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Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Nov 30, 2013

Skepticism engulfs secrecy bill

As Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government rammed the controversial state secrecy bill through the Lower House last week, what seemed to become evident is that even his Cabinet ministers lack a coherent understanding of the content, breeding even more skepticism among the public.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2013

U.S. pushing new trade treaties at expense of national sovereignty

New trade treaties being pushed by the United States undermine national sovereignty.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2013

The desperate search for online privacy is over

Privacy in the traditional sense is most certainly dead. But the killer isn't the NSA. It's the Internet itself — or, more to the point, our entire reliance on it
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 4, 2013

NSA leaks allow Wyden chance at privacy debate

It was one of the strangest personal crusades on Capitol Hill: For years, Sen. Ron Wyden said he was worried that intelligence agencies were violating Americans' privacy.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jul 31, 2013

Hands-free tools make driving more dangerous

Makers of cars and mobile electronics are pushing a tempting vision of the future, one in which you can stay fully connected while driving. In the name of safety, they provide hands-free wireless setups for your cellphone, so you can talk with both hands on the wheel. The latest additions are voice-to-text...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2013

Japan needs to rebrand for SXSW

The purpose of the South By Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival in Austin, Texas, is for musicians to woo new fans and industry insiders. The five-day festival, though, hasn't been about bands for a while — it's about brands.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 21, 2012

Kiwa Kiwa Festival

Emerging in March of this year promising to "challenge the limits of 'independent,' " Kiwa Kiwa — a music website and promoter (and cafe, curiously) — launched in a flurry of activity including disc and live reviews as well as columns from a quartet of local Tokyo indie musicians. It was a bold move...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 23, 2011

Citizens' forum queries nuclear 'experts'

To whom does scientific debate belong?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2011

No country for younger, self-made oligarchs

Mikhail Prokhorov, the owner of gold mines in Siberia and a professional basketball team in the United States, is one of Russia's richest men, with a net worth of $18 billion. This past June, he agreed to lead a center-right political party to contest December's parliamentary elections.
COMMUNITY
Nov 6, 2010

Canadian loves keeping Fukuoka informed

Nick Szasz, a native of Toronto, has published the free bilingual magazine Fukuoka Now since 1998. He says he launched the publication out of love for the biggest city in Kyushu and his sense of mission to provide information for non-Japanese living in the area.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 15, 2010

Petition project lets Web surfers make their mark

As of Tuesday, 84,512 people were united in their call for laws banning restrictions on manga / anime content, at least 8,984 people had endorsed same-sex marriage, and 1,609 individuals wanted Panasonic to keep a speech aid for the physically impaired on the market.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 1, 2010

A fish that knows not time

Recently, a few days before my 70th birthday, I was visited by the beautiful and vivacious actress Mayu Tsuruta. If you watch Japanese television, I'm sure you will know her from the many films, dramas and documentaries in which she has appeared.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 18, 2009

TOEIC: Where does the money go?

In a country of test-takers, the Test of English for International Communication has become one of Japan's most recognized exams. In 2008, people in Japan paid ¥4,040 — or slightly less if their company or school paid a ¥100,000 membership fee — to take the TOEIC Institutional Program (IP) at their...
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2009

Developing a global perspective

Regarding David Howell's Aug. 8 article, "Disaster in Afghanistan": The problems of terrorist extremism, escalating civil wars, human rights abuse on a genocidal scale and the proliferation of nuclear weapons cannot be solved by incumbent policymakers in the developed countries but only by the general...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 7, 2009

NHK a fount of info, a lot of it from the government

Sometimes compared with the British Broadcasting Corporation or America's Public Broadcasting System — and by its fiercest critics even to the state-run media in China and North Korea — NHK boasts two terrestrial television services, three satellite television services, three radio networks and the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 5, 2009

The Shanxi trilogy: films that never made it back home

Sometimes called the most significant of the current generation of Chinese film directors, Jia Zhangke (b. 1970) enjoys the distinction of never having had some of his finest work commercially shown in his own country.
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2009

Don't bait the Russian bear

U.S. President Barack Obama's Moscow visit offers a historic opportunity to avert a new Cold War by establishing a more stable and cooperative relationship between the West and Russia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 13, 2009

Fans of GEISAI enjoy the opportunities

Held on Sunday, March 8, at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center, GEISAI #12 marked the latest installment of the ongoing series of open-application, competitive one-day festivals organized since 2001 by pop artist and cultural promoter Takashi Murakami. Part exhibition, flea market and spectacle, punctuated...
MULTIMEDIA
Mar 13, 2009

Fans of GEISAI enjoy the opportunities

Held on Sunday, March 8, at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center, GEISAI #12 marked the latest installment of the ongoing series of open-application, competitive one-day festivals organized since 2001 by pop artist and cultural promoter Takashi Murakami. Part exhibition, flea market and spectacle, punctuated...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 28, 2008

Critics switched off over digital-TV plans

Yukichi Amano is one of Japan's sharpest media critics, so it was disconcerting to see him on NHK several weeks ago pimping for digital TV.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2008

Japan lags U.S. in using Net to mobilize voters

When Tadamasa Kimura says he is envious of Barack Obama's victorious campaign to become president of the United States, it's not because he's an unsuccessful aspirant to political office.
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2008

Deviant thinking on defense

Prime Minister Taro Aso in an Upper House session Thursday said it was "extremely inappropriate" for Mr. Toshio Tamogami, the recently dismissed Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff, to write an essay that contradicted the government's official view on Japan's war-making in the 1930s and '40s.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Jun 2, 2008

Europe poised to take chance on reducing farm subsidies

I f If there is one topic that has been catching a lot of attention lately, it is the global rise in prices for resources, especially the most precious resource of all: food.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2008

Turkey's secular fundamentalist threat

NEW YORK — The chief prosecutor of Turkey's High Court of Appeals recently recommended to the country's Constitutional Court that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) be permanently banned.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2008

The artist and the island

Because of strong pressures to belong and conform in Japanese society, the country can be a difficult place for those otherwise inclined. One reaction to this is the hikikomori phenomenon, in which chiefly young males reduce contact with society to a minimum by staying in their rooms. A recently suggested...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jun 12, 2007

Sumo at the Olympics or a dohyo too far?

Sumo in Japan is on the up and up. We now have two yokozuna with a good half decade of rivalry in the tanks, one young enough to still be around in 10 years time. Irrespective of reports in the Japanese-language media, the sport is not sinking into the abyss with the continued success of its foreign...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 17, 2006

Curtain rises on Tokyo International Anime Fair

From popular TV series and unreleased work to cutting-edge production technology, everything the domestic animation industry has to offer will be at the 5th Tokyo International Anime Fair 2006, from March 23 to 26 at the Tokyo Big Sight.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 25, 2006

Saving our environment one step at a time

Having ended 2005 with a rant (see below), let me begin 2006 on a more positive note by introducing some valuable environmental education resources.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?