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JAPAN
May 21, 2014

Kinki no more: With eye on foreign students, university opts for new name

Perhaps fed up with being the butt of jokes by English speakers, Kinki University in Osaka will rename itself Kindai University from April 2016, when it launches a new department offering courses in foreign languages.
BUSINESS / Economy
May 21, 2014

Import slowdown narrows trade gap

The trade deficit shrank in April as imports rose the least in 16 months, after the consumption tax hike crimped consumer spending, Finance Ministry data showed on Wednesday.
WORLD / Politics
May 21, 2014

Russia turns fire on dual citizens

Parliament approved legislation on Tuesday requiring Russians to declare dual citizenship or face criminal prosecution after President Vladimir Putin endorsed the measure as part of a more nationalist course taken since his annexation of Crimea.
Reader Mail
May 21, 2014

Vulnerability of nuclear power

On April 11, NHK broadcast a debate program concerning the right to collective self-defense. In the middle of it, all six participants and two moderators were frozen by a question from a scholar: "Each and every government official insists that the international environment surrounding Japan is getting...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 21, 2014

China's MCC says four workers killed in Vietnam unrest

Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd (MCC) said on Wednesday four of its employees working on a construction project in Vietnam were killed and 126 injured during anti-China protests last week over a disputed area in the South China Sea.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 20, 2014

Suspect flip-flops on email threats

A computer expert on trial for sending violent threats from other people's hacked computers has admitted he's guilty, calling himself “a psychopath” in a surprise confession, his lawyer says, potentially ending a case that had earlier seen police arrest the wrong suspects.
JAPAN
May 20, 2014

Government silent on report Fukushima No. 1 workers fled during crisis

The government is refusing to comment on a media report that Masao Yoshida, the now-deceased chief of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant at the time of the meltdowns, was quoted as saying most of the plant's workers evacuated the site despite of his order to remain.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 20, 2014

Tesla now employs more workers at its California plants than Toyota

As quietly as one of its electric cars, Tesla Motors Inc. has become the biggest auto industry employer in California.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
May 20, 2014

Kiev's election plans falter in east

From a cramped office in residential Donetsk, election officials Sunday frantically worked to prepare for next Sunday's Ukraine presidential poll, despite what they described as intimidation and threats from pro-Russian separatists.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 20, 2014

Design tests to measure priority outcomes

The discovery of fraud in the adminstration of the high-stakes TOEFL and TOEIC tests is disturbing, but the larger issue — which has been given short shrift — is that these tests are designed to emphasize written English rather than spoken English.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 20, 2014

China slams U.S. charges over hacking, data theft

The United States on Monday charged five Chinese military officers and accused them of hacking into American nuclear, metal and solar companies to steal trade secrets, ratcheting up tensions between the two world powers over cyberespionage.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 19, 2014

New group to lead joint research into automobile engines

A joint research initiative for developing car engines will be led by the Research Association of Automobile Internal Combustion Engines (AICE), it was announced Monday.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
May 19, 2014

No time to rest as Cepeda hits ground running in Japan

Frederich Cepeda has had quite the week.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2014

The gap in GDP wellbeing

The link between economic growth and human wellbeing seems obvious. As measured by gross domestic product, economic growth is widely viewed as the ultimate development objective. But it is time to rethink this approach.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2014

Trash troubles pile up in China's Garbage Era

Chinese consumers, as much if not more than industry or the government, are at the root of the country's solid-waste problem. Yet protests over garbage incinerators, as an alternative to landfills, are turning violent.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
May 19, 2014

Post-Snowden, admiral seeks to repair the reputation and effectiveness of the NSA

As U.S. National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers seeks to repair the damage to the agency caused by leaks about its electronic spying programs, the abuses of government revealed in the wake of the Watergate scandal are very much on his mind.
WORLD
May 18, 2014

Syria's air defense chief killed near Damascus, rebels and activists say

The head of Syria's Air Defense Force has been killed in fighting east of Damascus, an Islamist rebel coalition and a monitoring group said on Sunday.
BUSINESS
May 18, 2014

AT&T to declare DirecTV buyout

AT&T Inc. on Sunday was set to announce that it is acquiring top U.S. satellite TV operator DirecTV, news website BuzzFeed said, in a deal expected to be worth nearly $50 billion. Neither company made an immediate comment on the report.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
May 18, 2014

Monster hits continue to survive the Internet age

A monster lays waste to America's cities, smashing skyscrapers and tearing up passenger trains. It's the familiar tale of Godzilla, a mutant lizard last seen rampaging through cinemas in 1998 and now back on the big screen.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
May 18, 2014

Questions arise in wake of NYT, Le Monde editorial housecleaning

Last Tuesday morning, two brilliant female journalists commanded two of the world's greatest newspapers. By Wednesday evening, they were both history. Natalie Nougayrede, overthrown by a senior staff revolt, left the editor's chair at Le Monde. And Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times,...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 18, 2014

Vietnam stops anti-Chinese protests after riots

Vietnam flooded major cities with police to avert protests against China on Sunday in the wake of rare and deadly rioting in industrial parks that deepened a tense standoff with Beijing over sovereignty in the South China Sea.
JAPAN
May 17, 2014

Why Kansai's corporate captains are trumpeting TPP

Several years ago, at the Kansai Economic Seminar, an annual snoozefest of pompous platitudes and pretentious, paternalistic pontificating by the old men who run Kansai's major corporations, one senior leader called for entering the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 17, 2014

Alien invasion threatening native species

An invasion has been going on under our noses. It is multipronged, ruthless and very difficult to repel. It has been called an "ecological apocalypse."

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past