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Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2015

U.S. regional ambitions seen favoring Japan in Australian submarine tender

Washington's strategic ambitions in Asia are looming large over Australia's multibillion dollar tender for new submarines, giving Japan a possible edge over competitors from Germany and France, defense and industry sources say.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 3, 2015

Rebranded as democracy advocate, ex-coup leader Buhari had tech leg up in Nigeria polls

Technology played a decisive role in helping Muhammadu Buhari become the first Nigerian to oust a sitting president at the ballot box, from social media campaigning to biometric machines preventing the widespread rigging that marred past polls.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 3, 2015

Summoned investigators fail to appear at New Orleans hearing for millionaire murder suspect Durst

Robert Durst, the real estate scion awaiting extradition to California to face a murder charge, will remain jailed in Louisiana after investigators his attorneys wanted to question did not appear at a court hearing on Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 2, 2015

Cinderella's new moral: be rich or be a pumpkin

Kenneth Branagh's remake of 'Cinderella' carries a troubling economic message.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 2, 2015

Be kind to live long, world's oldest woman says from Arkansas

The world's oldest person, 116-year-old Gertrude Weaver of Arkansas, believes the key to longevity is treating other people kindly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 2, 2015

'April Fools' gets the wrong end of the practical-joke schtick

The Japanese film industry has themed many movies around that imported holiday, Christmas, or, more specifically, Christmas Eve, which has become Japan's date night of date nights. Even those outside the local film industry now celebrate special days that originated elsewhere, including Halloween, Valentine's...
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2015

Exporting ‘Wild Style’: Fab 5 Freddy remembers when Bronx hip-hop invaded Tokyo

Flashback to the Japan of 1983: Childish idol Seiko Matsuda was topping the charts, Japanese guys were trying to dress like Boy George and kids in discos vainly watched themselves dance in floor-to-ceiling mirrors as Frankie told them to "Relax." Believe it or not, this is the exact moment hip-hop hit...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 1, 2015

Robert Altman has his fingerprints all over 'Birdman'

In 1992 Robert Altman made "The Player," a scathing satire on how shallow Hollywood filmmaking had become, and it came damn close to winning him an Oscar for best director. The next year, he made "Short Cuts," based on the stories of Raymond Carver, and again came up short at the Oscars.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 1, 2015

Do Western men have it bad in Japan?: views from the Fuji Five Lakes

Do interviewees agree with the controversial premise of Olga Garnova's recent Foreign Agenda column, 'Spare a thought for the Western men trapped in Japan'?
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2015

Tokyo amends noise-pollution rules in bid to draw more nurseries

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government amended its rules on noise pollution on Wednesday in an effort to make it easier for nurseries to open in the capital, where the number of children yet to find a day care facility is the largest among all prefectures.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 1, 2015

Why economic sanctions on Russia don't work

The more the West increases its economic pressure against Russia, the less likely it becomes that Russians will engage in dissent against the Putin regime.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Apr 1, 2015

Joy of life

JAPAN
Mar 31, 2015

Ex-U.S. nuclear chief says tritium water at Fukushima No. 1 can be dumped safely

A former chief U.S. nuclear regulator asserted Tuesday that the massive volumes of tritium-tainted water stored at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant can be "safely" dumped into the sea after it is diluted to reduce the levels of radioactive tritium below the legal limit.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2015

Why arming U.S. allies can be like sending weapons to the enemy

There are two ways the U.S. can arm an ally such as the Kurds. It can donate, or sell cheap, the latest U.S.-made weaponry. Or it can send foreign-made weaponry — Russian usually — through a middleman.
JAPAN / OBITUARY
Mar 31, 2015

Obituary: Jane D. Rees

Longtime columnist for The Japan Times and other publications Jane Rees passed away on March 12 at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. She was 95.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2015

Are we sure co-pilot was the killer?

News reports on accusations that Andreas Lubitz, the Germanwings co-pilot, purposely brought down Flight 9525 over the French Alps have rushed to convict him.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 31, 2015

Nago: What should the world learn from the Battle of Okinawa?

Jon Mitchell speaks to locals and visitors in Nago, the proposed site of a new base to replace the U.S. Marines' Futenma facility.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 30, 2015

Submitting yourself to the 50 shades of arigatō gozaimasu

Do you remember the first day of Japanese class or the first day you resolved to finally learn the language on your own? What about the very first Japanese words you ever learned? There's a good chance arigatō gozaimasu (ありがとうございます) were those first words and/or you learned them...
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 30, 2015

Suicide attack on Afghan lawmaker kills three in Kabul

An Afghan member of parliament survived a targeted suicide attack in Kabul on Sunday but three people, including a child, were killed and eight others injured, police and government sources said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 28, 2015

Christian Dada's Masanori Morikawa: making his own way

Tokyo's fashion fans spent six days in the middle of this month looking at the city from the lofty viewpoint afforded by Shibuya's Hikarie building, and yet for all the excitement that was generated over the coming fall/winter collections, the rest of the city still showed general ambivalence toward...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 28, 2015

Soraku-en: Kobe's well-grounded garden

On Jan. 17, 1995, as the city of Kobe suffered one of the country's worst earthquakes in living memory, the rocks, artificial hills and root systems of Soraku-en, a Meiji period (1868-1912) circuit garden, held firm.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2015

'License to Play' compiles research on all things ludic in Japanese culture

The stereotype of a stressed-out salaryman, vacantly sipping on his post-overtime can of beer, does little to confirm that Japanese society is deeply clued into notions of fun and play.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 28, 2015

'Japanese New York' reveals the migrant experience of Japanese artists in the Big Apple

In "Japanese New York" author Olga Kanzaki Sooudi draws on her observations of Japanese artists in Lower Manhattan to paint a vivid picture of migrants in New York. Her study includes biographical and fictional representations of the migrant experience as relayed in the literature of Mori Ogai, the films...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Mar 28, 2015

Akiko Shinoda: 'Waste all your time you intend to waste while you're still young'

Fashion contact Akiko Shinoda on her first Harajuku street brand and Cyndi Lauper
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 28, 2015

Fungi glow to attract creatures

If you think you see a glowing mushroom, you might not be having a psychedelic hallucination. Some mushrooms indeed are bioluminescent, including one that sprouts among decaying leaves at the base of young palm trees in Brazilian coconut forests. Scientists have long wondered what possible reason there...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 28, 2015

Primordial sea predator with spiky claws unearthed in Canada

A fossil site in the Canadian Rockies that provides a wondrous peek into life on Earth more than half a billion years ago has offered up the remains of an intriguing sea creature, a four-eyed arthropod predator that wielded a pair of spiky claws.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past