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A sit-in by visa violators and their families entered its second day Tuesday in front of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau with protesters seeking government good will. The action at the bureau in Minato Ward is being organized by the Asian People’s Friendship Society, ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Takashi Miike's blood-soaked vengeance tale, one of two Japanese films being shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, draws the biggest boos so far, with critics savaging it as overacted and cliched.
Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile? That’s the feeling I’m getting about Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympics. With just over three months to go until the IOC ...
For Eric Talmadge's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
MINAMISOMA, Fukushima Pref. — The farmhouse sits at the end of a mud-caked, one-lane road strewn with toppled trees, the decaying carcasses of dead pigs and large debris deposited by the March 11 tsunami. Stranded alone inside the unheated, dark home is 75-year-old Kunio ...
FUKUSHIMA — At the edge of a no-man’s land around the Fukushima No. 1 reactor complex lies a grassy athletic village that now serves as base camp for an army of workers battling the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. In regular rotation, groups are ...
FUKUSHIMA — When the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the northeast March 11, residents who had been prepared by years of drills knew exactly what to do: They scrambled for cover until the shaking stopped, then ran for higher ground to avoid the giant ...
In a deal that could be worth billions of dollars and determine one of the primary fighter jets in Asia for decades to come, European aircraft makers are trying to get Japan to do something it has never done before — snub America. U.S. ...
Emperor Akihito is a quiet, studious type. The paragon of respectability. But, oh, what a family! In a country where old folks still remember when it was a serious crime to defame the Imperial Household, Japan’s tabloid-style weekly magazines just can’t get enough unflattering ...
Lonely astronauts on the International Space Station may soon be getting an android friend from Japan. And for the folks back home, it will tweet. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is considering putting a talking humanoid robot on the International Space Station to watch ...
YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. — When the USS Charlotte arrived for a recent port call, some of its crew were surely relieved to find themselves in Japan, traditionally a smoker’s haven. As if life on a submarine wasn’t already stressful enough, with its cramped quarters, ...
Japan prides itself on the world’s longest life expectancy but is struggling with a disturbing footnote to that statistic — revelations that hundreds of people listed as its oldest citizens are either long dead or haven’t been heard from for decades. The mystery of ...
NAGOYA — Sumo is more than a sport to Japan. It’s like a religion, a bastion of traditional culture and a matter of national pride. Wrestlers aren’t just athletes — they are icons, role models and, often, larger-than-life heroes. Unless, of course, they are ...
The U.S.-made RQ-4 Global Hawk spy plane looks like an upside-down double-decker bus with wings, flies slowly, offers zero leg room — and is one of the most coveted pieces of military technology in the world. Impressed by its successes in combat for the ...
GINOWAN, Okinawa Pref. — In Japan, where land is a precious commodity, many U.S. bases boast golf courses, football fields and giant shopping malls whose food courts offer everything from Taco Bell to Subway to Starbucks. They are the most visible point of grievance ...
GINOWAN, Okinawa Pref. — When the U.S. took over the airfield here in the closing days of World War II, it was surrounded by sugar cane fields and the smoldering battlegrounds of Okinawa. It is now the focus of a deepening dispute that is ...