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JAPAN
Jun 27, 2013

JAEA map shows early iodine fallout

The Japan Atomic Energy Agency discloses a radiation map showing how iodine-131 likely spread in the early stages of the Fukushima meltdowns, a development that could help doctors locate unsuspecting cancer victims.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 27, 2013

Diet closes on nonbinding Abe censure

The Diet's 150-day regular session ends in turmoil as the opposition passes a non-binding censure motion against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — and scraps four government-sponsored bills.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2013

Art that bloomed with the Feinbergs

As a simple matter of economic convenience, some of the best art collections in the world started out going against established taste. By avoiding what was already highly valued — and therefore expensive — collectors could build up impressive collections that could then help to dictate future tastes....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2013

Sincerity is the new ecstasy in Funkot's 'Summer of Love'

At the end of the 1980s, British DJs imported a potent new style of house music from the Spanish party island Ibiza in what came to be known as the ecstasy-fueled "Second Summer of Love." Inspired by this trade route two decades later, Katsumi Takano, aka Mandokoro or DJ Jet Baron, hopes to launch a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2013

What provoked Japan's contemporary photography?

In 1968, as the world reeled from The Prague Spring, the turbulent union and student strikes in France, and the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Japan, like so many other nations, found itself in the midst of social unrest. Citizens questioned the West's involvement in the Vietnam...
Reader Mail
Jun 27, 2013

Responsibilities toward the state

The June 23 Bloomberg article by Peter Gumbel, "French high school curriculum includes pitfalls U.S. should try to avoid with its Common Core," talks about the relatively high standard of the French baccalaureat secondary school graduation exams, and a corresponding dropout rate.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 26, 2013

Drumming helps those with dementia reconnect

Standing in a room full of lined faces, Alan Yellowitz held up an orange drum shaped like a wineglass. "This one's called a djembe," he said. "It's from Ghana."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2013

Why Rand Paul won't be GOP savior

The more people see of U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, the more they're drawn to his talent, but his libertarian narrative won't be enough to save the Republican Party.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2013

James Gandolfini and the art of 'The Sopranos'

James Gandolfini's legacy will remain a cascade of popular television programs that people who search for quality aren't embarrassed about to watch and debate.
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 24, 2013

LDP win mimics December election

The Tokyo assembly election resembled the decisive contest that returned the Liberal Democratic Party to power in December and raised its chances of taking over the Diet in July.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 24, 2013

Migratory birds starving to death

At the Maine Coastal Islands National Wildlife Refuge, the tiny bodies of Arctic tern chicks have piled up. Over the past few years, biologists have counted thousands that starved to death because the herring their parents feed them have vanished.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 23, 2013

The 'barbarians' were coming — like it or not

'Sonnō jōi!": "Revere the Emperor, expel the barbarians!"
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 23, 2013

NHK discusses gender with a fresh openness

Two weeks ago, the nightly series "Heart Net TV," which is broadcast on NHK's educational channel, repeated a program about a 35-year-old Japanese man who married a 70-year-old Dutch man in the Netherlands. The series dedicates several programs a month to sexual minorities, and there was a sidelight...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

North Korea occupies Fukuoka in Murakami's alternate world

Not to be confused with another famous Japanese novelist who has the same surname, Ryu Murakami is known for being an overtly political, even subversive, writer. "From the Fatherland, With Love," his latest novel to be translated into English, cements that reputation. Taking place in an alternate world...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2013

French high school curriculum includes pitfalls U.S. should try to avoid with its Common Core

The rigorous French high school curriculum comes with pitfalls that the U.S. should try to avoid as it introduces a Common Core of national standards.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

Living in the material world

In 1961, Oxford archaeologists uncovered a pit at the site of Gen. Gnaeus Julius Agricola's headquarters at Inchtuthil, the site of a Roman legionary fortress, in Scotland. Unsavory Caledonians had made his troops' position untenable.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 22, 2013

Old school potter goes native in the wilds of southeast Okinawa

It took a devil of a time before finally managing to locate the home of potter Paul Lorimer, the building tucked into a rural lane on the fringes of the Sashiki community on Okinawa Island's southeast coast.
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 21, 2013

U.S. government wraps up Apple e-book antitrust trial

The Justice Department on Thursday concluded its antitrust trial against Apple over alleged price-fixing of digital books, with a federal prosecutor saying the creator of the iPhone and iPad engaged in an "old-fashioned, straightforward" conspiracy and Apple's lead attorney warning that a ruling against...
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jun 21, 2013

Tweet Beat: #e3, #ふなっしー, #ジブリファン

The future of videogames, an energetic pear mascot and a mysterious Ghibli fan trended high on Japanese Twitter last week.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 21, 2013

Nara takes Yamashiro with first pick in expansion draft

Expansion squads Bambitious Nara and Aomori Wat's took their first steps in piecing together their rosters for the 2013-14 season on Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 21, 2013

The bell tolls on Demon Pond

The sound of the temple bell of "Yashagaike (Demon Pond)" will ring for the first time at the New National Theatre, Tokyo (NNTT) — but it's the bell's silence that will reverberate for the characters of this new Japanese-language opera.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

'After Earth'

It's the year 1,000 A.E. — After Earth, hence the name of the movie — a millennium since humanity fled an ecologically ravaged Earth for a new home on another planet. Commander Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his sulky 13-year-old son Kitai (Jaden Smith) are out on a routine training mission when their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

'The Numbers Station'

The CIA needs a major public-image overhaul. Last year's "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" did much to salvage and then revamp what had essentially become Hollywood's go-to institution for portraying bad, bad stuff such as conspiracy, betrayal and government BS. Ultimately though, those two movies — though...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

'The Complete (Existing) Films of ...'

Director: Sadao Yamanaka

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers