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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 7, 2013

Miko Fogarty tells what it takes to be a teenage dance star

Unlike the stereotype of your average American teen, Miko Fogarty (16) is not talkative or exuberant. In this way she seems somewhat shy and reserved, almost as if she leans toward the Japanese part of her lineage despite being brought up in the United States. Or perhaps she's just sure of herself as...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 7, 2013

The message in recent food-garbage films doesn't go to waste

For those who still take in movies at theaters it's a great season for garbage, and I'm not talking about the usual summer blockbuster fare. Last month, Fatih Akin's documentary "Garbage in the Garden of Eden" (aka "Polluting Paradise"), about a landfill project in the beautiful Cambrunu region of Turkey,...
Reader Mail
Sep 7, 2013

An expression of human nature

Regarding the Sept. 1 letter by Jennifer Kim titled "The Catholic acceptance of gays": Yes, I know, this isn't the first time I've locked horns with Kim over the issue of gay rights, which is really about human rights. Homosexuality is no longer a sin, a crime, or an act of insanity. It's simply another...
Reader Mail
Sep 7, 2013

Circumcision should be outlawed

Regarding the Aug. 31 Observer story "High hopes for victims of female genital mutilation": This story reminded once again of the sad realization that there is no hope at all in the world for the many more victims of male genital mutilation. Male circumcision advocates might say there is no comparison...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 7, 2013

Fukushima: health disaster or PR fail?

One thing about having a nuclear accident in a rich country is that at least there is going to be good medical care and long-term monitoring. The repair and clean-up operation is another matter, of course — which is why Japan is currently under pressure to accept help from abroad in fixing the appalling...
Reader Mail
Sep 7, 2013

What's wrong with this picture?

Regarding the photo with the Sept. 4 article "In first big test, Obama overrules new team": This photo of the president of the United States, which has appeared in newspapers and on television around the world, deserves a few words of criticism. The photo shows the current president with his left foot...
Reader Mail
Sep 7, 2013

Japanese should mend food ways

Regarding the Aug. 28 editorial titled "Reducing food loss": I think that the editorial depicts a contradictory mind-set of the Japanese.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 7, 2013

Saving the smiles of Nepal with good dental care

It was pouring rain in the Nepali village of Kaskikot, which was bad news for Laura Spero and the ceremony she had planned.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 7, 2013

What's the real story behind 'Emperor'?

"Emperor," a film directed by Peter Webber that takes up the subject of Emperor Showa and the postwar occupation period, has been showing at local theaters since July. The film's protagonist is Gen. Bonner Frank Fellers, who served as a subordinate to Supreme Commander Allied Forces Gen. Douglas MacArthur....
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2013

How Congress can limit Obama's war on Syria

If Congress wants to limit President Barack Obama's ability to wage war on Syria, it must use its appropriations power.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2013

U.K.'s response to Syrian crisis

Prime Minister David Cameron badly mishandled the issue of whether Britain should take part in a punitive attack on the Assad government for its alleged use of chemical weapons.
JAPAN
Sep 6, 2013

At stake in bid — ¥3 trillion

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government estimates that hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics will produce economic effects worth ¥3 trillion from Hokkaido to Okinawa.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Sep 6, 2013

Science's great unknowns: 20 unsolved questions

What is the universe made of? Astronomers face an embarrassing conundrum: they don't know what 95 percent of the universe is made of. Atoms, which form everything we see around us, only account for a measly 5 percent. Over the past 80 years it has become clear that the substantial remainder is comprised...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 6, 2013

Miyazaki vows he won't be idle in retirement

Hayao Miyazaki, the retiring czar of Japanese animation, said Friday that while he will no longer be at the forefront of creating feature-length animated movies, he will be a "freed man" pursuing his own interests as long as he can.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2013

Camera at reactor 1 finds water entry point

An entry point for some of the groundwater flooding the crippled Fukushima No. 1 plant is found at reactor 1.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 5, 2013

Uneasy feelings persist about England

If England beats Moldova at home Friday night and then defeats Ukraine (a) and Montenegro (h), it will top Group H and qualify automatically for the World Cup finals next year. Its fate is in its own hands. The bad news is — so is Ukraine's.
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

Kobayashi film explores Japan's suicide problem

A folk-singer-turned-filmmaker who went to France in 1981 to apprentice under his idol François Truffaut, Masahiro Kobayashi may have failed in his quest (he couldn't work up the courage to press Truffaut's doorbell), but after returning to Japan became a prolific scriptwriter for pinku (softcore...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 5, 2013

'Nihon no Higeki (Japan's Tragedy)'

What is a good death? For certain Japanese Buddhist priests it was sokushinbutsu — self-mummification. As practiced by members of the Shingon sect, it was a decade-long process that culminated with the priest's descent into a stone tomb to meditate in darkness, without food or water, until the final...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Sep 5, 2013

End of unequal inheritance lauded

Legal experts said Wednesday's landmark decision by the Supreme Court that the Civil Code provision denying full inheritance rights to heirs born out of wedlock is unconstitutional was welcome but late in coming.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 5, 2013

Data show twisters form over Kanto in September

Damage to people and property by tornadoes made headlines over the past week, with the latest in Tochigi Prefecture injuring three people while destroying houses and other buildings.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Sep 4, 2013

Top court shoots down unequal inheritance rights

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court declares unconstitutional the Civil Code clause that denies full inheritance rights to heirs born out of wedlock.
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2013

Radiation near tanks hits highest level yet

Tokyo Electric Power Co. detects the highest radiation levels found so far near tanks holding contaminated water used to cool reactors at its wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Same-sex marriage not inevitable

Regarding professor Jeff Kingston's Aug. 25 column titled "Gay marriage in Japan? Only over the reactionary LDP's cadaver": The theory that the dinosaurs died out because they were as stupid as they were huge has long been debunked, but the notion that human beings who resist social "progress" are to...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Take the stairs if you want to walk

I am writing to address the three online comments written on Aug. 23 in response to the Aug. 19 editorial "Wanted: better escalator manners."
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Japan has much to do to raise FDI

Regarding Shinji Fukukawa's Aug. 31 commentary titled "Knock down barriers to FDIs": I agree completely with the views on foreign direct investments expressed by Fukukawa, who is one of the most perceptive and visionary of Japan's ex-government officials. He correctly points out three of the "structural...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Poisoned minds

Regarding the Aug. 30 article "Yokohama recalls texts describing 1923 'massacre' of Koreans": I wonder what's going through the minds of the folks at the Yokohama Board of Education. According to the story the city's board of education has recalled a junior high school textbook due to its "descriptions...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2013

Repair harm from misbehavior

Regarding the Aug. 17 editorial "Spare the rod at school": The real issue is whether corporal punishment is effective in dealing with student misbehavior. The evidence is not encouraging.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 4, 2013

Scientists tracing ancestry of India's large mammals

About 120 million years ago, the supercontinent of Gondwana broke into a jigsaw puzzle of continents and isles in the Southern Hemisphere. One of those was a giant island forming what we now call India.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 4, 2013

Acclaimed sci-fi author Frederik Pohl dies at 93

Frederik Pohl, who helped shape and popularize science fiction as an influential agent, editor and award-winning author, died Sept. 2 at a hospital near his home in Palatine, Illinois. He was 93.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2013

Is America now becoming an international outlaw?

When Barack Obama succeeded George W. Bush as U.S. president, the world heaved a collective sigh of relief. How ironic then that Obama risks making the U.S. the biggest international outlaw of our times.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped