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Mark Townsend
For Mark Townsend's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jan 26, 2014
'Masters' and 'dilettantes': The murky world of hit men in Britain
They are classified as novices, journeymen, dilettantes or masters. They are Britain's hit men — killers who ply their deadly trade in return for cash, and who for the first time have become the subject of a major academic study.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Nov 17, 2013
U.K.'s Roma 'excluded, ignored, neglected'
The headquarters of Britain's biggest Roma charity is a large building beside a major thoroughfare in east London, yet its official address is a P.O. box. The fear of reprisal against Britain's Roma community, even in London's most multicultural borough, remains real.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 9, 2013
The Central African Republic abandoned to its violent fate
It was dusk when armed Seleka rebels dragged the teenager from the road leading north toward Kobe. They pulled her into the jungle and raped her for several hours. Her friend, Lisa Moussa, 17, was more fortunate. As soon as she saw the rebels, she began running. They tried to kill her, shooting until she stumbled and fell. The gang caught her and frogmarched her to a police station and threatened to rape her until her father paid 6,000 Central African francs for her release.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
May 11, 2013
Gay footballers keep sexuality secret over reaction fears
At least eight professional footballers have revealed to colleagues that they are gay, but have refused to go public because they fear a backlash from fans.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 11, 2013
Obama's Guantanamo hunger strike problem
When the military doctors force-feed Guantanamo Bay detainee Fayiz al-Kandari with a tube shoved into his stomach there are three stages to the pain.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 4, 2013
Immigration shows no impact on U.K. violence
Crime in British neighborhoods that have experienced mass immigration from Eastern Europe over the last 10 years has fallen significantly, according to research that challenges a widely held view over the impact of foreigners in the United Kingdom.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 27, 2013
What will allow the last Briton in Guantanamo to come home?
Shaker Aamer remembers the frantic knocking on the door, the voices screaming for him to get out. Outside, in the dark streets of Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, the soldiers stripped him of his belongings at gunpoint and marched away their latest prisoner.

Longform

Historically, kabuki was considered the entertainment of the merchant and peasant classes, a far cry from how it is regarded today.
For Japan's oldest kabuki theater, the show must go on