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WORLD / Politics
Jul 10, 2014

Obama-Perry Texas talks fraught over migrant children crisis

As a measure of how politically fraught President Barack Obama's Texas trip is Wednesday, Republican Gov. Rick Perry reluctantly agreed to a ritual public greeting of the nation's chief executive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 8, 2014

Daymare puts its bands through a hardcore filter for Leave Them All Behind event

"There are people who like aggressive music the way they like sports, but I think 'hardcore' is about being self-aware of what you're doing, about how to create your own space," says Tadashi Hamada, manager of independent music label Daymare Recordings. "That's my first requirement for bands. So hardcore...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 7, 2014

Foreign women also face 'maternity harassment'

Non-Japanese women discuss their experiences of mata-hara, or 'maternity harassment' — discrimination in the workplace against women who are pregnant, on child-care leave or have returned to work after giving birth.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 7, 2014

Tanaka chosen for MLB All-Star Game

The $175 million the New Yankees spent to acquire Masahiro Tanaka is looking more and more like a bargain with each passing day.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2014

Off the beaten path on Japan's paper trail

At a little roadside store in rural Nagano, a foreign tourist is miming a rice bowl with her cupped left hand. Firm in the belief that Japanese washi (paper — wa meaning Japanese and shi meaning paper) was made from rice, she waves her flattened right hand across the "bowl," miming her desire for "sheets"...
ASIA PACIFIC
Jul 4, 2014

With one eye on Washington, China plots its own Asia 'pivot'

The Silk Road, an obscure Kazakh-inspired security forum and a $50 billion Asian infrastructure bank are just some of the disparate elements in an evolving Chinese strategy to try to counter Washington's "pivot" to the region.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 2, 2014

Palestinian teen killed in possible revenge attack

The discovery of a body in a Jerusalem forest on Wednesday raised suspicions that a missing Palestinian youth had been killed by Israelis avenging the deaths of three abducted Jewish teens.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2014

'Nanpu (Riding the Breeze)'

Movies about women who fly off to foreign climes to reboot their lives are a thriving subgenre, though the heroines are mostly from well-off countries, Japan included. Women from the more troubled parts of the world may also cross borders to start new lives, but their motives are less often self-discovery...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society / FOCUS
Jul 1, 2014

Beijing quietly tightening grip on Hong Kong

Since Britain handed back colonial Hong Kong in 1997, retired primary school teacher and Falun Gong devotee Lau Wai-hing has fully exercised the freedoms China promised this city of 7.2 million.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 29, 2014

Rodriguez fires Colombia by Uruguay, into last eight

A sensational display from James Rodriguez fired Colombia into the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time on Saturday with the attacking midfielder scoring twice in a 2-0 victory over Uruguay including a contender for goal of the tournament.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 24, 2014

Abe and Aquino pledge stronger security ties

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III pledged Tuesday to deepen security cooperation, at a time when their countries are facing growing military assertiveness from China.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 22, 2014

Pope blasts mobsters for their 'adoration of evil'

Pope Francis on Saturday issued the strongest attack on organized crime groups by a pontiff in two decades, accusing them of practicing "the adoration of evil" and saying mafiosi are excommunicated.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 20, 2014

Insurers balk at cost as gene tests unlock medical mysteries

Aimee Robeson just wants an answer.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2014

Corruption rumors sideline Beautiful Game's rewards

New squalid facts, claims and rumors are emerging every week suggesting that the game of soccer may be beautiful but some of its leading figures are too close to dark and shadowy criminal forces.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 14, 2014

The hormone behind man's best friend

The other day I saw a picture of a dead dog on Twitter. Gross, right? Not at all, for this wasn't just any old dog: This was Hachiko, perhaps the most famous dog in the world, and certainly the most famous in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 13, 2014

Brazil wins, comes alive for World Cup despite protests

Brazil exploded with street parties as its soccer team won the opening game of the World Cup on Thursday, but scattered violent protests were a reminder that many locals remain angry over the billions spent to host the tournament.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 9, 2014

Le Pen hits dad for Holocaust pun

Marine Le Pen, leader of France's far-right National Front (FN), rebuked her father and former party head on Sunday for remarks reviving allegations of anti-Semitism after a major poll victory.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 3, 2014

Abbas swears in Palestinian unity government

President Mahmoud Abbas swore in a Palestinian unity government Monday in a reconciliation deal with Hamas Islamists that set Israel on a collision course with Washington over U.S. pledges to work with the new administration while Israel shunned it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 31, 2014

Modern cat tale echoes former feline fiction

That the Japanese are great cat-lovers should come as no surprise: a taste for the elegant, the mysterious and the quirky leads in a feline direction, after all. There are paintings of cats from the classical period of the imperial court and prints from the more popular ukiyo-e of the Edo Period (1603-1867)....
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 27, 2014

Nationalistic sentiment keeps Abe's popularity ratings high

The Abe Cabinet continues to enjoy an approval rating of more than 50 percent, according to a recent survey, because of the knock-on effect of 'Abenomics,' the dearth of other viable leaders and, like it or not, nationalist sentiment.
JAPAN
May 26, 2014

Journalist repeats assertion that Nanking Massacre didn't happen

A British journalist quoted rejecting historians' accounts about Japan's actions after occupying Nanking has restated that he believes the 1937 Nanking Massacre did not occur, after saying he was "shocked and horrified" by his Japanese book's conclusion, which said the Chinese government fabricated the...
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2014

Soccer's crown jewel can't hide Brazil tensions

Brazil, by both area and population, is the fifth-largest nation on Earth. Its economy is perhaps the sixth- or seventh-largest and will soon surpass those of France and Britain. Yet this great state has barely registered its presence globally. In the complex flux of globalized popular culture or the...
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2014

'Fort Kill the Jews': Spanish village votes on fate of controversial name

At 4 p.m. Friday, it's eerily quiet in this tiny Spanish village. The blinds on the stone houses are drawn and there's not a person to be seen wandering the few streets that make up Castrillo Matajudios.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 24, 2014

Will Japan be a country that welcomes all?

"A nation of immigrants." Japan? The leading proponent of that vision has been Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, current executive director of the private think tank he founded in 2007, the Japan Immigration Policy Institute.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
May 24, 2014

Tiananmen Square stokes patriotic education

Last week, I discussed the prelude to the Tiananmen Square uprising and the ruthless government crackdown on June 4, 1989. The slaughter of students and their supporters who gathered in Beijing in the spring of 1989 and occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks made the world recoil in horror and isolated...
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2014

Reflect on Fukui nuclear ruling

The Fukui District Court's ruling that prohibits the restart of two nuclear power reactors run by Kansai Electric Power Co. challenges the Abe administration's energy policy of relying on nuclear power as a key source of the nation's electricity supply.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes