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Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 4, 2013

Too high to drive? Pot-legal Colorado mulls blood-level limits

When is someone too stoned to drive?
WORLD
Mar 4, 2013

Research into gays emerges from shadows

Just a few salient facts are known about the Americans whose lives might be changed by a Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage expected this summer.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 3, 2013

The days may be numbered for English as a universal second language

How long will English last as a major world language? The answer must be: a very long time.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 27, 2013

Seniors forced to go it alone as ranks swell, housing eludes

Itoko Uchida, 82, was counting on the nephew she raised to support her in old age. He refused, forcing her to pay for a sponsor to join the 420,000-long line of Japanese waiting for a nursing home bed.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 27, 2013

Interviews with 'evil personified' reveal very different men

He shuffled into the room and stopped, plexiglass and cinderblocks framing his slight figure. He looked much as I remembered him from nearly a decade earlier: big eyes in a boyish face, a thin build, long fingers, waist chains. But his eyes, once cold and flat, had mellowed into something resembling...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2013

'Ponzi demography' as Singaporeans fear overpopulation bubble, burst

Singaporeans are raring to do something extraordinary: protest.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Feb 19, 2013

Journey to Kenya turns writer's life on its head, spurs Africa fascination

It was a single visit to Kenya in 1972 that completely changed Michio Hiraiwa's philosophy on life. He fell in love with the country, and visited there 150 times over the past 40 years. Once a workaholic, Hiraiwa says he now leads a stress-free and relaxed life, visiting Kenya and Tanzania four times...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 18, 2013

Stay of execution?

Jerry Givens executed 62 people. His routine and conviction never wavered. He'd shave the person's head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God's forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he would strap the person into Virginia's electric chair.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Feb 18, 2013

'Interruptions' gives form to invisible immigrants

As senators opened the immigration reform debate with a hearing Wednesday morning, spectral sentinels last seen in the Hollywood Hills and on Rodeo Drive began appearing on Capitol Hill.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 14, 2013

Colo brings tribes together in Osaka

It's December and small flocks of young, creative-looking types are making their way to a shipyard in Osaka's Namura district. Tucked among an expanse of otherwise drab warehouses there is Creative Center Osaka, and tonight is "Hot Docks 2," an art and music spectacle.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 9, 2013

Taro Aso may, for once, have a point

Ever since the Liberal Democratic Party regained power last year, standard-bearer Shinzo Abe has been conspicuously cautious with his public pronouncements, cooling it on the nationalist rhetoric and keeping the bravado to a minimum. Deprived of excitement, the media was delighted by Vice Prime Minister...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 7, 2013

Tadasu Takamine's not so 'Cool Japan'

In May 2011, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry promoted the idea of "Cool Japan," presenting Japanese culture as a product amid the confusing circumstances after the Great East Japan Earthquake. As Japan continues to suffer a declining population and weak economy, it was a government attempt...
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?
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2013

Mr. Abe's strategy

A s the 150-day ordinary Diet session kicked off Monday, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivered his first policy speech since becoming prime minister following the Liberal Democratic Party's victory in the Dec. 16 Lower House election. He said Japan is facing crises with regard to the economy, damage from...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 28, 2013

Blame it on the hara: harassment vocabulary makes us all victims

Japan has a new hara. No, the nice couple down the hall didn't just have a baby; according to recent news, yet another form of harassment is supposedly becoming a social problem.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2013

Solar lanterns brighten future for Afghans

Where would we be without light when night falls? It is hard to imagine all of the constraints during the long hours of darkness before the sun rises again — no work, no study and no recreation.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2013

Ensure sufficient welfare support

The government must ensure that adjustments to the livelihood assistance program don't rip the economic safety net from out under Japan's poor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 23, 2013

'Coriolanus' comes home — to Kyoto

It's a fair bet that many people at the Globe Theatre in London last May expected the Kyoto-based Chiten (Point) Company to present a stereotypically Japanese, samurai-style "Coriolanus," complete with taiko drums and period armor.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 22, 2013

Fixing the much-admired, reviled Constitution — by breaking it

With Shinzo Abe having called Japan's current Constitution "pathetic" (mittomonai) just a few days before taking charge of a government established under it, constitutional amendment seems likely to be on the agenda of his second go as prime minister. This should not surprise anyone, since "fixing" the...
JAPAN / Media
Jan 19, 2013

Oshima was in a realm of his own

Film director Nagisa Oshima passed away Tuesday. He was 80.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 19, 2013

Signs of Kansai

At the end of lunch with an old friend, I point out yet another hole in my Swiss cheese knowledge of Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jan 19, 2013

Israel prepares for next act in the great moving right show

Dalya Steinberger's journey across Israel's political landscape began more than 20 years ago when she cast a vote for Labor, one of almost a million people who helped propel Yitzhak Rabin to the leadership of the Jewish state. A year later, in 1993, Rabin signed the historic Oslo Accords, shaking hands...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 16, 2013

CV frauds revealed by diligent online fact checks

In recent years, there have been several cases where Japanese media icons, especially those who shine across national and language borders, have been accused of falsifying their personal histories, and they have consequently lost whatever popularity they had gained through the mass media and/or books....
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 16, 2013

Obama seeks to flip script on debt debate

ANALYSIS
EDITORIALS
Jan 10, 2013

Generic drug prescriptions

The Liberal Democratic Party would like to get doctors and medical organizations, in principle, to prescribe generic drugs, instead of proprietary drugs, to people on welfare with their consent. Behind the idea is the hope of curbing the rising costs of livelihood assistance, known as seikatsu hogo,...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 8, 2013

Xenophobia finds fertile soil in web anonymity

As diplomatic strains with China and South Korea worsen over territorial disputes, more and more Japanese are using the relative anonymity of cyberspace to vent their political spleens online.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 8, 2013

From Taiji to Okinawa, readers dissect some issues of 2012

In the first of our new Community Chest letters columns, we bring together a selection of mails received in response to some of the final Community stories of 2012.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jan 6, 2013

Even gangsters live in fear of Japan's gun laws

It's almost impossible to get to a gun in Japan, and selling one or owning one is a serious crime. Fire the gun? Possibly life imprisonment. Gun-control laws are taken so seriously that police will pursue a violator all the way to the grave — and maybe beyond.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 31, 2012

Supreme copout: twisted justification for guns

Suppose a Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Lee Loughner, James Eagan Holmes or an Adam Lanza shot and killed or seriously wounded any of the families of John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Would any of them have given different opinions in their 2008 and 2010 decisions?...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan