Search - u_times

 
 
OLYMPICS
Jun 19, 2014

Holding 2020 Games in August dangerous

I was reading the official document submitted last fall by the Tokyo Governor's office which represented Tokyo's winning bid for the 2020 Olympics, the other day, and wondered what the penalty, if any, was for false advertising.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014

Paul Haggis: Spinning reality into a web of fiction

"Today, too often, we've gotten used to telling the audience things in bold, in all-caps or underlined, and solving everything for everybody." So says Paul Haggis, the screenwriter and director who won Oscars back-to-back with "Million Dollar Baby" in 2004 and "Crash" in 2005. His new film, "Third Person,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014

'Third Person'

We meet Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde — the two stars of "Third Person" — inside an upscale hotel in Paris.She knocks on the door to his room, and he seems pleased to see her...Or is he? They tease each other, blowing hot and cold, crackling with electricity, until she eventually joins him in bed....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jun 19, 2014

Noma comes to Tokyo; Hawaiian beer garden; summer skyrockets

Noma comes to Tokyo
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 18, 2014

Sharp plans elliptical smartphone screens

Sharp Corp. is developing flat-panel displays in different shapes as it wins orders from Chinese smartphone makers.
Reader Mail
Jun 18, 2014

Hashimoto owes liberty to Allies

Regarding the June 17 article "Hashimoto says WWII Allies set up 'comfort stations' after soldiers committed D-Day rapes": How dare that buffoon Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto insult the Allied soldiers who fought at D-Day!
Reader Mail
Jun 18, 2014

Joint development of resources

Regarding the June 8 wire service article "Abe holds talks with Pope Francis": Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reported to have talked with Pope Francis about ways of promoting peace and stability in Asia. East Asia is riven with tensions over the large number of small islands claimed by China in the East...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

A window of opportunity opens for Iraq's Kurds

If the Kurds of Iraq play their cards right, they could end up with the borders they want, fully recognized by a government in Baghdad that has been saved from ISIS fanatics by Kurdish troops.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

Hostages' families face impossible choices

An American journalist who was kidnapped by the same Afghan Taliban faction that held Bowe Bergdahl for five years argues that the real solution to ending kidnappings for ransom is to reduce the world's pockets of ungoverned spaces.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 16, 2014

Japan's gambit in WWI set stage for a dark future

One hundred years ago, on June 28, 1914, Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo. It was the spark that led, one month later, to the beginning of World War I, which originally was expected to be confined to Europe and end in weeks. By the time it ended on Nov. 11, 1918, an estimated...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 16, 2014

Harassers exploit Gaba's 'man-to-man' lesson format

The first sign that Olivia's Gaba lesson would be anything but ordinary came when her student insisted during the warmup that he didn't like wearing clothes.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2014

Ambitious Japanese fans deflated by Samurai Blue’s first-match loss in World Cup

Japanese soccer fans fall into a funk after the national team loses its first World Cup match, including nearly 12,000 who watched the game at a Yokohama stadium.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Jun 15, 2014

True confessions of a bijogā (beautiful jogger)

This is the story of a 39-year-old female runner who works in advertising and runs six times a week.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2014

Developing nations reversing the brain drain

Something remarkable is happening in some developing countries. The brain drain has reversed its flow, and there is reason to be optimistic that the vicious cycle of migrating talent can be broken.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 15, 2014

Oh, the places we'll go in 2020 — unless, of course, we won't

In 2020 the Tokyo Olympics will be here! And all our troubles will be gone. Unless, of course, they won't. Because, sometimes, they don't.
JAPAN / View from Osaka
Jun 14, 2014

Is 'rational' Toru Hashimoto acting irrationally?

Just how little influential political or intellectual opposition in Japan is there to fundamentally conservative politics and economic theories touting the wisdom of the corporate mentality? Well consider this: Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka and co-founder of Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 14, 2014

Proposed NPB expansion appears unlikely

The office of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made a suggestion on May 22 that Japanese professional baseball should expand from its current 12 teams to 16. Prospective locations for four new franchises were listed, and the idea would be to help further economic growth in some of the more rural areas of the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 14, 2014

Happy endings: foreigners working in Japan's film industry

Film is supposed to be a universal language, but the film business in any given country is usually run by the locals for the locals. The one great exception is Hollywood, which has been making films for the world since the silent days and is open to talent, preferably English speaking, from around the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 14, 2014

One woman's mark on the nation's Constitution

In December 2012, 89-year-old Beate Sirota Gordon knew she was dying. The women's rights advocate and tireless promoter of cross-cultural exchange in the arts was ill at home in the New York borough of Manhattan. Yet, she pulled herself out of bed one morning, dressed formally and sat in a chair to await...
COMMUNITY / Voices / OVERHEARD
Jun 14, 2014

Seeing is believing

English man to Japanese woman: I don't see what you see.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 14, 2014

Noda says Abe buying into 'voodoo economics'

Sour grapes are in season in Tokyo as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's predecessor steps up and slams the incumbent's tax plans.
Reader Mail
Jun 14, 2014

Did Edo ancestors have a better life?

"Boohoo, boohoo, life is such a bore!" It must be a living death to be chained to a corporate desk from morning until late evening, five or even six days a week.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 14, 2014

Taliban shifting from religious group to criminal enterprise: U.N.

The Taliban's reliance on extortion and kidnappings, along with narcotics and illegal mining operations, is transforming it from a group driven by religious ideology into a criminal enterprise hungry for profit, U.N. sanctions monitors said in a new report.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 13, 2014

Ukrainian forces reclaim port city from rebels

Ukrainian government forces reclaimed the port city of Mariupol from pro-Russian separatists in heavy fighting on Friday and said they had regained control of a long stretch of the border with Russia.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person