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Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Apr 27, 2014

Family's firstborn most likely to excel: study

What do Angela Merkel, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Christine Lagarde, Oprah Winfrey, Sheryl Sandberg, JK Rowling and Beyonce have in common? Other than riding high in Forbes list of the world's most powerful women, they are also all firstborn children in their families.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2014

Watch out for colleges with 'free speech zones'

Designating a limited 'free speech zone' is one way in which American colleges try to squelch spontaneous action or immediate responses to controversial news.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 26, 2014

'Patriot wives' put country before gender

In a 1989 essay, "Coming Down Again: After the Age of Excess," from a newly edited collection of her writings, the late American critic Ellen Willis discussed a dilemma the women's movement faced in the '70s. With the advent of the '60s counterculture came so-called free love, a throwing-off of social...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 26, 2014

'Granta' opens a window into Japanese literature

With such a piddling amount of Japanese fiction finding its way into English translation each year, you learn to make the most of what you can get. So when this year's Tokyo International Literary Festival marked the launch of not one, but two compendia of Japan-related writing, it felt like an embarrassment of riches. In addition to the latest issue of 'Monkey Business,' the annual journal edited by veteran translators Motoyuki Shibata and Ted Goossen, the festival welcomed the arrival of a Japan-themed issue of the British quarterly, 'Granta,' released simultaneously in English and Japanese.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 26, 2014

The Box Man

'The Box Man' is an existential work, revealing questions about identity and the place of man in society. The story begins in a diary format that reads like a how-to manual, as the narrator details the tools necessary to build a boxlike outfit complete with an observation slit for vision.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Apr 26, 2014

Lucy Birmingham: 'Don't give up on your dream no matter how many people tell you it's wrong'

'The world can learn a lot from the Japanese about how to get up and start over again despite unimagineable tragedy.'
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2014

Jazz Day to get its due in Osaka

Underscoring its long love affair with jazz, Japan this year will hold its International Jazz Day (April 30) in Osaka for the first time.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Apr 25, 2014

Interconnectivity exposes global shipping fleet to hacking threat

The next hacker playground: the open seas — and the oil tankers and container vessels that ship 90 percent of the goods moved around the planet.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 25, 2014

Republican senators blast rebellious Nevada rancher's racist remarks

Two Republican U.S. senators who voiced support for a Nevada cattleman in his showdown with federal agents over grazing rights on public land condemned recent remarks by the rebellious rancher musing about whether African-Americans would be "better off as slaves."
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 24, 2014

Did Barack, Shinzo get down to sushi or business?

U.S. President Barack Obama had his first session with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday in Tokyo, treated at what is often touted as the best-ever sushi bar in Japan: Sukiyabashi Jiro in Tokyo's Ginza district.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014

'The Amazing Spider-Man 2'

Spider-Man returns once again — something other superheroes also have a tendency of doing. Marvel Comics' entomological superhero, aka Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), is up to his web-spinning ways again in "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" — the second in the rebooted "Spider-Man" movie series launched...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 24, 2014

College students' savings habits indicate anxiety about the future

In the last 10 years student savings has increased by 80 percent.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2014

BOJ will not buy bonds indefinitely

Bank of Japan Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has said the BOJ will not buy bonds just to keep down the government's debt-servicing costs after it achieves its goal of stable 2 percent inflation.
Reader Mail
Apr 23, 2014

Tax hike hits hospitals hard

Unlike many countries that do not tax essentials such as food and medicine, Japan's consumption tax hike from 5 percent to 8 percent applies to both, and will negatively affect hospitals and clinics. While grocers can increase prices 3 percent to cope with the increase and pass it on to the consumer,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 23, 2014

Top U.S. court upholds Michigan ban on college affirmative action

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday further undermined the use of racial preferences in higher education by upholding a voter-approved Michigan law that banned the practice in decisions on which students to admit to state universities.
MORE SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Apr 22, 2014

Ex-NFL star Johnson happy for new shot with CFL

Don't you just love serendipitous dovetailing?
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE PERSISTENT VEGETARIAN
Apr 22, 2014

In search of the fruits of Okinawa's oceans

Seven years ago, I bit into a delicate variety of seaweed called umi-budō, or "sea grapes." I remember sampling a few dishes at Unjami, an Okinawan-style izakaya off Nakano Broadway in Tokyo (5-55-1 Nakano, Nakano-ku, Tokyo; 03-5345-5836), but the umi-budō stood out as something special. These tiny,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 22, 2014

'Jazz mecca' Osaka to host star-studded global concert

What comes to mind when you think of Osaka? Maybe takoyaki (octopus dumplings), the Hanshin Tigers, Universal Studios Japan, wacky comedy and down-to-earth, unpretentious people.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Apr 22, 2014

Cafe Ibaraki Yu: Former bathhouse offers a bite of the old days

The city of Ibaraki in the north of Osaka is home to Tadao Ando's Church of the Light, a modernist concrete masterpiece. Out of the spotlight, another architect in Ibaraki has been quietly but busily breathing life into buildings whose glory days would otherwise be behind them. Cafe Ibaraki Yu might...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Apr 21, 2014

Mt. Gox CEO Karpeles sought both control, escape

In June 2011, when customers of now-bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox agitated for proof that the Tokyo-based firm was still solvent after a hacking attack, CEO Mark Karpeles turned to the comedy science fiction novel "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy".
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2014

A moment of truth for the women of India

"The Power of 49": That's how Indian activists have started describing the potential influence of women, who make up just under 50 percent of the population, in the country's ongoing elections. Political parties are courting women for the first time as a bloc, a transformative force that could upend...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 21, 2014

Artists' mission to revitalize an onsen town

It begins with a long, slow hiss. The valves open, and a thick fog is released into the air, pouring from the roof of Dogo Onsen Honkan, the famous three-tiered bathhouse built in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, in 1894. It flows down the side of the building, past bathers in bathrobes on the open balcony...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Apr 21, 2014

Mario returns on wheels and in plastic, and the gun of a giant "Macross" robot fits in your hand

Start your Mario Karts
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 21, 2014

Jaws, the prequel: Scientists find the 'Model T Ford' of sharks

You have heard of the Ford Model T, the famed early 20th-century automobile that was the forerunner of the modern car. But how about the Model T shark?
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Apr 20, 2014

'STAPgate' shows Japan must get back to basics in science

On Jan. 30, as NHK kicked off its evening news program with upbeat music, footage aired of a young woman with immaculately coiffed brown hair wearing pearl earrings and her trademark "kappogi," a Japanese-style white apron.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

India's status quo is riskier

The political party that proudly led India into independence has been reduced to a self-serving coterie of sycophants, courtiers and court jesters. Is the status quo more risky than the 'Modi alternative' in the current election?

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers