Search - life

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2013

Why the Turks are rebelling

The protests in Turkey raise the question of whether a developing country can sustain rapid economic growth if the same government is undermining basic liberties.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'To Rome With Love'

Woody Allen rarely laughs, least of all at his own jokes. But in his latest, "To Rome With Love," in which he acts as well as directs, he breaks down from time to time to suppress a giggle and the movie gets an almost imperceptible lift. If Allen is laughing (kind of) then it's surely OK for the audience...
WORLD
Jun 7, 2013

Thousands evacuated in Europe as levees break

Dresden Germany AP
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Olympus Has Fallen'

This latest bit of Hollywood "propatainment," "Olympus Has Fallen," is basically "Die Hard" in the White House, with Gerard Butler's disgraced former Secret Service agent trying to save the president (Aaron Eckhart) from a team of crack North Korean commandos who plan to pry America's nuclear launch...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

'Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir'

Laurent Bouzereau's documentary on one of cinema's greats is pretty simple in structure: Producer Andrew Braunsberg, an old friend of director Roman Polanski ("Chinatown," "Tess") visits him for a long conversation about his life and career. The subtext is that this takes place in 2009, when Polanski...
WORLD
Jun 7, 2013

Afghan attacks soldier pleads guilty

A U.S. soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, many of them women and children asleep in their villages, pleaded guilty to murder and acknowledged that there was "not a good reason in this world" for his actions.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2013

Abe's growth strategy hit for lack of details

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reveals his set of structural reforms to boost the economy, ranging from creating special economic zones to easing rules to set up international schools, but fails to impress market players.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 6, 2013

Hashimoto is Horie's kind of guy

Takafumi Horie, 40, the recently paroled founder of Internet firm Livedoor Co., said Wednesday he wants embattled Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto to become prime minister one day, citing his "ability to challenge" and "alter the status quo" of politics.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 6, 2013

Moscow mayor to quit in poll ruse

The mayor of Moscow said Tuesday he will resign two years early so that elections can be held in September. He intends to run in those elections and is likely to be named acting mayor until then. He is also expected to win.
WORLD
Jun 6, 2013

Vegetarians live longer, study suggests

A vegetarian diet may help people, particularly men, live longer than those who regularly eat meat, according to a study of more than 70,000 Seventh-Day Adventists.
Reader Mail
Jun 6, 2013

Memories of a Pakistani village

The May 31 AFP-JIJI article "India's Africans keeping ancient customs alive" brought back memories of my visit to two Shidi villages in Sindh province, Pakistan, some years back.
WORLD
Jun 6, 2013

Christie orders election for October

Faced with a politically perilous dilemma with far-reaching implications, New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday ordered an October special election to fill the senate vacancy created by the death of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a decision Christie said was rooted in a desire to quickly deliver...
SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jun 5, 2013

Lack of American heavyweights sad

What if they held a world heavyweight title fight and no one in America showed up?
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2013

What Bismarck can show Red China

More than a century and a half after it was published, Alexis de Tocqueville's "The Old Regime and the Revolution" has become an unlikely best-seller in China.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013

'Okinawa bacteria' toxic legacy crosses continents, spans generations

Tu Du Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City houses one of Vietnam's busiest maternity clinics, but hidden in a quiet corner, far from the wards of proud new mothers, is a room stacked floor to ceiling with every parent's nightmare.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 4, 2013

Party hale and hearty and don't feel guilty

What's the secret to hosting a memorable dinner party? For 29-year-old Sarah Waybright, it's a trifecta of good company, good food and good wine — plus a menu that won't leave guests feeling sick, stuffed or guilt-ridden.
WORLD
Jun 3, 2013

In Britain, a debate over freedom of the tweet

After the recent slaying of a British soldier in a suspected Islamist extremist attack, angry social media users took to Twitter and Facebook, with some dispatching racially and religiously charged comments that got them quickly noticed on the busy boulevards of the Internet.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

Lessons on moderation from an 18th-century British conservative aren't applied easily today

The political career of Edmund Burke was mediocre. Still, his 18th-century perspective offers a way to understand modern currents of ethnic/ideological alliances.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 2, 2013

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

The martial arts were the inspiration for the famous baseball team at the First Higher School of Tokyo, a late 19th century powerhouse that helped make yakyu, as baseball came to be known, the national sport of Japan.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 2, 2013

Society no longer shuns solitary pursuits

"A solitary cloud wafted by the wind." Thus the 17th-century wandering haiku poet Matsuo Basho described himself. Not an ordained priest, he nonetheless wore priestly garb on his journeys and was steeped in the principles of Zen Buddhism, among which solitude ranks high. Japan's days as a Zen country...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2013

Belgian, Ugandan win Noguchi prize

Two doctors from Belgium and Uganda were awarded the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize on Saturday at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development for their great strides in helping the world combat deadly infectious diseases.
EDITORIALS
Jun 2, 2013

A true press hero

Those of us lucky enough to live in countries with press freedom owe much to Mika Yamamoto, posthumously awarded the 2013 World Press Freedom Hero Award.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 2, 2013

Crony capitalism: corruption, disparities and stifled initiative

Crony capitalism is the scourge of contemporary Asia, lining pockets and diverting resources in ways that systematically undermine the public interest, accentuate disparities, sap innovative and entrepreneurial impulses — while also subverting governance.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013

Recipe for a well-fed world

Food got bigger than DIY about a decade back, but publishing took a while to hoist its tired old frame on to the bandwagon. Now the food books tumble out, unstoppable, in a startling range of sub-genres. There's the cookbook with jokes. The memoir with recipes. The polemic about food system apocalypse....

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years