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LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Oct 6, 2013

Hearing on the tax rise

An intensive meeting began on the 26th at the prime minister's office to examine economic and financial future trends. It will hear from 60 people composed of delegates from various fields, including economic specialists and experts, as to the raising of the consumption tax by the Abe administraion.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 6, 2013

Unique ginkgoes are living fossils

This fall, the fan-shaped leaves of the ginkgo tree will turn a golden yellow, and in the silence of the night, the tree will offer a little arboreal tremor and drop its entire canopy in a total release of its unique and primal foliage.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 5, 2013

Sweet times on sugar-isle Kohama

In our minds, islands should be counter worlds, autarchies unsullied by continental concerns. We should arrive spellbound, leave anointed by their beauty.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Oct 5, 2013

Online drug bazaar's alleged boss paired eBay-style site with heroin, murder plot

The Silk Road website, before being shut this week by the U.S., was a cyber-bazaar of the criminal underworld that connected buyers and sellers of heroin, cocaine and hacking services. It combined eBay-style customer reviews and shipping tips with an open disregard for the law.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 3, 2013

Double the trouble, twice the joy for Japan's hafu

Until about 10 years ago, the standard Japanese image of kids of mixed blood was that they were 1) gorgeous, 2) rich and 3) able to live in Japan with none of the kinks and hang out at Azabu clubs when they were 13. In high school, my girlfriends scorned their own Japanese heritage. The common reply...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2013

Success eludes Putin on some foreign policy fronts

lthough Russian President Vladimir Putin has had some success strengthening Moscow's position in the Middle East, the 'near abroad' area to Russia's west is not marching in step.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2013

Suffering from the lack of satire

Regarding Noriko Fujita's Sept. 29 letter, "When cartoons don't go our way": Fujita seems to have absolutely no idea what satire is. This is not surprising in a country whose media habitually treat politicians with deference and where any kind of political satire is lacking. Consequently ordinary people...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 2013

Is the GOP's Rand Paul America's leading liberal?

America's 'liberal' president and his Democratic allies aren't fighting the good fight. The most liberal politician in America these days is the right-winger Rand Paul.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 2, 2013

Koizumi takes up post for Tohoku reconstruction

Shinjiro Koizumi's appointment Monday as parliamentary secretary in charge of Tohoku's recovery has generated much attention amid mounting criticism of the government for failing to speed up reconstruction efforts or end the radioactive water spill into the sea at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Oct 2, 2013

'Frack off': U.K. energy debate erupts

This might seem a bizarre place for a battle over energy policy in Britain.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Sep 30, 2013

Hashimoto's Osaka merger dream in jeopardy

Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) co-leader and Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto was facing a critical battle. And he lost.
EDITORIALS
Sep 28, 2013

Rally against hate speech

Last week's march in Shinjuku, a rebuke to recent anti-Korean rallies, reasserted Japan as a country whose values include tolerance and a general desire to eliminate discrimination.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 28, 2013

One-fifth in H.K. 'living in poverty'

A fifth of Hong Kong's population is living in poverty, underscoring the challenge Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying faces in seeking to narrow a record wealth gap.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2013

Suede plays it anew with 'Bloodsports' album

Ten years ago, Suede was in the process of fizzling out to a backdrop of apathy. For a band whose initial brilliance inadvertently help kick-start Britpop in the 1990s, it all seemed unedifying.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 25, 2013

Seiji Ozawa ends summer on high note

Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe reportedly once said “God is in the details.” Conductor Seiji Ozawa would literally agree. He meets The Japan Times at a cafe he frequents in Tokyo's Seijo district.
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2013

What will replace the signature?

Regarding the Bloomberg Global Perspective of Sept. 20, "The case against cursive writing": I do not think less of children or young adults who cannot write because they were not taught cursive handwriting in school. It is a laborious, lengthy, time-consuming lesson in an environment where teachers are...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013

Overcoming regrets before they overcome you

Research is converging on the notion that what you regret, how often you do so and with what intensity have a big impact on our mental and physical well-being.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013

The limits of multitasking

Studies of the effects of chronic multitasking suggest that the overwhelming risk of letting no task go untended is that you do nothing well.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 24, 2013

Is China after our inventions?

Some things never change. For as long as I can remember, people in the west have been paranoid about the Orient — and about China in particular. I grew up in an ultra-devout Catholic household in rural Ireland and I remember my mother being terrified by what people then called "the yellow peril," by...
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Sep 24, 2013

Al-Shabab nimbler under new leader

The attack that killed 69 people in a Kenyan shopping mall over the weekend was the first regional operation undertaken by the new leadership of Somalia's al-Shabab militants following a bloody power struggle.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2013

Art of national self-appraisal

Legislative activity in Moscow has been on the rise of late as Russia's parliament issues one new law after another — many of them antidemocratic and anti-American.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 21, 2013

Upgrading from four wheels to two or three

Careening through the winding streets of Chennai, India, in the back of black and yellow auto-rickshaws, I am always amazed by the drivers' audacity — or perhaps a better term would be "death wish." These are the subcontinent's equivalent of New York's exuberant cabbies, but these drivers are much...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 21, 2013

Internet NPO links kids worldwide

Earlier this month, when the nation's Olympic bid ambassador Christel Takigawa referred to "omotenashi" (the spirit of Japanese-style hospitality) in her speech to the International Olympic Committee, the term quickly turned into a buzzword in Japan.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 21, 2013

Ancient tales by the 'savages' of Hokkaido have lessons for today

Imagine living in a culture with none or very little of the following: politics, economics, property, history, time, agriculture, money, war ambition, heaven, hell, progress, writing ...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2013

Silver linings for a golden age

Despite the massive challenges that countries like Syria, Somalia, Egypt, and Afghanistan currently face, and global challenges like food security and climate change, the world has reason to be hopeful about the future.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Sep 19, 2013

Candles to remember Tohoku

News media continue to report on the disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, but it's important to remember that people across the Tohoku region are still recovering from the Great East Japan Earthquake that happened there two years ago.

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