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Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 3, 2013

Join Wall Street, save the world: The rise of the benevolent class

Jason Trigg went into finance because he is after money — as much as he can earn. The 25-year-old certainly had other career options. An MIT computer science graduate, he could write software for the next tech giant. Or he might have gone into academia in computing or applied math or biology. He could...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2013

Projected baby boom needs immediate action

With one-third of the world's children in 2050 predicted to be born in Africa, the international community must invest in their parents now, not down the road, UNICEF's executive director said in an interview with The Japan Times.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

France takes notice, the Yanks aren't coming

The realization that Europe can no longer rely on America to fill the military gap has given France pause. It is taking its security responsibilities more seriously.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

Iran's nuclear games call for tougher approach

By offering Iran what its leaders have claimed to want — civil nuclear power — the U.S. could expose Iran's true intentions to the world, including its own people.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2013

Abe to Africa: Use aid as you see fit

The fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development opens with a look back over the forum's past 20 years and discussions about its future.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jun 2, 2013

Sex gaffes and the voluble Osaka shyster

If the Japan Restoration Party — headed by Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, and former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara — needs a new political slogan, the proverb Kuchi ga wazawai no moto (The mouth is the source of great trouble) would do nicely.
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...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 2, 2013

Language no barrier to multimedia Jon Kabira

With a long rousing cry of “Goooooooood Mooooorning Tooookyoooooooooooo!” Jon Kabira launches into his weekly radio show “JK Radio — Tokyo United” every Friday at 6 a.m. on J-Wave.
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.
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2013

Wrong address on student letters

Regarding the May 29 Kyodo article "Nagasaki youths key to hibakusha message": Rather than sending their signatures to the United Nations Office in Geneva, the students collecting signatures for the abolition of nuclear weapons should be sending their petition to Washington.
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2013

The American energy revolution

The oil and gas revolutions have become the cause of an emotional debate in the United States, and the debate grows more polarized by the day. Depending on which side of the media you follow, there are pictures of oil-slicked birds, communities in economic despair and mothers fighting for their children's...
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2013

A history of political stupidity

The Japanese have a place in their hearts for politicians who say outrageous and stupid things. There is a long history of it. First, the Japanese seem to confuse constitutional freedom of speech with the freedom to say absolutely anything with impunity. Hence there is a disposition to admire leaders...
WORLD
Jun 2, 2013

FBI-killed Chechen lunged at agent

Ibragim Todashev, the Chechen acquaintance of one of the accused Boston bombers, was shot roughly half a dozen times in several seconds by an FBI agent after he twice lunged at the officer with a metal stick, according to senior federal law enforcement officials.
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

Singer Misia help raise awareness about Africa

A powerful five-octave voice coming from a small frame is normally what describes Misia as a singer. The second hat she wears is as a philanthropic activist for Africa.
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

JICA helps Africans develop their future

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), an independent governmental agency that coordinates official development assistance (ODA) for the government, has played an important role for the country in its relations with foreign nations. The following is the story of a JICA staff member who worked...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2013

British resident missing in Tokyo

Police and the British Embassy are seeking a 40-year-old British CEO who vanished in Tokyo more than a week ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 1, 2013

Yoko Ono: 'I feel that I am starting a new life at 80'

Sitting at her kitchen table, sipping green tea, Yoko Ono looks much the same as she did when I met her 20 years ago. Dressed in black and peering intently over tinted spectacles, her face bears little trace of the passing of time and her diminutive form exudes utter calmness. Having crossed the famous...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 1, 2013

Everyone's own path to enlightenment

What is Buddhism?
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 1, 2013

Space radiation makes any Mars mission hazardous

Of all the hazards facing a human mission to Mars — something NASA and countless other space buffs would love to see at some point — one of the hardest to solve is the radiation that saturates interplanetary space.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

Size doesn't matter: Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia celebrates 15 years

The short film gave birth to the cinema — the first narrative film, 'The Great Train Robbery' (1903), is all of 11 minutes long, but the format is now in the shadow of the full-length feature.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Oldboy' director casts dark shadow on Hollywood

“Stoker,” a film so rich and chocolatey with nuance and innuendo you could eat it with a spoon, is, amazingly, directed by a filmmaker who doesn't speak English.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 31, 2013

Widow in farmer suicide sues Tepco

A Filipino woman whose Japanese husband committed suicide after his dairy farming business was decimated by the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is suing Tokyo Electric Power Co. for about ¥126 million.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2013

'Kuchizuke (Angel Home)'

The Japanese film industry loves medical melodramas, but not much ones with intellectually disabled characters.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 31, 2013

Sony taps Apple alumni for board

Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai is trying to win back customers from Apple Inc. with new Xperia smartphones. Adding two former executives of the iPhone maker to Sony's board next month may help.
JAPAN
May 30, 2013

Flak dooms handbook pushing motherhood

A government task force discussing measures to boost Japan's low birthrate has scrapped an idea to give young women handbooks informing them of certain medical facts — including those pertaining to infertility — faced by some women in their late 30s.
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

The power of ideas over time

In his May 23 letter, "Watching what the church does," Barry Ward cannot refute Jennifer Kim's comments (May 16 letter, "Catholic link to human rights"), which show the debt owed by modern human rights conventions to Judeo-Christian teaching. So, instead, Ward fumes over historical wrongs committed by...
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

Perception of a poisoned ocean

Regarding the May 22 Kyodo article "Researchers find high cesium in some Pacific plankton": Even small amounts of radioactivity in plankton are a big problem because of bio-magnification, as it travels up the food chain as larger animals eat smaller animals.
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

Jump-starting the use of English

Amy Chavez's May 25 column, "English education and English sheepdogs," gives a clear-cut reason why Japanese people usually have a lot of difficulties speaking English.
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

Fabulous example for the nation

Regarding the May 25 editorial "Challenge of a lifetime, again": A hearty congratulations to the fabulous Yuichiro Miura. I had been following his news, and it is wonderful to know that the 80-year-old scaled Mount Everest for the third time.
Reader Mail
May 30, 2013

Nature will be last to weigh in

Regarding Kevin Rafferty's May 21 article, "Weep for poor Earth itself": Why weep for poor Earth? It's a planet with a 4-billion-year history despite what evangelical rightwing Christians would have us believe. Earth has weathered far worse than anything a naked, bipedal primate, known as homo sapiens,...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic