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Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 23, 2013

Why are so many young men becoming Internet trolls?

Two thousand, three hundred and ninety-three years ago, in 380 B.C., Plato wrote the myth of the Ring of Gyges, in which the shepherd, Gyges, discovers a ring that makes him invisible at will. Gyges promptly uses the protection this offers to infiltrate the royal household, seduce the queen, assassinate...
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 20, 2013

Riyadh vows to make up Egypt aid shortfall

Saudi Arabia is emerging at the forefront of a forceful effort by Persian Gulf monarchies to back Egypt's new military leaders, exacerbating a fierce struggle for influence in the chaotic and increasingly leaderless Arab world and putting the Saudis at odds with the U.S., a long-standing ally.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2013

Newspaper rescue defines today's good citizen

It would appear that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos wants less to own The Washington Post than to set its values free financially, for at least a generation or two.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 17, 2013

How green is Tohoku's 'Green Connections' project?

On its surface, the plan seems like an environmentalist's dream come true: Take wreckage from the March 11, 2011, Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region of Honshu and pile it along the washed-out coastline; cover the crumbled concrete and broken wood with soil; then top it all with...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 9, 2013

Film helps heal A-bombing, and family, wounds

In a poignant scene in the award-winning 2010 documentary "Atomic Mom," filmmaker M.T. Silvia tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Hiroshima atomic bombing victim, as she presents 1,000 paper cranes to Silvia's mother, Pauline, a former U.S. Navy biologist involved in radiation testing on animals in the...
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 7, 2013

Weekend results deny Sanfrecce chance to stretch legs

League leaders Sanfrecce Hiroshima went into last weekend's game against Urawa Reds with a real chance to pull clear of the chasing pack, but after crashing to a 3-1 defeat at Saitama Stadium, the top of the table now looks more congested than ever.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2013

Openings of Iwaki beaches offer semblance of normalcy

Every day, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., a part-time worker at one of Fukushima's most well-known beaches walks toward the shoreline and lowers a dosimeter to the water. The device measures radiation, and its readings this summer have delivered the best news one can hope for 70 km south of a still-leaking nuclear...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2013

Inside the mind of Deng's intellectual successor

A new book at last puts Zhu Rongji, Shanghai's former mayor and the economic intellectual successor to the late Deng Xiaoping, into the pantheon of Chinese giants.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Jul 30, 2013

Next stop: French toast?

Is the pancake boom giving way to a new brunchy trend?
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 29, 2013

Grip on Diet leaves no scapegoats for LDP

The Liberal Democratic Party won a landslide victory in the July 21 Upper House election and regained control of both chambers of the Diet, ending years in which the legislature was effectively divided and bills were held hostage.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 25, 2013

With planets easy to find, astronomer sets sights on alien spacecraft

In the field of planet hunting, Geoff Marcy is a star. After all, the astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley found nearly three-quarters of the first 100 planets discovered outside our solar system. But with the hobbled planet-hunting Kepler telescope having just about reached the end of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 20, 2013

Murky backstory of 'Gatsby'

What is it about 'The Great Gatsby'? The dark star of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unquiet masterpiece draws writers, critics and filmmakers into its force field, drives them a little mad, and hurls them back into the darkness. The book and its author add up to a mystery whose fascination never fades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 17, 2013

Japan's population of ghouls keeps coming back to haunt us

Caught up in the rush of modernity, it is sometimes easy to forget just what a unique and unusual country Japan is. An exhibition such as "Yokai: Demons, Folklore Creatures and GeGeGe no Kitaro" serves to remind us, by peeling back the surface of everyday life and showing us the "collective subconsciousness"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 13, 2013

A diary washed ashore opens up a world of multiple realities

A good read transcends into the eternal, melding the real now with a timeless present. Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being" is all that and more: a quietly amazing achievement, a careful construct bridging quantum physics and the role of the reader/observer, a Zen eternity of multiple realities...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2013

'Shanidaru no Hana (The Flower of Shanidar)'

Gakuryu Ishii has made something of a career of confounding fans and critics alike with his big shifts in artistic direction, his long silences and, in 2010, his name change from the unusual, if memorable, Sogo to the pretentious, if still hard-to-forget, Gakuryu (a combination of the kanji for "mountain"...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2013

Revolution and democracy

The military coup in Egypt and the arrest of President Mohamed Morsi do not signal the end either of the Arab spring or of progress toward adopting democratic norms.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 9, 2013

Plunging rupee sends New Delhi a wake-up call

The real reason to worry about India is that it has lost international competitiveness and has been buying time from lenders — not because the rupee's value has slid.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 6, 2013

Yoko Narahashi: From Hollywood to Hirohito

From "Empire of the Sun" to "The Last Samurai," and from "Memoirs of a Geisha" to "Babel" — when Hollywood film directors have turned their cameras to the Land of the Rising Sun, there is one person they have insisted on having by their side: Yoko Narahashi, a casting agent, producer, sometimes director...
COMMENTARY / Japan / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Jul 1, 2013

Constitutional revision debate could make or break 'Abenomics'

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's popularity continues — the latest Nikkei and TV Tokyo survey shows his approval rating at 66 percent, his Liberal Democratic Party's victory in the Upper House election seems highly probable, "Abenomics" is still on course, and even medium-term economic growth seems possible...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 29, 2013

America and Britain team up on mass surveillance

Twelve years ago, in an almost forgotten report, the European Parliament completed its investigations into a long-suspected Western intelligence partnership dedicated to global signals interception on a vast scale. Evidence had been taken from spies and politicians, telecommunications experts and journalists....
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 29, 2013

Charles Saatchi: art supremo with an image problem

When the art collector Charles Saatchi wants something, he knows how to set about getting it. Gallerists and curators are full of stories about the way he walks into an exhibition, fixes on the single best work of art on show and rushes toward it — in the words of one acquaintance, "like a heat-seeking...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 26, 2013

Supreme Court cripples Voting Rights Act

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday invalidated a crucial component of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, ruling that Congress has not taken into account the nation's racial progress when singling out certain states for federal oversight.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 26, 2013

A mother helps son in his struggle with schizophrenia

The mother drives her son everywhere because he is not well enough to drive. He sits next to her, and at the red lights she looks over and studies him: how quiet he is, how stiffly he sits, hands in his lap, fingers fidgeting slightly, a tic that occasionally blooms into a full fluttering motion he makes...
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Jun 25, 2013

Snowden eyes friendly soil in Latin America

The three Latin American countries said to be helping Edward Snowden flee from U.S. authorities are united in their opposition to the White House and pursue foreign policy objectives designed to counter U.S. influence.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2013

The trouble within Islam

There is a problematic strain within Islam, and we have to be honest about it. At its heart is a view of religion that is not compatible with pluralistic societies.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 12, 2013

The Confederate soldier in the American family tree

The sun was blazing overhead, and the horses and the men were waiting in the woods. They could see the Union cannons across the open field near the peach orchard.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 11, 2013

New sunscreen labels to stop beach lovers from getting burned by lies

Remember that bottle of waterproof sunblock you bought last year? It lied — lotion can't be waterproof or totally block out harmful rays. Thanks to new sunscreen-labeling rules from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that recently came into effect, misleading terminology has been wiped away to help...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 3, 2013

Can Republicans take lessons from Cameron's struggles in Britain?

Three years ago, newly elected British Prime Minister David Cameron was seen as a possible model for Republicans looking to update their party after losing the 2008 presidential election. Today, he provides an object lesson in the stumbling blocks that can lie in wait.
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

Yokohama continues to foster close African ties

Africa returns to Yokohama in the form of the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V), which is being held through June 3.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami