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Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 14, 2013

Imminent birth puts spotlight on monarch

Aging monarchs in the Netherlands and Belgium stepped down this year to make room for the next generation of Europe's crowned heads. But in Britain, the impending birth of a royal baby will have heirs stacking up like planes at London's super-clogged Heathrow Airport.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jul 10, 2013

Kimo-kawaii: a chronology in 13 steps

If it's hard to look at but harder to look away, it's kimo-kawaii.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jul 6, 2013

Fugitive in limbo: It's a familiar story in music, movies, television

He fled the United States for Hong Kong, then left Hong Kong for Russia. Now he's withdrawn his request for political asylum there without having received a guarantee of safe harbor anywhere else. All of which leaves NSA leaker Edward Snowden sitting in a Moscow airport in a kind of legal limbo, with...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 6, 2013

Pity the generation that can't retire before 80

"What if my wife and I die? What if we get dementia? How will our son live?"
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2013

Firm floats alternative to TOEFL

While Japan looks to make a passing score on the Test of English as a Foreign Language mandatory for university entrance, it should also consider alternative exams that might work better, said John de Jong, senior vice president at Pearson English, a division of Pearson PLC.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 5, 2013

'Wind farms are not the answer to our problems'

Why do you think scientists and politicians have been slow and reluctant to confront population growth? It might be useful to first distinguish between growth and behavior. The problem is less the current number of us in itself (yet) but more the way the majority of the 7 billion of us live and consume....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2013

Tsuchiya questions what it means to be human

I first met Yutaka Tsuchiya in 1999 when I interviewed him on the release of "Atarashii Kamisama (The New God)," his documentary centering on a rightist punk band and its charismatic lead singer, Karin Amamiya. Despite his left-leaning politics, Tsuchiya was anything but the rigid ideologue; in fact,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jul 2, 2013

The LDP constitution, article by article: a preview of things to come?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing for constitutional change. Yet he is playing the political huckster by proposing to first only fiddle with the amendment procedure in Article 96, lowering the threshold for the process to move forward from the approval of two-thirds of both houses of the Diet, as...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 30, 2013

Brown imparting wisdom to Japan squad

Larry Brown, the Basketball Hall of Fame coach, has never been accused of embracing job stability. So maybe it's not surprising that his older brother, Herb, also a basketball lifer, has had a nomadic existence in the coaching business, too.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 30, 2013

Complete translation of 'Kafu's first masterpiece'

The English reader has in this volume a complete translation of works of fiction, interspersed with thinly disguised autobiography and essay-like passages, composed by a young Japanese man who was to go on to become one of the finest Japanese writers of the 20th century, Nagai Kafu (1879-1959).
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 29, 2013

Voyager 1 finds solar system's final frontier is fuzzier than once thought

The edge of the solar system has no edge, it turns out. It has a fuzzy transitional area that is not quite part of our solar system and not quite interstellar space.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013

'Kon-Tiki'

It's hard to resist the retro charms of this old-fashioned adventure/thriller. Step aside, Indiana Jones — you got some fierce competition going on in "Kon-Tiki," the true-to-life tale of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his epic, 8,000-km sea voyage from the Peruvian Coast to Polynesia.
EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2013

Epidemic of dementia

Japan needs to address its dementia crisis. A recent survey found that 4.62 million people suffer from it, nearly 1.6 million more than last year's estimate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

Modern science needs to reject 'fairy tales,' get a grip on reality

At an interdisciplinary gathering of academics discussing the concept of time, I once heard a scientist tell the assembled humanities scholars that physics can now replace all their woolly notions of time with one that is unique, precise and true. Such scientism is rightly undermined by theoretical physicist...
WORLD
Jun 22, 2013

Fighting the poachers on Africa's thin green line

Esnart Paundi rarely smiled for the camera. One old photo shows her wearing her ranger's camouflage fatigues and a pensive expression as she crouches beside a mound of bushmeat and three despondent poachers, one handcuffed. In another she is in a black leather jacket at her sister's home, leaning against...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jun 18, 2013

Finnish diplomat pushes child-rearing for dads

For Finnish diplomat Mikko Koivumaa, being an ikumen (men who take an active role in ikuji, or child rearing) comes naturally.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 14, 2013

'The Great Gatsby'

Baz Luhrmann does justice to F. Scott Fitzgerald's most intriguing creation: Jay Gatsby, the man referred to in the book title as "The Great." As far as adaptations go, Luhrmann's version beats the 1974 version that starred Robert Redford and Mia Farrow hands down. That was a sorrowful, soulful tale...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 13, 2013

The collector who saw the fine print

The Nezu Museum is currently showing "Ceramics and Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Hagi Uragami Museum," an exhibition of outstanding artworks collected over the years by the entrepreneur Toshiro Uragami, who donated them to the Hagi Uragami Museum in Yamaguchi Prefecture in 1996.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 9, 2013

Scrutinizing identity through one's family

Lucky great-grandfather Julius. This first member of the Helm family to settle in Japan was "as rooted in his German identity as an old oak tree." For his mixed-race descendants, life would not be so simple.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

How did Germany become the new champion of Europe?

Sitting in his brightly lit office overlooking the green hills of rural Westphalia, surrounded by photographs of aluminium and titanium castings, Phillip Schack has drawn a blue triangle on a piece of paper. Pointing to a small shaded section at its apex, he says: "Look. If that's your market, up at...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 8, 2013

Why do identical twins lead such different lives?

Barbara Oliver has had an intriguing relationship with her identical twin sister, Christine, over the decades. Throughout their childhoods, they were effectively treated as two versions of the one person: they were dressed in exactly the same manner and were given the same hairstyles. "Our parents did...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 7, 2013

Screen violence is in the eye of the beholder

Some people avoid violent films, while others watch little else. Professional movie reviewers, who may see hundreds of films annually, cannot afford to be so picky. If you are covering the Cannes Film Festival competition, as I did one year for the Screen International daily critics' poll, you cannot...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2013

Russia's homophobic curse

With the general mood in Russia's populace favoring a ban on gay culture, homophobic mobsters of all colors feel cozy under an official umbrella.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jun 3, 2013

Low interest rates spell doom for some pension plans in U.S.

It was no small matter for the ILM Group's executives when they froze the pension plan that has provided retirement security for the firm's employees since 1947.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 2, 2013

Language no barrier to multimedia Jon Kabira

With a long rousing cry of “Goooooooood Mooooorning Tooookyoooooooooooo!” Jon Kabira launches into his weekly radio show “JK Radio — Tokyo United” every Friday at 6 a.m. on J-Wave.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 2, 2013

Searching for Mount Fuji

Japan is full of good place names. Who can resist Utsukushigahara (Beautiful Field) in Nagano Prefecture, Ginza (Golden Seat) in Tokyo or the sad irony of Fukushima — Isle of Good Fortune?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 30, 2013

Art born from the disingenuous

The most radical force in art is not, as most people assume, genius, inspiration or sheer talent, it is instead a lack of technical ability. Combined with a strong desire to be an artist, this can prove to be a powerful driver of change and innovation, as revealed by "Odilon Redon: The Origins of the...
MORE SPORTS
May 30, 2013

Swimmers Hagino, Yamaguchi draw positives from below-par performances

Even in a post-Olympic year, the spotlight is still there on the swimming pool.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?