AP A car bomb exploded outside a mosque Sunday, killing at least 37 people and wounding another 141 in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood in the southern Pakistan city of Karachi — the third mass-casualty attack on the minority sect in the country this ...
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
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Near the entrance of York High School in northern England, painted in large letters, are the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” It is not a bad motto, particularly for a school that prides itself ...
1. Appendix to life The appendix gets a bad press. It is usually treated as a body part that lost its function millions of years ago. All it seems to do is occasionally get infected and cause appendicitis. Yet recently it has been discovered ...
Despite the opposition of authorities and Iceland’s strict law on names, a 15-year-old Icelandic girl has been granted the right to legally use the name given to her by her mother. Reykjavik District Court ruled Thursday that the name “Blaer” — meaning “light breeze” ...
Archaeologists have turned up about 150 skulls of human sacrifice victims in a field in central Mexico, one of the first times that such a large accumulation of severed heads has been found outside of a major pyramid or temple complex in the country. ...
New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, one of America’s finest examples of Beaux Arts architecture, was to celebrate its 100th birthday Friday with a brass band and an appearance by Caroline Kennedy, whose mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, spearheaded efforts to save the landmark from ...
Beyonce answered critics of her Inauguration Day performance the best way she could — with another sterling performance of the national anthem. The difference? On Thursday, it was live. She admitted during her Super Bowl news conference that when she performed for President Barack ...
A legal shield written by Congress to benefit the firearms industry is posing unexpected hurdles for parents in Newtown, Connecticut, and victims of other mass shootings who want to use the courts to hold gun makers accountable and push them to adopt stricter safety ...
A judge has spurned a prominent Colombian’s attempt to prevent the release of a feature film about the odyssey of the son who was born to her while she was a rebel hostage. The mother, Clara Rojas, had argued that allowing “Operation E” to ...
As North Korea warns that it plans its third nuclear test since 2006, outside governments and analysts are trying to determine a crucial question: Just what will Pyongyang’s scientists explode? The last two tests are believed to have been of plutonium devices. The next ...
Human safaris to see the Jarawa tribe of the Andaman Islands have finally come to an end as the authorities there bow to domestic and international pressure. For the first time in a generation, members of the tribe are able to wander through their ...
Congress passed must-do legislation Thursday to permit the U.S. government to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars more to meet its obligations, averting a first-ever government default that had loomed as early as mid-February. The 64-34 vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate sent the measure ...
Saudi Arabia has spared one of two Filipino men sentenced to death by beheading for separate killings, Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay said Friday. Rodelio “Dondon” Lanuza is expected to walk free after more than 12 years in prison following the Saudi government’s decision ...
The chairman of Samsung Electronics has kept his fortune and control of the conglomerate after a South Korean court Friday ruled against his older brother in an inheritance battle. The case was closely watched because a ruling against Samsung Chairman Lee Kun Hee, 71, ...
As much as I like Google Docs for word processing and spreadsheets, I find the online software clunky at times. So I was skeptical when I heard Microsoft is trying to sell its new version of Office as an online subscription. I was pleasantly ...
Unemployment, recession, debt, crisis and bailouts have associated with the euro over the past few years. So it may come as a surprise to hear that a relatively poor country on the edge of the European Union is hurtling toward full membership within the ...
An explosion at the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company killed 25 people and injured at least 101 on Thursday, sending a large plume of smoke over the skyline. Rescuers searched the rubble for victims into the night with the aid of rescue dogs, ...
Iran has told U.N. nuclear officials that it plans to add potentially hundreds of next-generation centrifuge machines to its main uranium enrichment plant, a move that could dramatically boost its ability to produce the fuel used in nuclear power plants and — potentially — ...
The Dow has logged its best start to the year in almost two decades. Stocks rallied in the first week of the year after U.S. lawmakers reached a deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” and then pushed higher toward record levels as optimism about ...
President Barack Obama’s nominee for defense secretary said Thursday he will not hesitate to use the “full force of the U.S. military” as he plunged into a Senate confirmation fight with critics from his own Republican Party who worry that his past statements about ...
The Obama administration is considering more assertive action against Beijing to combat a persistent cyber-espionage campaign it believes Chinese hackers are waging against U.S. companies and government agencies.
The image of a young girl in front of a camera, her head recently shaved, sobbing into the lens is one that’s guaranteed to shock. But when that girl is a key member of idol group AKB48, the reaction is bound to be stronger. ...
A member of AKB48 stirs up an online frenzy by getting a crew cut and posting an apology for breaking the all-girl group’s rule against romantic relationships.
Writer, teacher and sports fan Trevor Kew, 32, pedals and kicks his way through culture shock. He uses sports to help him adapt to unfamiliar cultures or new places when traveling, trusting his bike or a soccer ball to bridge the gap with locals. ...
I can’t wait to see NHK-G’s special program to air Feb. 23. They are finally going to address a topic I have harbored secret thoughts about since I came to Japan in 1994. NHK is going to broach the topic in a no-holds-barred documentary. ...
I lay in bed with a woman with a mask on her face. So I roll her way and coo in her unmasked ear . . . “You can hide your face but not your passion.” To which she sighs and coos back . ...
David Beckham was set to join Paris Saint-Germain on Thursday, opting for a move to France after mulling over lucrative offers from around the world since leaving the Los Angeles Galaxy. The 37-year-old Beckham was to undergo a medical examination in the French capital ...
Japan coach Alberto Zaccheroni welcomed back Shinji Kagawa on Thursday, when he named the Manchester United attacker to his 23-man squad for next week’s World Cup qualifying warmup against Latvia in Kobe, the Blue Samurai’s first game of 2013. CSKA Moscow’s Keisuke Honda was ...
Women’s judo coach Ryuji Sonoda announced Thursday that he plans to resign in light of allegations that he physically abused members of the Olympic team during training. “It will be difficult for me to go any further with the training of the team,” Sonoda ...
The December suicide of an Osaka high school basketball team captain who had been physically punished by his coach cast a harsh light on corporal punishment in Japan, and this week’s admission by the All Japan Judo Federation that Olympic female judoka had been ...
Access to diplomatic documents at the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s archives has been strictly limited since early January, possibly because a 1950 government paper found in them earlier describes the Senkaku Islands as part of Japanese territory, sources said. The facility is “in the process ...
Finalizing a schedule for a league with an uneven number of teams creates real challenges. For example, the 21-team circuit must always have one squad with a bye week to make the schedule work. Other times that number may be three, but rarely five ...
Japan’s Noriyuki Hamada captured the bronze medal Wednesday in the Bocuse d’Or, becoming only the second non-European to reach the podium in the 26-year history of the world’s most prestigious culinary competition. The gold medal went to Thibaut Ruggeri of France and the silver ...
When Baltimore Raven Michael Oher takes to the field Sunday he will be thinking of his second family which helped him realize his dream of playing in a Super Bowl. “My life was rough,” Oher said. “They (the Tuohys) showed me a lot of ...
Facing questions from an opposition lawmaker Thursday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe refused to comment on the government’s position on wartime sex slaves, but he did say he feels “heart-breaking pain” when he thinks of how their human rights were violated. “In this sense, I’m ...
Monetary harm from “furikome” phone fraud involving bank transfers increased 27.1 percent in 2012 to ¥16.16 billion, up for the third straight year, the National Policy Agency said Thursday. The monthly total surpassed ¥2 billion in October and December, approaching the peak levels seen ...
An independent panel looking into a 13-year-old municipal junior high schoolboy’s suicide in October 2011 in Shiga Prefecture concluded Thursday that bullying by his classmates was the “direct cause” of his death. The panel, formed last August, dismissed allegations that the suicide also stemmed ...
South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe announced Wednesday he would give half of his family’s fortune to charity, becoming the first African to match a pledge made by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. The Soweto-born tycoon, worth an estimated $2.7 billion, announced he would ...
Islamist extremists damaged or stole only a limited number of manuscripts in Timbuktu in Mali before they fled the fabled desert city, a South African university said Wednesday. People in the north Malian city who have knowledge of the documents reported that there was ...
British doctors said they will insert a titanium plate in the skull of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai to repair a hole left when the Taliban shot her for campaigning for girls’ education. Surgeons at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, central English, said Wednesday they ...
Japan coach Alberto Zaccheroni has spoken of his shock upon learning that 15 top female judo wrestlers, some of them London Olympians, were slapped, beaten with wooden swords and told to “die” by their head coach Ryuji Sonoda. News of the scandal broke Tuesday ...
Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories, snacking or skipping breakfast is bad and the physical education classes at school make a big difference in kids’ weight. All are myths, or at least presumptions that may not be true, according to researchers ...
The New York Knicks finally got a glimpse of what the front line of Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler can do hitting on all cylinders, and it was pretty impressive. Anthony scored 20 points to set a team record with his 30th ...
Research In Motion Ltd. unveiled its new, versatile BlackBerrys after excruciating delays allowed Apple, Samsung and others to build commanding leads in an industry that is redefining society. But the first phone won’t come out in the United States until March, and one with ...
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Okinawa for a meeting Saturday with Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima and other local politicians, he’ll be sitting down mostly with fellow Liberal Democratic Party members or those who won with LDP support. Unfortunately for Abe, they all strongly oppose ...
Sen. Robert Menendez’s office said Wednesday that he traveled three times on a plane owned by a prominent political donor but that the trips were paid for and reported appropriately. Menendez’s office also said that allegations that he engaged in sex with prostitutes in ...
Lance Armstrong believes a truth and reconciliation program is the “only way” to deal with cycling’s doping crisis and the sport’s governing body should have no role in the process. Armstrong spoke to Cyclingnews in an interview published Wednesday, his first since admitting to ...
The Liberal Democratic Party has outlined legislation that would allow the use of all types of online communications tools, including email, Facebook and Twitter, for election campaigns, LDP lawmakers said. “A partial lifting of the ban on online election campaigning would not meet the ...
Manchester United surged seven points clear in the English Premier League thanks to Wayne Rooney’s double in a 2-1 win over Southampton, while third-place Chelsea’s slim title hopes virtually ended following a late implosion at Reading on Wednesday. The European champions surrendered a two-goal ...
A smoker’s craving to light up can be tamed by carefully targeted magnetic fields applied to the brain, a Japanese-Canadian team has found. Scientists managed to zoom in on the exact spots that drive cravings for nicotine, noting that a mental connection made when ...
Close to calling it quits six years ago after more than 320 years in business, a small producer and retailer of “koji” in Saiki, Oita Prefecture, is now thriving thanks to a flood of orders for a “magical ingredient” — a salted (“shio”) version ...
The American economy shrank at the end of last year for the first time since the recession ended, according to new government data, as deep cuts in federal spending torpedoed what otherwise looked to be a modest recovery. Consumers did their part, spending more ...
Israel launched a rare airstrike inside Syria, U.S. officials said Wednesday, targeting a convoy believed to contain antiaircraft weapons bound for Hezbollah militants in Lebanon. The attack — the first since 2007 — adds a potentially flammable new element to tensions already heightened by ...
A set of special rules for the 2013 World Baseball Classic has been announced by tournament organizers, along with a busy schedule of warmup games for those countries who will play in Pool A in Fukuoka from March 2. This tournament, under the rules ...
As fears grow over the simmering Senkakus dispute, scholars from China and Japan are hoping to lower the temperature with expansive talks in Washington to search for common ground. Two U.S.-based scholars, one Japanese and the other Chinese, brought together experts — four from ...
The 2013 Japan Prize will be awarded to three U.S. researchers for their scientific contributions in the fields of semiconductor manufacturing and ecology. The joint winners in the field of materials and production are C. Grant Willson, a chemistry professor at the University of ...
A vegetarian diet can cut the risk of heart disease by as much as 32 percent, according to a British study published on Wednesday. Researchers who followed more than 44,500 volunteers for about 11 years on average, found vegetarians were significantly less prone to ...
Japanese striker Yuki Nakamura says he has left Slovakian club Rimavska Sobota because of racism. The 25-year-old Nakamura writes on his blog that “it’s a real shame but I have come home because I have been subjected to racism at Rimavska Sobota and I ...
Brett Favre is returning to the NFL — to work for the NFL Network. The retired three-time NFL MVP quarterback will join the network’s crew for day-long coverage of Sunday’s league championship game between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers. Favre hasn’t been ...
Toyota Motor Corp. voluntarily recalled 22,869 Lexus cars in China because of defects with windshield wipers, the biggest call back since a new law broadening manufacturer liability came into force this year. The company recalled imported Lexus IS cars made from January 2006 to ...
A Vietnamese-American prodemocracy activist returned to the United States on Wednesday after a 9-month detention in Vietnam on accusations he conspired to overthrow its government. Nguyen Quoc Quan smiled broadly as he was greeted by his wife, children and other family members who came ...
The Bank of Japan it will consider easing its monetary grip further if necessary to attain the target of 2 percent inflation as early as possible, BOJ Deputy Gov. Hirohide Yamaguchi said Thursday. “It could be the case that further accommodation will be pursued, ...
As a pathologist, Michael Zimmerman was familiar with dead bodies, but when he was asked to autopsy a mummy for the first time he wasn’t sure what to expect. There were a dozen layers of wrapping that he peeled off one at a time ...
China’s demographic time bomb is ticking much louder with the first fall in its labor pool for decades, analysts say, highlighting the risk that the country grows old before it grows rich. The abundant supply of cheap workers in the world’s most populous nation ...
The Ottawa Senators are relying on a balanced approach while star forward Jason Spezza recovers from an upper body injury. Daniel Alfredsson scored his first goal of the season and the Senators beat the Montreal Canadiens 5-1 on Wednesday night. Jim O’Brien, Mika Zibanejad, ...
The Cote d’Ivoire of today is being presented during the Month of Cote d’Ivoire event at the Japan International Cooperation Agency’s Global Plaza in Tokyo through Feb. 10. Organized by the Embassy of Cote d’Ivoire, the exhibition introduces the country’s history, culture and its ...
Russia pulled out of an anticrime accord with the United States on Wednesday in a move the U.S. called “self-defeating,” the latest sign of rising tensions between Moscow and Washington. Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed an order to scrap the 10-year-old agreement “because it ...
Rafael Nadal is looking forward to returning to action in the first clay-court tournament of the year in Chile next week, but the Spaniard admits that his injured knee is still a source of some pain. After missing seven months with the injury and ...
Three-time world champion Yevgeny Plushenko will take part in next year’s Sochi Olympics, despite undergoing an operation on his spine, his coach Alexei Mishin said Wednesday. Plushenko, 30, the 2006 Olympic champion, failed to win his eighth European title when he was forced to ...
The government intends to give $120 million (¥10.9 billion) in new aid to help stabilize the Islamist-infested Sahel region as resource-poor Japan looks to shore up North Africa following the slaying of 10 Japanese hostages in the Algerian gas plant siege. Japan is still ...
The first satellite launched from South Korean soil is working normally, officials in Seoul said Thursday, a day after the country achieved its space milestone amid high tensions on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s recent threat to test a nuclear device. A rocket ...
Japanese-made movies grossed a record ¥128.2 billion at domestic theaters in 2012, marking their highest returns since 2000, when the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan began releasing the data. The result is a 28.8 percent rise on the previous year, the industry group ...
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. aims to increase by tenfold the number of residential rooms in its nursing care facilities in the next half-decade. “We will work with the goal of increasing the number of rooms to 1,000 in four or five years,” Kenji ...
All Nippon Airways Co. said Thursday its group net profit rose 54.6 percent in the April-December period to ¥52.24 billion, due partly to an increase in business passengers. Its consolidated operating profit rose 18.0 percent to a record ¥107.52 billion for the nine-month period, ...
Polish is the second-most-spoken language in England and Wales, new figures from the 2011 census revealed on Wednesday, followed by Punjabi and Urdu. Over 92 percent of residents spoke English as their main language, and the majority of the rest spoke it well, although ...
Industrial production grew for the first time in two months in December, prompting the trade ministry to upgrade its basic assessment on production for the first time in 11 months, the government said Thursday. Reporting that industrial output grew a seasonally adjusted 2.5 percent ...
Cyclist Frank Schleck was suspended for a year Wednesday and will miss the Tour de France for using a banned substance on last year’s Tour. Luxembourg anti-doping authorities backdated the suspension, sidelining Schleck until July 14 when the Tour enters its last week. Schleck, ...
The Liberal Democratic Party may be claiming it has cast off its obsolete ways, but it is nevertheless showing some signs of the old faction-based LDP since returning to power. “Habatsu” faction-oriented politics lost some strength in the early 2000s when then-Prime Minister Junichiro ...
An Kobe-based “udon” chain is about to open its first noodle shop in Moscow as it ventures into Europe. Although Russia is said to be a tough market to crack for foreign companies because of bureaucratic red tape and business practices unique to the ...
A 15-year-old girl who performed in President Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities is the latest face on the ever-increasing homicide toll in the president’s hometown, killed by a gunman who apparently was not even aiming at her as she talked with friends in a Chicago ...
While the easing yen is a welcome development for exporting companies, it is slowly starting to cast a shadow on family budgets, pushing up the price of gasoline and other daily necessities. The average retail price of regular gasoline has gone up for eight ...
The average monthly wage in 2012, including bonuses and other irregular pay, fell to a record low ¥314,236, mainly due to an increase in the number of part-time workers, the government said Thursday. The figure, down 0.6 percent from 2011, hit the lowest level ...
Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in Bangladesh on Thursday as a nationwide strike called to protest war crimes trials brought much of the country to a halt. The Jamaat-e-Islami party called the strike to protest the prosecution of its main ...
British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Algeria on Wednesday to strike a new security partnership between the two countries following January’s deadly hostage crisis at a Sahara Desert gas plant. Cameron and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika agreed on a new strategic partnership bringing together senior ...
Australian researchers investigating the extinction of the country’s Tasmanian Tiger pinned the fault solely on humans Thursday, saying they have debunked a long-held theory that disease was to blame. The last known tiger, or thylacine, died in Hobart Zoo in September 1936, and although ...
Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. is looking to build a construction parts plant in Brazil within three years, KHI President Satoshi Hasegawa said. The plant is likely to make pumps for hydraulic shovels and other machinery parts as infrastructure construction picks up in the South ...
A jailed South Korean rapist has filed a lawsuit against prison authorities seeking the return of hundreds of pornographic photos seized from his cell. The 46-year-old inmate sued after 200 photographs were confiscated when he was transferred to a prison in Gwangju late last ...
The Nuclear Regulation Authority said a panel to be set up to discuss atomic energy security issues will weigh the possibility of introducing a system to investigate the backgrounds of workers to avoid acts of terrorism at nuclear plants. As atomic facilities possess material ...
Losing popularity and besieged by a corruption scandal that has reached all the way to the palace itself, Spain’s royals are looking to the dashing heir to the throne, Prince Felipe, to save their image. At the age 75, King Juan Carlos shows no ...
Britain’s plans to boost its use of nuclear energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions took a hit on Wednesday when the only region interested in hosting an underground waste dump pulled out. The local authority in Cumbria, an area of northern England home to ...
Climate scientists said Wednesday they have found evidence to back predictions for a future with lower average rainfall, even though Earth’s past warming episodes had led to more precipitation. Writing in the journal Nature, researchers said they had found proof that global warming caused ...
Russian Ambassador to Japan Evgeny Afanasiev has signaled his government’s readiness to seek a “mutually acceptable” solution to the long-running territorial dispute over four Russian-held isles off Hokkaido. His remarks Wednesday at a press event in Tokyo came ahead of former Prime Minister Yoshiro ...
A health ministry panel has proposed requiring medical institutions to undergo a two-stage approval system for stem cell treatments. Under current ministry guidelines, medical institutions are requested, but not required, to get advance approval from the health minister for clinical applications of both induced ...
The U.S. Navy plans to dismantle a minesweeper that ran aground on a coral reef off the Philippines because it is a complete loss and removing it intact would cause more damage to the coral and the ship’s hull. There’s also a chance the ...
An owner of the Brazilian nightclub where 235 people perished in a weekend fire tried to commit suicide, police said Wednesday, and the number of survivors seeking medical treatment after the disaster continued to rise. Elissandro Sphor tried to kill himself with a plastic ...
A magnitude-6.8 earthquake shook offices, toppled supermarket shelves and broke windows on Wednesday in north-central Chile, where people fled some buildings in panic. A 50-year-old woman in the city of Copiapo died of a heart attack, said Atacama Gov. Rafael Prohens, who attributed her ...
A water supply project planned for an industrial park in southern Vietnam will enlist the Kobe Municipal Government, which will take a stake in a company set up by Kobelco Eco-Solutions Co. and local entities. Two affiliated organizations of Kobe will be putting up ...
Mostly hermaphroditic, barnacles are famous for their genitalia — the longest in the animal kingdom, relative to size — which can change shape and size to fertilize neighboring barnacles. For the times when accessing a potential mate is too difficult, most barnacles rely on ...
Egypt’s opposition movement shifted its strategy Wednesday, calling for a national dialogue to resolve the country’s ongoing political crisis days after it had rejected an almost identical invitation from embattled President Mohammed Morsi. In another reversal, the National Salvation Front, a loose coalition of ...
