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Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2014

Cricket star Khan overplays hand in Pakistani power game

Cricket hero Imran Khan rode a wave of discontent to finally break through as a serious player in Pakistani politics in last year's election. Now he is aiming even higher, leading thousands on a march to the capital in a bid to unseat the prime minister.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2014

Power play: the debate over renewable energy

On Aug. 26, 2011, the same day that Prime Minister Naoto Kan resigned after widespread criticism of his handling of the meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that followed the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, the Diet passed legislation that created a new feed-in...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 16, 2014

Grisly Sasebo murder defies explanation

Homicides involving dismemberment, referred to in Japanese as bara-bara jiken (scattered incidents), fall into a wider category known as ryōki hanzai (bizarre crimes) — written with kanji meaning "hunting the strange." Typically when minors were involved in such cases they tended to be victims, not...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2014

What should the U.S. do about Islamic State?

The U.S. lost the Iraq War years ago. The sooner it accepts that there is nothing to be saved there and moves on, the better off it'll be. That includes refraining from attacking the Islamic State.
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2014

A glut of unoccupied houses

Roughly one in every seven houses throughout Japan is unoccupied, and the number keeps growing. Blame the graying of society, the depopulation of rural areas and the 'fixed-property' tax break.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 15, 2014

Japan's ailing rural towns push free beer, other perks to urbanites in tax-sharing drive

Faced with the danger of elimination, hundreds of rural districts in Japan are plying gifts that include craft beer and balloon rides to entice their mini-diasporas to send tax payments back home.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 14, 2014

Megabanks' $800 billion cash pile shows Abe must free up credit

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has succeeded in wrestling down the yen and snapping a 15-year deflationary spiral. The challenge of spurring lending by the country's cash-hoarding megabanks remains.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 13, 2014

The Queen of Versailles

Pride comes before a fall, and proving that old proverb correct is "The Queen of Versailles," a documentary tracking one obscenely wealthy couple's attempt to build the largest mansion in America, modeled on the Palace of Versailles, no less, but with a bowling alley.
WORLD
Aug 13, 2014

U.K. says it will suspend some Israel arms exports if Gaza truce fails

Britain said on Tuesday it would suspend 12 licences to export military items to Israel, including tank, aircraft and radar parts, if hostilities with Hamas in Gaza resumed, citing concerns the exports may be used to breach international laws.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Aug 12, 2014

New Kyoto food complex aims to feed the mind and body

On a recent visit to Kyoca Food Laboratory on the edge of Umekoji Park, west of Kyoto Station, I waited more than half an hour for a friend who was "on her way." The mercury was tipping 37 degrees in the midday sun; even the cicadas had given up their racket.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

How vodka limits hastened the USSR's demise

When the Soviet Union finally disintegrated at the end of 1991, Boris Yeltsin, the new Russian leader, decided not to repeat Mikhail Gorbachev's error of restricting access to vodka. Some say it was Gorbachev's sober way of life — and his attempt to impose it on his countrymen — that makes Russians dislike him in retrospect.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

The less Muslims and Jews know each other, the more hatred grows

The memory of Jews has been rubbed out through much of an Arab world that has become less cosmopolitan in the past half-century. So when an imam calls for 'death to Jews' these days, it is a call most easily pronounced by those who know nothing of those they wish to see dead.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 12, 2014

Russia sending aid convoy to Ukraine despite Western warnings of 'invasion pretext'

A Russian convoy of 280 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for Ukraine set off Tuesday amid Western warnings against using help as a pretext for an invasion.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 12, 2014

Russian restaurateurs wrangle with food import ban

Moscow's sweeping sanctions on European food have sent Russian restaurateurs, retail chains and food producers scrambling for alternative supplies and bracing for Soviet-style shortages.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 12, 2014

Russia sending aid convoy to Ukraine despite Western warnings of invasion pretext

President Vladimir Putin said Monday that Russia is sending an aid convoy to eastern Ukraine despite urgent Western warnings against using humanitarian help as a pretext for an invasion.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 10, 2014

Obama says fight against Iraq insurgency could 'take some time'

President Barack Obama said on Saturday U.S. airstrikes had destroyed arms that Islamic State militants could have used against Iraqi Kurds, but warned there was no quick fix to a crisis that threatens to tear Iraq apart.Speaking the day after U.S. warplanes hit militants in Iraq, Obama said it would...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 9, 2014

Critics get frank when it comes to Godzilla

Because Japanese media are incestuous in their inter-corporate dealings, those writers referred to as hyōronka (critics) tend to be less critical about popular culture than their counterparts in North America and Europe. They are more likely to engage in punditry or public relations, because complaining...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 9, 2014

Ah, vaginas! In defense of taboos

Two words have been let loose on society by an artist who, for better or worse, may find the rest of her life and career inextricably bound up with them, "vagina" being one and "taboo" the other. The artist herself needs no introduction. She is (or briefly was) the most famous woman in Japan, thanks...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight