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JAPAN
Feb 6, 2013

Whaling an 'economic loser,' study says

Commercial whaling makes no economic sense given its money-losing operational structure and the declining consumption of whale meat, an animal rights group charged Tuesday in Tokyo.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 4, 2013

Composting food waste growing trend in America

Roy Derrick maneuvered his forklift with a pallet of neatly boxed expired produce and flowers and dropped it into an industrial compactor at Safeway's cavernous return center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. As the compactor hummed, compressed food and floral scraps spilled through a chute into a 12-meter...
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 4, 2013

Navy SEAL author of 'American Sniper' shot dead

He said he killed 160 people, perhaps many more, making him one of the leading U.S. military snipers of all time. In the course of four combat deployments to Iraq, he said insurgents nicknamed him "the devil of Ramadi" and placed a $20,000 bounty on his head.
EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2013

Suicide rate in decline

The annual number of suicides in Japan has fallen below the 30,000 level for the first time in 15 years, but suicide-prevention measures should not be slackened.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2013

Greater disclosure can feed conspiracy theories

One of the most troubling outcomes of the global financial crisis has been a collapse of trust in democratic politicians. What good has transparency done?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 4, 2013

Under fire

The video would be viewed more than 23 million times, making it perhaps the most watched footage of the Afghan war. It began last April when U.S. Army Pfc. Ted Daniels pressed the record button on his helmet camera.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 4, 2013

Mass-shooting survivors aim for stricter gun control

The mass shootings that have rocked communities across the country in recent years — from Blacksburg, Virginia, to Tuscon, Arizona, to Aurora, Colorado, to Oak Creek, Wisconsin, to Newtown, Connecticut — have left a well-documented trail of carnage and grief.
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...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 3, 2013

Eagles facing big challenges in bid to make playoffs

Will this be the season the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles make it to the Pacific League Climax Series for the second time in their nine years of existence?
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...
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Feb 3, 2013

Japan's suicide statistics don't tell the real story

According to the National Police Agency (NPA), Japan's annual total of suicides dipped below 30,000 people for the first time in 15 years in 2012 — to 27,766. While the fall is great news, part of me wonders: Has there really been a drop in suicides or should we look at it as a drop in homicides?
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Feb 2, 2013

Somali pirate trial lay judges felt global duty

The lay judges who sentenced two Somali pirates to 10 years in prison Friday said that while they had initial qualms about a case they considered foreign, they came to believe it was their duty as part of the international community to try the defendants.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2013

End the abuse of athletes

Fifteen of Japan's top female judo athletes, including Olympic contenders, should be praised for standing up against coaching violence and harassment.
JAPAN / Society
Feb 1, 2013

Two sides to corporal punishment practices in Japan

The December suicide of an Osaka high school basketball team captain who had been physically punished by his coach cast a harsh light on corporal punishment in Japan, and this week's admission by the All Japan Judo Federation that Olympic female judoka had been physically abused and harassed by their...
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 1, 2013

Abe can expect little sympathy from nominal allies during Okinawa visit

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visits Okinawa for a meeting Saturday with Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima and other local politicians, he'll be sitting down mostly with fellow Liberal Democratic Party members or those who won with LDP support.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 31, 2013

February: My Bloody Valentine returns

January featured a ton of great concerts across Japan, but February might be even better — hope your wallet isn't too thin this month.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2013

Local 3-D printing pioneers make it easy for all to join in

Whether it's hobbyists making toys, designers prototyping products or a doctor creating artificial organs, the 3-D printing boom has clearly hit Japan.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 30, 2013

Why the Apple and Facebook empires are destined to collapse

Nothing lasts forever: if history has any lesson for us, it is this. It's a thought that comes from rereading Paul Kennedy's magisterial tome, "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers," in which he shows that none of the great nation-states or empires of history — Rome; imperial Spain in 1600; France...

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