Business

ECB's Draghi says new European agency 'imperative'

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Thursday it is “imperative” that Europe’s leaders create a new agency with powers to restructure busted banks to help the region leave its economic and financial crisis behind once and for all. In the text of a ...

Bill threatens the lives of the poor

By tightening procedures to receive livelihood assistance, a bill just submitted to the Diet could end up raising the suicide rate and the number of deaths by hunger.

Food & Drink | JAPANESE KITCHEN

Springtime beans aim for the sky

by Makiko Itoh

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 ...

Issues | THE FOREIGN ELEMENT

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

by Stephen Carr

“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, ...

Stage

Shizuoka theater festival courts the avant-garde

by Nobuko Tanaka

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, ...

Baseball | SPORTS SCOPE

Fighters rookie Otani makes solid impression in mound debut

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.

More Sports

Tochimoto rallies to win TVh Cup

Kyodo

SAPPORO – Teenage ski jumper Shohei Tochimoto came from behind to edge veteran Noriaki Kasai for his first TVh Cup title on Sunday. The 18-year-old Tochimoto jumped 135 meters on his first attempt to place second to Kasai, who had the day’s longest leap of 142 meters, before overcoming the deficit with a 137.5-meter effort in the second round at the K-120 Okurayama hill in Hokkaido. Tochimoto earned a total of 291.5 points while Kasai, the UHB Cup winner a day earlier, settled for second on 287.9 points after a 131-meter jump on his second attempt proved short. Takanobu Okabe was third on 283.4 points.