucker has shot to newfound fame — as one of Japan's biggest pop culture icons of 2010.
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2010

Japan's 'hot' year

The kanji "sho" for "hot" has been chosen by the Japanese people as best representing 2010 in a poll organized by the Kyoto-based Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. No doubt the memory of last summer's record-breaking heat is still fresh in people's minds, but ironically the summer also brought...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Dec 29, 2010

Living in Japan: There's an app for that

As 2010 draws to a close, smartphone use in Japan has risen to an all-time high, accounting for around 50 percent of all handset sales here. Yet it shames this columnist to admit that I'm still rockin' an old Windows 6.1 phone — insofar as a Windows 6.1 phone can be rocked at all — because as someone...
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 28, 2010

Tokyo: What's your idea of the perfect Christmas?

Mayumi Kaneko, 34Business controller (Japanese)Hanging out with good people here in Tokyo makes for the best time for me. I don't feel Christmas is so important but I would still like to get a present from Santa.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Dec 28, 2010

Time for a change that Kan should believe in

Dear Prime Minister Naoto Kan:
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 28, 2010

Mind the gap, get over it: Japan hands

Things have changed for the better for foreigners since the old days in Japan.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 26, 2010

Your money or your life: Where happiness lies

Year-end holidays always elevate hopes for happiness, but with expectations set high it is not surprising that they often seem to bring depression and loneliness instead.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 25, 2010

Happily lost in the 'empire of signs'

Signs and symbols play an ever-growing role in our increasingly complex society. In this respect, Japan — the "empire of signs," as French semiologist Roland Barthes called it back in 1970 — strikes and confounds the foreign visitor with a vast array of alphabets, shapes and designs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 23, 2010

Women in Afghanistan receive free literacy, IT lessons

Second in a series
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2010

Power struggle in Tehran

WASHINGTON — Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has never been happy about the status of the Iranian presidency — neither during his own tenure, from 1981-1989, nor during the terms of his three successors.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 21, 2010

Sagami-Ono, Kanagawa: So this is Christmas, and what have you done (in 2010)?

Johnny Klass (Ghanaian)'Klass' restaurant/bar owner, 40I went to Turkey; it was a nice vacation. It was great! I learned how to make kebabs from a Turkish friend who has 25 restaurant branches there. Having kebab on the menu has improved my business.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 21, 2010

Deadbeat dads, navy abuse case, visas and Futenma: readers' views

The other side of the fence Re: "Japan must end the scourge of parental child abduction" by Amy Savoie (Hotline to Nagatacho, Nov. 9):
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2010

Blame the pragmatic feel for DPJ's popularity slide

Ever since the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in September 2009, the DPJ administrations have turned out unexpectedly unpopular.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2010

Raising the odds for fair deals with investors

WINDHOEK, Namibia — Namibia is a resource-based economy that has embarked on an ambitious development program. Our vision is to turn Namibia into a knowledge-based, diversified economy by 2030.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 19, 2010

Savor Yufuin's peaceful charms

Set your travel planning to autopilot and — if you are in northern Kyushu in need of the thermal succor only a hot-spring bath can lend — you are sure to be drawn by the gravitational pull of Beppu, the brash town in Oita Prefecture that is the onsen king of Japan and knows it.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2010

WikiLeaks' flawed answer to a flawed world

NEW YORK — Long ago, I wrote about the Internet pioneer Julf Helsingius, who ran a precursor to WikiLeaks called anon.penet.fi. As I said then: "Anonymity in itself should not be illegal. There are enough good reasons for people to be anonymous that it should be [allowed] — at least in some places...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 17, 2010

'Reality Lab' is proud to be 'Made in Japan'

It has been nearly 10 years since Issey Miyake released a new line of clothing, the last being "me Issey Miyake" — scrunched-up one-size "Cauliflower" T-shirts that stretch to fit any wearer. So it's no surprise that the launch of 132 5., a collection of garments based on origami folds, has caused...
Reader Mail
Dec 16, 2010

Funny business beats on in Cuba

Regarding The Washington Post editorial "Cuba's Jewish hostage" (which was published in The Japan Times on Dec. 9): Saying that American Alan Gross was arrested for helping Cuba's Jewish community is like saying that the United States hates Fidel Castro because he has a beard.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 14, 2010

Nagano: What's the best way to learn a foreign language?

COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Dec 14, 2010

Color politics reign on campuses

Dear Minister of Education Yoshiaki Takaki:
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2010

Talks with Iran just a start

The five U.N. Security Council members — the United States, China, Britain, France and Russia — and Germany held meetings with Iran in Geneva on Dec. 6 and 7 over the latter's nuclear program — the first such meetings since October 2009 and since the UNSC imposed the fourth set of sanctions against...
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2010

The dead weight on Taiwanese aspirations

HONG KONG — The ruling party of Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou — in an election carefully watched in Beijing — has managed to win three of five mayoral races in Taiwan, reversing a losing streak in legislative by-elections since Ma's presidential election triumph in 2008.
COMMUNITY
Dec 11, 2010

Mover, shaker aids Goa's poorest kids

Stephen Young has always felt "driven to see the world" and left London at the age of 17 to do just that. He loves music, celebrates life and love and sees value, use, and often great potential in the world's outcasts, whether they be unwanted appliances in Tokyo or street children in the slums of Goa....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2010

Prisons trying to cope with swelling elderly population

ONOMICHI, Hiroshima Pref. — Handrails run down the middle of the hallway to help prisoners make their way from one end to the other. Adult diapers are neatly stacked in a corner. When an inmate chokes on his rice and coughs, a supervisor rushes over to rub his back.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat