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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 8, 2014

Oreskaband vocalist iCas talks politics and 10 years in the music game

The first topic that comes up when I sit down with Oreskaband's singer/guitarist Naoko "iCas" Yoshioka isn't music or her band, it's a lunchtime variety show called "Waratte Iitomo!" The finale aired March 31 and she asks me if I saw it, which I hadn't. She insists that I watch it.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 8, 2014

Bill to lower referendum voting age submitted to Lower House

The ruling and opposition parties submit a bill to the Lower House to lower the age from which people can vote in a referendum to 18.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2014

'Gods' edging out robots at Toyota facility

Inside Toyota Motor Corp.'s oldest plant, there's a corner where humans have taken over from robots in thwacking glowing lumps of metal into crankshafts. This is Mitsuru Kawai's vision of the future.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2014

Language of Indian politics

Even those Indians who are assumed will automatically vote their caste in the current election have choices and will make a number of fairly sophisticated mental trade-offs.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2014

Don't let Cold War warriors reboot their dated thinking

The hundred think tanks that bloomed, and the thousands of mediocre academics and pseudo-experts who found easy employment in the universities and the media, feel obliged to make themselves relevant and important again after Russian President Vladimir Putin's land grab. Don't let them reboot the Cold War.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2014

Host clubs: a hotbed of human trafficking

The Japanese host. You can see them on the streets of Tokyo's Kabukicho: the dapper thin men with colored, blown-dry hair, fake suntans, snazzy suits and charming smiles, chatting up passing females and trying to get them to come and have drinks. They've been the subject of documentaries, television...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Apr 5, 2014

Pulmonary pest ravages; study of racial hygienics urged; Japan mourns Gen. MacArthur; Takeshita resigns over Recruit scandal

The dreadful pulmonary pest (pneumonic plague) has plunged districts of Omikawa and Moriyama-mura, Chiba, into consternation.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 5, 2014

Cycling Sayama

A forested area bordering western Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture offers day-trippers a chance to experience the great outdoors on two wheels.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 5, 2014

Horses power across time and places

As a wee nipper I'd sometimes be treated to donkey rides on our local beach at Port Talbot in South Wales, but the first time I sat astride a pony was near my home in Neath when I was 8. Around then, the old dairyman occasionally let me join him as he made his daily rounds with his horse-drawn cart collecting...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 4, 2014

Copenhagen Zoo opts to tell truth about life behind bars

Copenhagen Zoo, which sparked global protests over its killings of a young male giraffe and four lions, will continue to be open about its culling to show the truth about how animals are kept in captivity.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 4, 2014

Portrait of Fort Hood shooter starts to emerge

When Ivan Lopez's mother died last year, he told friends the U.S. Army had given him just one day to attend her funeral in Puerto Rico.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 4, 2014

Lebanon marks "devastating" milestone with millionth refugee

The number of Syrian refugees who have fled to Lebanon officially topped 1 million on Thursday, highlighting the growing humanitarian catastrophe caused by Syria's civil war and the huge burden placed on its poorly prepared neighbors.
WORLD / Society
Apr 3, 2014

New Zealand tops world social index; Japan leads in health

Japan leads the world in health and wellness in a new global index that ranks countries by social and environmental performance.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2014

Nuclear refugees split over return to Tamura

Nuclear refugees from part of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, hold their first homecomings in three years amid worries about radiation and job prospects.
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 3, 2014

Cash-rich firms spurn banks' offers

Banks are the most keen to lend companies money in 17 years. Corporate treasurers don't need the cash.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 3, 2014

Farmers bet on steaks twice the price of silver

Hirotaka Sekiguchi dresses his "wagyu" calves in T-shirts and jackets to protect them against the spring chill and an expected avalanche of cheap foreign beef.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2014

Fukushima-linked cancer surge unlikely: U.N.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster is unlikely to lead to a rise in people developing cancer as happened after Chernobyl in 1986, even though the most exposed children may face an increased risk, U.N. scientists said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Blue is the Warmest Color'

Remember being a teen. Remember the gossip amongst your friends about who had a thing for you, the awkward dates, the stolen kisses. Remember the crushes that came and went all too easily, and then recall the arrival of something else entirely: first love. Remember the overwhelming feeling of getting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2014

'Brian Wilson: Songwriter 1962-1969'

The 1960s were full of tormented musical geniuses, but The Beach Boys' singer/songwriter Brian Wilson is hardly the most glorified. I guess quietly going nuts and surviving until a late-life comeback just isn't as cinematic as going out in a young and beautiful blaze of glory like Janis, Jimi, or Jim....
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2014

The India democracy show

Indians are just days away from the start of the greatest democratic show on earth, as 814.5 million of them prepare to cast ballots at 930,000 polling stations between April 7 and May 12.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2014

Will Ukraine's new boss be like the old boss?

The question facing Ukrainians is whether Petro Poroshenko, the man who seems poised to win the presidency on May 25, will prove that all their recent efforts to put an end to decades of corrupt, oligarchic rule have been in vain.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 2, 2014

Only a third of nuclear reactors may be restarted

Three years after the Fukushima disaster prompted the closure of all of Japan's nuclear reactors, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is moving to revive atomic power as a core part of the nation's energy mix, but many of those idled reactors will never come back online.
Reader Mail
Apr 2, 2014

Recent death sentences in Egypt

Regarding the March 27 AP article, "Anti-Islamist fervor prompts harsh Egypt court sentences": Commenting on reactions from foreign quarters to a Minya criminal court decision referring death sentences against 529 defendants, implicated in acts of sabotage, to the Mufti of the Republic for his opinion,...
Reader Mail
Apr 2, 2014

Right response to soccer banner

Kudos to the Urawa Reds soccer team for taking action against the "Japanese Only" banner displayed at the team's first game played at home this season.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Apr 2, 2014

Left-behind dad eyes an end to abduction culture

How Richard Cory rescued his daughter and lost his abducted sons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 2, 2014

Obsessions bared over a dead dog in the night

"It's f-cking amazing! I don't know what else to say. I'm really happy and really moved and I'm so humble about that."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 2, 2014

'Collection of Museo Poldi Pezzoli: The Aristocratic Palace and its Beauty

Founded in Milan in 1881, the Poldi Pezzoli Museum houses the extensive collection of an aristocratic art collector. Nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli (1822-1879) devoted his life to decorating his home with artworks of the Renaissance, amassing around 3,000 pieces, including paintings by Botticelli,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2014

Watanabe should come clean

Your Party chief Yoshimi Watanabe's lame excuse that he borrowed ¥800 million for individual rather than political expenses from a cosmetics firm chairman only adds to people's distrust of politicians.

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