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The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“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, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
Dried Anpo persimmons from Fukushima Prefecture are famed for staying fresh and juicy. However, for the second successive autumn, 90 percent of the crop has had to be discarded due to it registering radioactive contamination levels above legally set limits. Mushrooms, a staple of ...
Boy meets girl. They fall in love. What happens after that … well, it depends on the individuals, the mores of their generation and the availability of a few square meters of private space. Back in 1968, a year after I arrived in Japan, ...
Australians have always been uncomfortable with their nation’s geography. Ever since Europeans invaded and began to colonize the Antipodean continent in the second half of the 18th century, settlers — whether there of their own accord or sent by force as convicts — have ...
“My mother having dementia turned into a chance for us to relate to each other again and even have fun in each other’s company.” That’s what film director Yuka Sekiguchi came to realize when she returned to Japan in 2009, after 29 years in ...
Futaro Gamagori was born into a destitute household. His father was a no-good womanizing lush; his mother, unable to afford medical care, died of illness. The young Futaro sets out on a life of serious crime — thieving, raping, murdering. He eventually becomes the ...
If you visit the Alice Pavilion at the Shika nuclear power plant in the town of Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, you will be happily entertained by Prof. Aomushi (Blue Caterpillar), who, water pipe in mouth, sits in the sun and, together with Alice, “teaches you ...
Not many would remember the name Norris Poulson. I was 15 when first secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev made his historic visit to the United States in September 1959. There was little love lost then between the two ...
“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” is a satirical book by American writer Shepherd Mead that was a huge best-seller in 1952 before being made into a musical that premiered on Broadway nine years later. It tells the story of J. Pierrepont ...
There is no doubt about it: We humans are, at best, a peculiar species. It seems that we feel obliged to display brazen hostility toward each other, to the point of engaging in violence, before we can reconcile to friendship. This was brought home ...
Thank god for all things virtual. If it weren’t for the miracle of the Internet, I confess that I would never have stumbled upon a site — no, a sight! — that inspires and enlightens in equal measure. Their motto is “Prepare to believe,” ...
The renowned Polish-born film and television director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland has created a stunning work about life and death in the Lviv ghetto during the closing months of World War II. Her film, titled “In Darkness,” stands as a metaphor of hope for ...
There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke about two rival groups of archeologists who cannot agree on the age of a mummy discovered in Central Asia. At their wits’ end, they call in the NKVD — the name of the dreaded KGB in Stalin’s ...