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WORLD
Aug 28, 2014

Iran says it tested new nuclear enrichment machine

Iran has conducted "mechanical" tests on a new, advanced machine to refine uranium, a senior official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, a disclosure that may annoy Western states pushing Tehran to scale back its nuclear program.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2014

Lucy

"Lucy" is a big movie with a narrow mind; it speaks of all that used to work in a Luc Besson film and doesn't anymore because we're no longer in 1989. Besson ignores that, but he's kept up with current times in other ways. Witness how "Lucy" borrows liberally from recent movies such as "The Dark Knight...
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 27, 2014

Police say rumors of foreign looters in Hiroshima unfounded

The Hiroshima Prefectural Police said Wednesday they had no information to substantiate online rumors that foreigners were burglarizing houses in areas of the city hit hardest by last week's deadly mudslides.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2014

Abe sent message to ceremony honoring war criminals

A message from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that was read out at an April ceremony memorializing Japanese war criminals referred to them as “the foundation of our homeland,” an organizer of the event says.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 27, 2014

Hiroshima volunteer cleanup effort open to city residents

Hiroshima residents can now join the cleanup effort in the wake of the deadly mudslides in the city.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 27, 2014

Bunraku meets the Bard in new 'Sir Falstaff'

The type of Japanese puppetry known as ningyō-jōruri (aka bunraku) has its roots in 17th-century Osaka. Since then, though, there will rarely if ever have been a bunraku play drawn from stories written a little earlier on the other side of the world — yet that's what awaits Tokyo audiences next month...
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 27, 2014

China's top judge lauds Zhou corruption probe

China's top judge has said the ruling Communist Party's decision to investigate former senior leader Zhou Yongkang demonstrates clearly that no party member is above the law, the semiofficial China News Service reported.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 27, 2014

U.S. man fighting with Islamic State believed killed in Syria

An American man suspected of fighting alongside Islamic State militants who have seized large areas of Iraq and Syria to the alarm of the Baghdad government and its allies in the West has been killed in Syria, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2014

Conservative party to submit bill halting welfare for needy foreigners

Jisedai no To (Party for Future Generations) plans to submit legislation to the Diet this fall that would exclude poverty-stricken non-Japanese residents from receiving welfare benefits.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2014

Opposition strength through unity

The current Japanese political landscape shows the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito alliance dwarfing all opposition forces in both chambers of the Diet. Could the merger of two opposition parties now in negotiations make a difference?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2014

Grading the Modi government

By the way he talks, new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi might appear to be replicating his Gujarat state model of learning to walk before starting to run with headstrong solutions to the big problems facing the country. Even so, he will have to walk the walk sooner than later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2014

Strong leaders in an increasingly fragile Asia

Stronger leaders are finally in place in fragile Asia — leaders who can deliver domestic reform and economic growth. But if these leaders assert their strength against each other or vis-a-vis the U.S. over security matters, regional stability could be upended.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Aug 26, 2014

Refuel and refresh at Japan's gourmet motoring rest stops

Whoever said it's better to travel than to arrive must have been traveling in Japan. Just ask the folks who hit the road earlier this month for the o-Bon summer holidays. Sure, the nightly newscasts were filled with horror stories of bumper-to-bumper traffic, but motorists and their families knew that...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 26, 2014

Ebola fight needs $430 million to end outbreak: WHO

More than $430 million will be needed to bring the worst Ebola outbreak on record under control, according to a draft document laying out the World Health Organization's battle strategy.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2014

Boeing lands $8.8 billion BOC Aviation order on Asian demand

Boeing Co. won an order for $8.8 billion in jets from BOC Aviation Pte. as the aircraft lessor made its biggest-ever purchase to help meet surging travel demand in Asia.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

Ukraine accuses Russian forces of opening new front in separatist war

The Ukrainian military said Monday that a group of Russian forces, in the guise of separatist rebels, had crossed into south-east Ukraine with ten tanks and two armored infantry vehicles, aiming to open a new front in the separatist war.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 25, 2014

Japan awaits North Korean report on fate of abductees

It may soon become clear whether the Japanese government's decision to bet on the power and ability of North Korea's State Security Department to resolve the fate of past Japanese abductees was justified.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2014

Pity Moscow's foodies as Putin's sanctions bite

A food writer in Moscow finds President Vladimir Putin's annoying at the best of times, but this month her distaste has blossomed into unbridled loathing after Russia imposed sanctions on food imports from the U.S., EU, Canada and Japan.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2014

British Ebola victim flown back from Sierra Leone for treatment

A British health care worker who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone- the first Briton to catch the deadly virus — was flown home for treatment on Sunday, as the World Health Organization confirmed another foreign medic had caught the disease.
BUSINESS / Companies
Aug 25, 2014

Roche said to have decided against bidding for rest of Chugai

Roche Holding AG decided against bidding for the almost 40 percent of drugmaker Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. that it doesn't already own and is instead focused on its $8.3 billion acquisition of InterMune Inc., according to a person familiar with the matter.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

Strong quake rocks California wine country, injuring dozens

A 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocked wine country north of San Francisco early on Sunday, injuring more than 100 people, damaging historic buildings, setting some homes on fire and causing power outages around the picturesque town of Napa.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 25, 2014

Congo declares Ebola outbreak in northern Equateur province

Democratic Republic of Congo declared an Ebola outbreak in its northern Equateur province on Sunday after two out of eight cases tested came back positive for the deadly virus, Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

Kidnappers free U.S. journalist missing in Syria since 2012

Kidnappers in Syria have freed a U.S. journalist missing since 2012, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday, following what Qatari-owned Al Jazeera said were efforts by the Gulf Arab state to win his release.
JAPAN / Politics / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Aug 24, 2014

Nippon Ishin, Yui no To take second shot at dethroning LDP

With their recent “political remarriage,” Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) and Yui no To (Unity Party) enter the union more experienced, and perhaps more wiser, than the first time around
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 24, 2014

Japan's universities can't win

In view of the disparity in professors' pay between Japanese and American universities, the notion of elevating Japanese universities' global rankings simply by bringing in outstanding 'foreign talent' as instructors and researchers is a castle in the sky.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2014

Topping the pops not as hard as it used to be

Disney's almighty Marvel Entertainment Group musters its superpowers to transform a motley collection of AM radio hits from the 1970s into the No. 1 pop music album in the U.S.

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