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Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2013

A Western woman's perspective

Denny Pollard, in his Jan. 24 letter, "Men to decide the demographics," states that "Japanese women don't want to marry a man who looks down on them, treats them with disrespect and tells them they should only do as they're told."
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2013

Leave Japanese courses alone

Regarding the Jan. 30 Kyodo article "U.K. plan to limit Japanese worries language teachers": While Japanese could be considered a luxury item on the curriculum, ironically, the same label could also be applied to subjects such as art, music, drama, dance and even English, science and math!
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2013

Questions about contamination

The Jan. 29 Kyodo article "Fukushima kids' thyroids said safe" indicates that radiation levels in the thyroids of 1-year-old kids living near the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant are "estimated to be less than 30 millisieverts in most cases," based on medical exams of 1,000 children. The story goes...
WORLD / Politics
Feb 3, 2013

Suicide bomber blasts U.S. Embassy in Turkey

A suicide bomber killed a Turkish guard in what U.S. officials called a terrorist attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Friday, but current and former diplomats credited increased security with preventing more deaths.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Feb 3, 2013

All aglow with the 'water of life'

In 1983, I talked myself into a marvelous job with a Japanese magazine. I set off in the early summer, when the days would be long and the nights short, to tour around Scotland with cameraman Moriyama Touru.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 3, 2013

Escaping one's demons through an epic trek

WILD: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, by Cheryl Strayed. Knopf, 2012, 336 pp., $25.95 (hardcover) In this hugely entertaining book, Cheryl Strayed takes the redemptive nature of travel — a theme as old as literature itself — and makes it her own. For three months she hiked 1,100 miles...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 2, 2013

Government says all single parents not created equal

A single mother finds that she doesn't qualify for a tax exemption because she was never married.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 2, 2013

Man City right to off-load Balotelli

You may think a guy who has to pay his ex-wife £82,000 — a day yes, a day — would have learned a financial lesson or two, but Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy and president of AC Milan, continues to be a lucrative benefactor and not just for the former Signora Berlusconi.
BASKETBALL
Feb 2, 2013

Cinq Reves acquire veteran guard Cummard

Looking to fine tune their roster for the season's final three months, the Tokyo Cinq Reves have signed former BYU shooting guard Lee Cummard, the expansion team announced on Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2013

Court hands Somali pirates 10-year term

The Tokyo District Court jails two Somali pirates for 10 years for trying to hijack an oil tanker operated by a Japanese company in the Indian Ocean in 2011.
BUSINESS / Economy
Feb 2, 2013

Eased limits now allow sale of U.S. beef below 30 months

Japan eases its limits on U.S. beef imports, permitting retailers to begin selling meat from cattle less than 30 months old.
Japan Times
CULTURE
Feb 2, 2013

Hugo, Manet unveiled Paris' poor and privileged

The iron gates of the short passageway, a stone's throw from the increasingly trendy Montorgueil district of Paris and a brief walk from the prostitutes of Saint Denis, are closed to the public these days. It was here, in what was Passage Saumon off the Rue du Bout du Monde — the end of the world road...
WORLD
Feb 1, 2013

Iran to install hundreds of new centrifuges

Iran has told U.N. nuclear officials that it plans to add potentially hundreds of next-generation centrifuge machines to its main uranium enrichment plant, a move that could dramatically boost its ability to produce the fuel used in nuclear power plants and — potentially — nuclear bombs.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Feb 1, 2013

AKB48 member's 'penance' shows flaws in idol culture

The image of a young girl in front of a camera, her head recently shaved, sobbing into the lens is one that's guaranteed to shock. But when that girl is a key member of idol group AKB48, the reaction is bound to be stronger.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2013

AKB48 idol begs for fans' mercy after breaking dating ban

A member of AKB48 stirs up an online frenzy by getting a crew cut and posting an apology for breaking the all-girl group's rule against romantic relationships.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 1, 2013

Some thoughts on the rudiments of rutabaga

I can't wait to see NHK-G's special program to air Feb. 23. They are finally going to address a topic I have harbored secret thoughts about since I came to Japan in 1994. NHK is going to broach the topic in a no-holds-barred documentary. The subject is turnip tossing.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EMBASSY AVENUE
Feb 1, 2013

Events highlight the Cote d'Ivoire of today

The Cote d'Ivoire of today is being presented during the Month of Cote d'Ivoire event at the Japan International Cooperation Agency's Global Plaza in Tokyo through Feb. 10.
WORLD
Feb 1, 2013

The quirky sex lives of barnacles

Mostly hermaphroditic, barnacles are famous for their genitalia — the longest in the animal kingdom, relative to size — which can change shape and size to fertilize neighboring barnacles. For the times when accessing a potential mate is too difficult, most barnacles rely on self-fertilization to...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 1, 2013

Cirque offshoot 7 Fingers has lofty ambitions

Since first touring its native province of Quebec in 1984, the self-styled "multifaceted creative force" that is Canada's Cirque du Soleil has become a major global phenomenon with several permanent venues.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Feb 1, 2013

Antonio Najarro offers flamenco with a twist of ballet

One of Spain's most prestigious dance troupes will perform in Japan for the first time in six years.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health
Jan 31, 2013

Schools have knack for healthy meals

In Japan, school lunch means a regular meal, not one that harms your health. The food is grown locally and almost never frozen. There's no mystery behind the meat. From time to time, parents even call up with an unusual question: Can they get the recipes?
Reader Mail
Jan 31, 2013

Failure could be the answer

Since coming to Japan some years ago, the most surprising fact I learned about the education system was that it is impossible for elementary and middle school students to fail and repeat a grade.
Reader Mail
Jan 31, 2013

Men must be willing to help out

Denny Pollard's Jan. 24 letter, "Men to decide demographics," gave us a perspective from Yamagata Prefecture. And I agree with it!
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 30, 2013

Abe adviser Hamada wants more pliant BOJ

With his harsh criticism of the Bank of Japan in the spotlight, Shinzo Abe's economic brain, Koichi Hamada, says it is a big step forward for the central bank to finally adopt the new prime minister's 2 percent inflation target.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jan 30, 2013

With Medicaid rolls set to grow, Oregon bets it can slow costs

In 2011, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber faced a vexing problem: The state had a $2 billion hole in its Medicaid budget and no good way to fill it.
BUSINESS / Companies / ANALYSIS
Jan 30, 2013

An ailing iconic tech giant: Does Apple have an innovation problem?

Analysts blamed flat profits for the steep slide in Apple's stock price last week. But what's ailing the iconic tech company is not a profitability problem. It's an innovation problem. And, perhaps, an expectations problem.

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