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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2013

Chemical weapons watchdog has tighter leash

The Nobel Committee's decision to honor the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons with this year's Peace Prize should compel world leaders to increase their support for it.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Oct 27, 2013

Rookie Norimoto gives Eagles hope for promising future

When the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles lost ace Hisashi Iwakuma to the major leagues in 2011, they had another, Masahiro Tanaka, waiting in the wings.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 27, 2013

Rajapaksa: Sri Lanka's affable authoritarian?

Down in the deep south of Sri Lanka, where life usually moves at a leisurely pace, there is one small town that is less tranquil. Hambantota — population 20,000 — is expanding fast. There is a vast new deepwater port, built with $360 million of borrowed Chinese cash; a new 35,000-seat cricket stadium;...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 26, 2013

Get Koizumi: Nuclear village goes on offensive

This is a first for Japan: A political figure who not only undergoes a change of mind in public, but tries to make a difference after giving up the political power to do so.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 26, 2013

Strolling old Fukagawa, where gardens and true glitterati mingle

I may be jumping the gun a bit on fall colors, but early October's glorious weather has got me craving some autumnal arboreality.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 26, 2013

Oh, to be blissfully unfree in Nippon's isles . . .

"Freedom." "Liberty." Ringing words. Better than any other, they define modern times. They sparked three early-modern revolutions — England's "Glorious Revolution" (1688), the American Revolution of 1776-83, and the French Revolution beginning around 1789.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Japan Pulse
Oct 26, 2013

Flip a skirt a month in 2014

Kaori Kato's Skirt Flipping Calendar enters its second year, while sticky notes debut.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 25, 2013

U.S. health site tests 'began too late'

Private contractors in charge of building the federal online health insurance marketplace testified Thursday that the administration went ahead with the Oct. 1 launch of HealthCare.gov despite insufficient testing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 24, 2013

Tokyo Designers Week uses music, art as draws

The definition of design in Japan is changing. Depending on who you speak to, what falls under its umbrella is either shrinking or expanding to include nearly all aspects of modern life.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Oct 24, 2013

Food tradition with a long shelf life

A type of speciality food store that has almost disappeared from the streets of Japan is the kanbutsu-ya (dried-foods store). These days we can get fresh produce all year round, but that wasn't the case before canning and refrigeration became widespread.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

Trading identity for compassion in the Middle East

Filmmaker Lorraine Lévy likes to tread lightly wherever she goes. Her aversion to intrusiveness affects the way she looks at the world, and defines her approach to filmmaking. It's certainly a significant part of "Le Fils de l'Autre (The Other Son)," Lévy's latest film (and arguably her most successful),...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 24, 2013

'Hannah Arendt'

Hannah Arendt was the Jewish-German emigre philosopher and theorist who would become most famous for coining the term "the banality of evil" to refer to Nazi figures such as Adolf Eichmann, who could take a conscience-free, bureaucratic view of sending Jews to the gas chambers. This biopic by German...
Reader Mail
Oct 23, 2013

Future of liberal arts education

Regarding Geoffry Hinton's Oct. 20 letter, "Liberal arts foster a lifelong quest": The definition of liberal arts is confusing. Hinton appears to have quoted Wikipedia's 13th-century definition in which even medicine, law, and all arts and sciences are liberal arts.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 23, 2013

Balloon to offer luxury, $75,000 ride to edge of space

There's a new player in the bustling world of "commercial space," although the "space" part is a matter of definition.
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Oct 22, 2013

Russia eyeing NSA-like surveillance

Less than three months after granting asylum to National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, Russia is preparing to implement the kind of electronic surveillance that Snowden uncovered in the U.S.
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.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 22, 2013

Biollante "Alone in this World"

Tokyo's Biollante has found a clever way of standing out among the ever-crowded field of Japanese bedroom music producers — get melancholic.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 22, 2013

Brain drain taking toll on India, China

Disillusionment with India's seemingly ineradicable corruption and inefficiency has resulted in a brain drain abroad. A similar quest for more congenial climes affects China's privileged classes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 22, 2013

Perfume "Level3"

"Level3" is going to look amazing live. Perfume member Ayaka "A-Chan" Nishiwaki reportedly told producer Yasutaka Nakata that her trio wanted songs suited to the huge venues they'd perform it in. Nakata has obliged. Perfume's fourth studio album — the first with access to Universal Music's deep pockets...
JAPAN
Oct 22, 2013

No. 1 water woes laid to Tepco's ineptitude

Two and a half years after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant experienced its three reactor-core meltdowns, the effort to clean up what remains of the complex is turning into another kind of disaster.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 20, 2013

Former member of military police battalion takes up the case of a missing statue

Lifelines was recently contacted by Jack Marquardt, who served with the United States Army's 720th Military Police Battalion in Tokyo from 1946-48. Jack, who still calls Tokyo home, is trying to locate a statue of significance to the battalion and its veterans. He shared the story of the battalion's...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 20, 2013

Georgian PM's clout unlikely to fade after polls

Georgia's billionaire prime minister, Bidzina Ivanishvili, looks surprised at the suggestion that he might be a touch sensitive to criticism.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 19, 2013

Enough already: Can Japan settle for less?

The pua-ju016b philosophy in short: Poverty as Japan understands it is not real poverty and does not rule out happiness. In fact, it may even be conducive to it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 19, 2013

Sado Island: Iconic birds, gold mines, magic caves and art

"The people in our town, they died without ever seeing the ocean."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2013

Crossing the Mediterranean 'cemetery'

Italians don't want the economic and political migrants crossing the 'Mediterranean cemetery' in flimsy boats to drown, but they don't want them to stay in Italy either.

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