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JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 18, 2016

Autism may not be confined to the brain

Thirteen-year-old Naoki Higashida describes his own personal feelings about having autism as follows:
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 15, 2016

Mass shootings actually inspire looser gun laws in America

The pattern seems clear: A mass shooting is followed by loud calls to tighten America's gun laws, yet there is no change before the next massacre.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2016

Media gamed Democratic primary

The vast majority of U.S. corporate media outlets appear to have had their thumbs on the scale for Hillary Clinton throughout the Democratic primaries.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 11, 2016

The peacemakers of Okinawa

Sixty years ago this week, the U.S. government released the controversial Price Report, triggering mass protests on Okinawa that gave birth to leaders who, while renowned in the prefecture, remain little known outside it
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 11, 2016

In Japan, all that is true melts into hot air

'Is it because the truth is so boring," asked the 14th-century monk Yoshida no Kenko in a classic collection of musings known as the "The Grasses of Idleness," "that most stories one hears are false?"
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 11, 2016

Abenomics' failure and the curse of 'Japanization'

The word "Japanization" refers to Japan's prolonged stagnation — a malady that was on everyone's mind at the recent G-7 summit. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the right call in postponing the planned tax hike, but the feeble opposition can be forgiven for pouncing on his abrupt volte-face, which is...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 11, 2016

Novelist Hideo Furukawa views the Fukushima disaster through nonhuman eyes

After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, critically acclaimed writer Hideo Furukawa experienced an unsettling "imagination meltdown."
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 10, 2016

A U.S.-Japan-Taiwan grand bargain for Senkakus

Japan should recognize Taiwan in exchange for Taipei's acknowledgement of Japan's sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2016

A contrarian chess player's message lives on

To those who distrusted the Soviet system but lacked the courage or the wherewithal to leave or fight, Viktor Korchnoi was a symbol of freedom.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2016

Are EU benefits worth the high price Britain pays?

The U.K. will thrive in or out of the EU. The British people must decide just how much they are prepared to pay to preserve a unified Europe.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 8, 2016

The topic of AI always raises HAL and more

An astronaut in deep space finishes up some repairs to the parabolic antenna on his spacecraft's exterior. Through his helmet's microphone, he commands the ship's controlling supercomputer, HAL 9000, "Open the pod bay doors, HAL." A second later he gets a calm, cold response in his helmet: "I'm sorry,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 7, 2016

Could Durant join forces with LeBron on Cavaliers?

The NBA Finals still is the big story in basketball, and it will be for the next week or so no matter the conclusion.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2016

Goddess of war criticizes king of hype

A Democratic neoconservative, Hillary Clinton's public values include a willingness to go to war for frivolous reasons and a willingness to wreck entire nations while pursuing failed policies.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 7, 2016

Women's empowerment: The time is now, Japan

While Japan's GDP growth is declining, the country is experiencing a rise in gross domestic power of the feminine persuasion.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2016

Ali forced people to take sides, and I took his

Muhammed Ali was the transcendent sports figure of the 20th century, a lightning rod for controversy who became a beloved ambassador for peace.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 4, 2016

Japan baffled by the intricacies of LGBT issues

A middle-aged woman I know never wears makeup or skirts and keeps her hair short. Sometimes she receives concerned glances when she enters the women's locker room at the gym she patronizes and, while no one has ever questioned her gender (for the record, she is straight and married), she often feels...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jun 4, 2016

Why 'The Japanese Chronicles' remains an archetypal travelogue

Author of the classic travelogue "The Way of the World," Nicolas Bouvier was also a photographer, whose grainy images add texture to this series of essays published in 1989. A travel writer who used the genre as a medium for political and cultural inquiry, Bouvier was both investigative journalist and...
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 4, 2016

Easing pressure on farmland, 'bionic leaf' uses sunlight to make clean fuel

A new clean technology to turn sunlight into liquid fuel could drastically shrink the need for large plantations to grow crops for biofuels and also combat climate change, Harvard University researchers said Thursday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 3, 2016

Satellites find 39 unreported sources of major pollution

Researchers in the United States and Canada have located 39 unreported sources of major pollution using a new satellite-based method, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration said.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2016

Must U.S. satisfy NATO's paranoid members?

The only way to get Europeans to make a more meaningful military contribution is to turn responsibility for their defense over to them. Washington should stop taking care of NATO.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 2, 2016

Four carmakers still installing defective Takata air bags: U.S. lawmaker

Toyota Motor Corp., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, Volkswagen AG and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. are still selling new vehicles with defective air bags that will eventually need to be recalled, according to a report by a U.S. lawmaker overseeing the agency handling the largest-ever auto safety recall.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 31, 2016

Study faults Japan for inaction on modern-day slavery

Almost 46 million people are trapped in modern-day slavery, two-thirds of them in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a study released Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2016

An isolationist Trump could save American lives

Donald Trump believes that subsidizing prosperous allies and attempting to remake failed states provides little benefit to most Americans, who do the dying and paying.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2016

A-bombs taught U.S. how to justify attacks abroad

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima set in motion a sweeping, national generalization that if Americans do it, it is right.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
May 29, 2016

Industry helps Chinese game their way into and through U.S. colleges

The advertisements were tailored for Chinese college students far from home struggling with the English language and an unfamiliar culture.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 28, 2016

Poverty and boredom gnaw at Japan

Boredom, poverty and war: three themes you’d think (wrongly) would be extinct by now — war because humankind as a whole is more peaceably inclined than ever before, poverty because of an abundance of riches and boredom because ... doesn't it go without saying, given the endless stream, not to say...

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