A massive storm system raked the U.S. Southeast on Wednesday, spawning tornadoes and dangerous winds that overturned cars on a major Georgia interstate, demolished homes and businesses and killed at least two people. In northwest Georgia, the storm system flipped vehicles on Interstate 75 ...
Police in Zimbabwe said Wednesday they found traces of explosives at a tribal sorcerer’s house where a massive blast killed six people and damaged 12 nearby buildings. Police official Charity Charamba said the sorcerer and assistants, one of them a former police officer, were ...
French authorities on Wednesday charged a 32-year-old British man with the brutal killing of a mother of three who was stabbed to death while out jogging. Robert Plant was formally charged with aggravated murder, the French equivalent of first-degree homicide, after appearing before an ...
Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd. plans to close its store in Shenyang in northeastern China, company officials said Thursday, citing poor business conditions. Isetan Mitsukoshi is considering various options to withdraw from the city in Liaoning Province, including selling the store to a third party, ...
Many women say they wear cute but uncomfortable high heels because the shoes make them feel more attractive. A new study, suggests they may have a point, and it may be grounded in evolutionary imperatives. In the study, a group of men and women ...
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Wednesday appointed his former chief of staff to temporarily fill the Senate seat held by John Kerry, who has been confirmed as incoming secretary of state. William “Mo” Cowan, 43, will become the second black member of the U.S. ...
Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it will test and demonstrate an electric vehicle charging system that uses solar power generation in Indiana. The project will run from Friday through July 31, 2014. Toshiba will cooperate with Itochu Corp. and the U.S. organizations Simon Property Group, ...
To be a shokunin (artisan) in Japan means, among other things, rising in the morning to do the exact same thing as yesterday and the day before and the day before.
Japan's prodigious ability to assimilate, reproduce and then develop homegrown adaptations of products from other cultures is legendary. Why should it be any different when it comes to patisseries?
Since first touring its native province of Quebec in 1984, the self-styled “multifaceted creative force” that is Canada’s Cirque du Soleil has become a major global phenomenon with several permanent venues. In 2002, though, seven Cirque du Soleil members turned their backs on that ...
Ahead of the Feb. 22 Japan release of “Silver Linings Playbook,” the acclaimed new film from director David O. Russell and starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro, a special preview screening will be held in Tokyo. The Japan Times has 10 ...
To describe “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” as a foodie film is akin to picking an English rose and calling it a flower. This documentary by New York-based David Gelb is at once a celebration of one of the world’s most popular and coveted meals, ...
The love of nishikigoi, an ornamental carp with characteristically red and black patterns, has recently spread worldwide, spawning a variety of koi (carp) clubs, associations and periodicals in various regions and languages. Anyone interested in taking a peek into this vibrant hobbyist culture of ...
Every time I witness the presence of Tom Cruise in Tokyo, I imagine the possibilities of him moving here as a permanent resident. He loves sushi (apparently a frequent customer at Sukiyabashi Jiro). He knows the streets of Ginza. He’s clearly work addicted. Unlike ...
The red-framed doors and purple canopy that mark the front of Le Verre Vole a Tokyo are a cheerful sight at any time of year. In the chill dark dead of winter, their glow is even more welcoming, especially if you’re arriving on ...
Sex is universal, but kinks can be local. Japanese S&M, at least the varieties I’ve seen in films over the years, is less about black leather and fishnet stockings, more about candle wax and artfully elaborate knots designed to display the flesh of the ...
One of Spain’s most prestigious dance troupes will perform in Japan for the first time in six years. Since its foundation in 1987, the National Ballet of Spain has seen many of its flamenco dancers rise to global prominence, including Joaquín Cortés and Antonio ...
Wes Anderson is one of those directors who, love him or hate him, has been remarkably consistent. Each film, from “Rushmore” right on down, is an artfully constructed and totally hermetic world unto itself, with flawed or absent father-figures, a closet’s worth of funky-yet-chic ...
Wagner-Verdi 200th birthday event The Park Hyatt Tokyo in Shinjuku will host the dinner reception Touches of Opera on Feb. 9 at The Ballroom on the hotel’s 39th floor. The event celebrates the bicentennial of the birth of two great composers — Giuseppe Verdi ...
