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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / EMBASSY PRESENTS ECO-FRIENDLY LIFESTYLE
Jul 24, 2014

Fijian herbal medicine using coconut oil

With the growing interest in coconut oil as a healthy food and natural cosmetics ingredient, a workshop on ways to use it was held earlier this month at the Minato City Eco-Plaza in Tokyo.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 24, 2014

Taiwan says weather not seen as cause of plane crash that killed 48

Taiwan authorities said on Thursday that it was unlikely bad weather was the cause of the crash of a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane the previous day in which 48 people, including two French nationals, were killed.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 23, 2014

Ochiai hoping to lift Japan's 1-on-1 profile

Japan isn't exactly a place where one expects to find world-renowned streetball players.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jul 23, 2014

Dungy backs off latest remarks about Sam

NFL television analyst and former coach Tony Dungy backed off Tuesday from comments he "wouldn't want to deal with" the diversions arising from drafting Michael Sam, who is hoping to become the league's first openly gay player, saying he was referring to media attention surrounding such a move.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2014

The Scottish song heard around the world

"Sunshine on Leith" was a much-loved stage musical, featuring the songs of Scottish band The Proclaimers, that ran from 2007 to 2013. But when Dexter Fletcher signed on to direct the film adaptation of the musical, he had never seen it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2014

Love beyond the realms of erotic cinema

The varieties of love are many: From the chaste and platonic, to the sexually uninhibited and emotionally obsessed. In a long career as a pinku eiga (pink film) director Yuji Tajiri has concentrated on the latter end of the scale, but in his latest film, "Koppamijin (Broken Pieces)," he makes a successful,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2014

Sunshine on Leith

Who wouldn't want a man that walks 500 miles (and 500 more) just to be with you? In 1988 the Scottish band The Proclaimers released their album "Sunshine on Leith" featuring the song "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," which had all the buoyant freshness of a young June bride clutching a rose bouquet. The Proclaimers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2014

'Cuckoo's Nest' still flies in the face of oppression

Among the astonishing outburst of new American cinema in the 1970s, Milos Forman's multi-Oscar-winning "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" offered most Japanese moviegoers their first encounter with the peculiarly piercing eyes of Jack Nicholson, who played its central character, Randle P. McMurphy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2014

Kunio plays 'Hamlet' fast and loose

How do you imagine the Prince of Denmark? Perhaps as one of the famed portrayals by Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, Mel Gibson or Ethan Hawke — or simply as a weak-willed bore forever agonizing over "To be or not to be" and all that. Well, however you visualize the hero of Shakespeare's longest...
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 23, 2014

Ozawa sees risk of militarism with Abe

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe loosened the limits of the pacifist Constitution to drop a ban on the Self-Defense Forces fighting overseas, many experts said it was a step toward becoming a "normal country" able to do more in its own defense.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2014

Success of Chinese reform is key to BRICS' rise

Last week, BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) took a decisive step toward building institutions that could plausibly challenge the long geopolitical and economic ascendancy of the West. But Vladimir Putin's posturing at the meeting just hours before a Malaysia Airlines jetliner was shot down in Ukraine was one indication of the group's inability to offer an acceptable moral and political alternative to Western hegemony.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Jul 22, 2014

O-chūgen: Hand-picked gourmet gifts courtesy of the postman

Even though the Japanese didn't invent the idea of exchanging gifts, they seem to be doing everything they can to convince themselves that they did. This is a culture, after all, that celebrates Christmas without Jesus, piles White Day on top of Valentine's Day, and has developed a whole species of cloth...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / OSAKA RESTAURANTS
Jul 22, 2014

Pancotei: 'Kushikatsu' morsels prepared with obsessive care

Precision. This is the premise on which everything at Pancotei is based, from the angle of the ear of wild asparagus, the volume of the froth on a glass of beer, the suitability of a single Japanese maple leaf as an adornment to a dish, the knot in the master's tie. Precision, bordering on perfection....
CULTURE / Music
Jul 22, 2014

St. Vincent sits at a crossroads of 'the acceptable and the strange'

Chatting to Annie Clark, what is noticeable is how much she differs from her artistic alter ego. The music she creates as St. Vincent — ambitious art-rock that blends avant-garde sound with melodic richness — has been refined to the point that now, four albums in, she is an artist working entirely...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 22, 2014

Pianist Adachi delves further into the world of Croatian classical music

During his six-year stay in Croatia, pianist Tomohiro Adachi was introduced to a remarkable woman named Dora Pejacevic.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2014

Coca-Cola pays expats to breathe China's air

It's hard to believe that the 15 percent bonus Coca-Cola is said to be offering will do much to help it attract or retain expatriate employees to breathe China's polluted air.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 21, 2014

Nigerian journalists fear state censorship

Nigeria's press is traditionally free to write almost anything about anyone — whether it's true or not. But reporters fear a government sensitive to criticism is now cracking down, especially on coverage of the battle against Boko Haram.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2014

Aging Yokotas pine for daughter's return from North Korea as abductee talks begin

Shigeru and Sakie Yokota may have their best chance yet of being reunited with their daughter, Megumi, 37 years after she was abducted by North Korean agents at age 13.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 19, 2014

Lost Tokyo ... rediscovered

People who have lived in the capital for more than a few years generally claim to know Tokyo pretty well. We discover a forgotten side to the city that suggests they may not know it quite as well as they think.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 19, 2014

Yabusame archers of the lonely Chugoku Mountains

What are those peculiar scarecrow figures, lolling about the villages of the Chugoku Mountains?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 19, 2014

Politician Nonomura weeps and the world laughs

"Laugh, and the world laughs with you; weep, and you weep alone. For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth, but has trouble enough of its own."
EDITORIALS
Jul 19, 2014

Ingrained ideas on gender roles

A recent poll of men and women 20 to 40 years old by a Japanese research institute finds that a surprising 40 percent of the respondents believe husbands should work full time while wives stay at home — despite Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to increase the number of women in the workplace.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 18, 2014

EU court adviser says extreme obesity can be disability at work

A European Union law barring job discrimination against the disabled may apply to extremely obese people, an adviser to Europe's top court said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2014

More needed than NRA safety nod

Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority has effectively given the green light for restarting an idled Kyushu Electric nuclear power plant in Kagoshima Prefecture under safety standards updated a year ago. After a period of public comment and local government approvals, two reactors of the plant, in the city of Satsumasendai, could restart by yearend.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo