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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2013

Kawasaki has a plan for Tokyo Designers Week

Born in Toyama Prefecture in 1948, Kenji Kawasaki is the founder and producer of Tokyo Designers Week (TDW), as well as chairman of Design Association, an NPO seeking to create a new culture of “innovation” in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 24, 2013

U.S. keeps Pakistani officials in loop on drone strikes

Despite repeatedly denouncing the CIA's drone campaign, top officials in Pakistan's government have for years secretly endorsed the program and routinely received classified briefings on strikes and casualty counts, according to top-secret CIA documents and Pakistani diplomatic memos obtained by The...
CULTURE
Oct 22, 2013

Birth-control pills work well — except when they don't

I used the pill for a decade before I began having children in my early 30s. It seemed like a foolproof method of birth control.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Oct 22, 2013

Mass shootings in U.S. 'triple,' says Holder

Washington AP
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Oct 21, 2013

Elevation signs

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 21, 2013

Thatcher-esque disparities a reality under Abe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe evokes the late Margaret Thatcher as he repeats 'there is no alternative' to his platform of economic change. One of the byproducts: prospects for a Thatcher-type division of wealth.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2013

You may find mei mystifying

It's almost Halloween again, so before I set out my カボチャ提灯 (kabocha chōchin, jack-o'-lantern), I thought the time is right to take up the topic of 迷信 (meishin, superstition). The first character is 迷, meaning lost or puzzled, made by combining the phonetic 米 (alternatively read mai,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2013

Firms hiring more foreign students

Japanese companies surveyed are increasingly looking to hire foreign students from China, South Korea and other Asian countries despite the less-than-rosy political relationships.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 20, 2013

Femen to take topless protests to United Kingdom

They started out in Ukraine, established a thriving headquarters in Paris and last year succeeded in ambushing a startled Vladimir Putin during a visit to a German trade fair. Now the controversial activists of Femen, notorious for their topless protests on issues such as prostitution, abortion and the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 19, 2013

Abe ought to show a red card to hate speech now

Last week I ended this column by noting that Myanmar (also known as Burma) can ill afford bigotry and intolerance. Neither can Japan. The outpouring here of hate speech targeting ethnic Korean residents is a disturbing development even if it is not representative. And certainly, it is encouraging that...
Reader Mail
Oct 19, 2013

Resilient myth robs sports of their merits

The Oct. 12 editorial "Preparing for the 2020 Olympics" shows how deeply into the popular imagination false thinking about organized sports has burrowed. It's dug in like a flea, and fleas are notoriously resilient.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2013

Yemen teeters between hope and division as tensions rise

Uniting a Yemeni 'homeland' around similar ideas while rebellion brews in the north, a secessionist movement builds in the south and a U.S. drone war carries on is no easy task.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 18, 2013

Controversy over Hodgson's joke a bunch of hogwash

The feel-good factor lasted 24 hours.
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2013

Universities' problems unrelated

I still cannot agree with Dipak Basu's recent letters opining against continuance of the kanji system. Basu has argued about curriculums and programs at universities, and the problems that Japan's universities have been suffering from for a long time.
JAPAN
Oct 15, 2013

Ban lifted on 'nikkei' who got axed, airfare

The government lifts its ban on the return of Japanese-Brazilians who received financial help in 2009 to fly home when they were thrown out of work during the global financial crisis.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 15, 2013

Abe defense posture welcome: U.S. intel expert

In contrast to neighboring countries, former U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair welcomes the efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinterpret the pacifist Constitution and bolster the nation's defense capabilities, saying Japan needs to adapt itself to the changing security landscape...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Oct 15, 2013

Debt-ceiling breach to push U.S. economy into free fall, without safety net

The Obama administration will have to decide whether to delay — or possibly suspend — tens of billions of dollars in Social Security checks, food stamps and unemployment benefits if negotiations to raise the federal debt ceiling are not resolved this week.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Oct 13, 2013

Japan's decreasing population

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications made public on the 28th that the population of Japan based on the basic register of residents as of the end of March this year was 126,393,679.
Reader Mail
Oct 12, 2013

Veterans group sees last days

I have learned that the Japanese Disabled Veterans Association decided on Oct. 3 to disband because its members have aged. Few Japanese know that such an organization still exists in Japan, but it is something Japanese should remember.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Oct 11, 2013

Strays become woman's calling

It's a typical evening in the Mercer-Tojo household. Susan Mercer, 37, has just settled down their 2-year-old for the night, tucking him in as he cuddles with five or six cats. Several dogs prowl restlessly, eager for a pat or a kind word. Scooping a kitten off the floor, Mercer settles down to wait...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 10, 2013

Earth's climate change tipping point to start in 2020, new model predicts

Locations around the globe will soon reach climatic tipping points, with some in tropical regions — home to most of the world's biodiversity — feeling the first impacts of unprecedented eras of elevated temperatures as soon as seven years from now, according to a study released Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2013

Tea party embraces a proven loser

Tea party-affiliated Republicans in the U.S. House are gearing up again, this time on a grander scale, to threaten action that will end up helping the other side.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2013

Death of a Vietnamese patriot: Vo Nguyen Giap

Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietnamese teacher and journalist whose ragtag communist insurgency went on to defeat the the world's two most powerful armies, is dead at 102.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight