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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2013

New Ai Weiwei film details the art of persecution

Timing, as they say, is everything, and for aspiring filmmaker Alison Klayman, that meant being in Beijing filming China's most well-known contemporary artist, Ai Weiwei, at precisely the moment the Chinese government decided to throw him in jail.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 16, 2013

Fun for all on Tokyo's Oku-Tama wild side

Before I'd even set eyes on the river I heard a deep rumble from its bubbling gash of white and cobalt water rending apart the Tama Mountains.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Nov 13, 2013

The irritating gaijin: testing police patience from Belfast to Oimachi

In Oimachi, there was clear 3G connectivity. For anyone questioned by the RUC in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, broadband penetration probably meant something quite different.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 12, 2013

Media redirection waters down impact of dissent

The way U.S. media outlets chose to cover the anti-NSA march last month provides a fascinating window into a form of censorship they often use but we rarely notice: redirection.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 8, 2013

Pressure on Man United as Arsenal visits Old Trafford

Wayne Rooney's glass was half-full.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 4, 2013

High-flying Eagles reign supreme after eight-year rise to top

To say simply that Senichi Hoshino put Masahiro Tanaka in the game during the ninth inning of the Japan Series finale somehow does the moment a disservice.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 31, 2013

Festival/Tokyo pushes a return to storytelling

In 2009, when Festival/Tokyo took over from the annual Tokyo International Arts Festival, it burst forth with the slogan "Towards a New Real" and the resolve to stamp the city's name on the global arts map.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Oct 30, 2013

Volunteers staying the course in Tohoku

Upstart NGOs It's Not Just Mud and OGA for Aid continue to punch above their weight in public conversations about the future of Tohoku.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 30, 2013

Kinki University fish lab opening Ginza eatery

A fisheries research lab at Kinki University in Wakayama Prefecture is poised to make a smashing debut in the heart of Japan's gourmet capital: Ginza.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Oct 30, 2013

Australia's 'plain packaging' stubs out cigarette branding, prompts backlash

Marlboro cigarettes' red-and-white box and distinct typeface created one of the world's most powerful brands — by some estimates, one of the 10 most recognized consumer products.
EDITORIALS
Oct 29, 2013

New investment opportunity

Japan will introduce tax-free, individual investment accounts in January to entice more younger people to consider better ways of growing their capital than through savings accounts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 29, 2013

McCartney, One Direction and Atoms for Peace head to Japan in November

He's been knighted, named the richest rock star in the world, has an Oscar, has done a guest spot on "The Simpsons," has played to the largest stadium audience in history and has been imprisoned right here in Japan. That's right, rock god Sir Paul McCartney returns to Japan after an 11-year hiatus in...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 27, 2013

The method behind the brashness

Osaka
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 27, 2013

Scientists now creating 'app-style' life-forms

For scientist Jack Newman, creating a new life-form has become as simple as this: He types out a DNA sequence on his laptop, and clicks "send." And nearby in the laboratory, robotic arms start to mix together some compounds to produce the desired cells.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 24, 2013

Opposition disparity: No end in sight

The opposition camp is rife with disunity and unable to exert any political say against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party-led government, now that the LDP controls about 60 percent of the Diet.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Oct 24, 2013

Uruguay stoked to legalize marijuana production

Uruguay is about to go where no country has gone before by legalizing the cultivation and distribution of marijuana, with the left-of-center government regulating all facets of the trade.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2013

For the GOP to survive, the tea party must die

Tea party supporters think they are fighting for America's Republican soul. If they win, they will drive the party so far from the middle that a GOP president will become unimaginable.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Oct 21, 2013

Medical bills mount for 'fired' Tokyo English teacher fighting cancer and HIV

A British language school teacher in Tokyo is struggling to pay for his chemotherapy and cancer surgery after his Waseda University-linked former employer failed to renew his contract, citing his nonattendance due to illness.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2013

'Jinrui Shikin (Human Trust)'

Sometimes as a reviewer of Japanese films I feel I am on the wrong side of the cultural divide, with no way to bridge the gap.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 12, 2013

Just picture that — and know how to

A sleek, black anchor shape, etched against the blue sky, hurtles in pursuit of prey. A Northern Hobby, a flashy falcon, is chasing dragonflies. Sighting one alone speaks to me of summer in Hokkaido, especially with its mate brooding or feeding a growing fledgling in a nearby treetop nest.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2013

Angus Deaton's 'The Great Escape' fetes growth

Angus Deaton's 'The Great Escape' celebrates growth and looks more favorably on aid directed at improving health, because that can address specific failures of market provision.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013

Pynchon's multigenre novel loses itself in glib in-jokes and pop-culture references

Thomas Pynchon's new novel prompts a question relevant to him and to all contemporary artists, from writers to directors to choreographers: If the present day is atomized, paranoid, infantile, obsessive, can a work of art capture this without taking on these attributes itself?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

'Kids Return: Saikai no Toki (Kids Return: The Reunion)'

Released in 1996, "Kids Return" was a change of pace for director Takeshi Kitano, whose films to date had usually starred Kitano himself as a cop or a gangster, meting out violence with a brutal efficiency and a wry black humor. Critics mostly admired them and moviegoers mostly shunned them, despite...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 9, 2013

Kokubo introduced as new manager of Samurai Japan

The Japanese baseball national team has a new outlook and a new man in charge.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2013

Tea party embraces a proven loser

Tea party-affiliated Republicans in the U.S. House are gearing up again, this time on a grander scale, to threaten action that will end up helping the other side.
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 8, 2013

Report links sonar to whale stranding

The mysterious stranding of about 100 melon-headed whales in a shallow Madagascar lagoon in 2008 set off a rapid international response — a few of the 3-4-meter-long marine mammals were rescued, necropsies conducted, a review panel formed.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Oct 7, 2013

The Special Dismissal Zone: where legal protections no longer apply

The government's Special Employment Zone wheeze has already been dubbed the Special Dismissal Zone, or kaiko tokku, by the media.

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