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Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 25, 2014

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo: Menswear looks for leadership

Christian Dada designer Masanori Morikawa's departure from Tokyo to show at Paris Fashion Week this season created an opportunity for a new headline act to emerge from the sidelines and seize the reins at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 25, 2014

Spooky tales from beyond the grave

Ghost stories are universal, but Japanese ghost stories, argues Zack Davisson in "Yurei: The Japanese Ghost," are unique. So much so that Davisson, a translator and essayist who is something of a specialist in the supernatural, uses yūrei, the Japanese word for spook, throughout the text. He also makes...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 25, 2014

No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human" comprises a series of three fictionalized notebooks, with each increasingly darker than the last. The character writing these books, Yozo, is detached from the beginning and is afraid of human interactions, but he learns how to socialize with people by playing the clown...
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2014

School bullying on the increase

Bullying and violence increased in Japanese schools, particularly for younger students, in fiscal 2013, although better reporting of incidents explains some of the increase over the previous year.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 25, 2014

South Korean activists, border residents clash over launch of anti-North Korea leaflets

A planned launch of balloons by South Korean activists to send leaflets to North Korea on Saturday with messages critical of its leader turned into a clash with residents of the border area who said the move will threaten peace between the two countries.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 25, 2014

Two U.S. states to quarantine health workers returning from Ebola zones

New York and New Jersey will automatically quarantine medical workers returning from Ebola-hit West African countries, and the U.S. government is considering the same step after a doctor who treated patients in Guinea came back infected, officials said on Friday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 25, 2014

Cutting-edge inventions showcased at Tokyo future-tech expo

Japanese technologies that engage multiple senses, such as virtual reality eyewear and wearable robotics, are being shown off at a Tokyo museum, offering the public a glimpse of a futuristic society.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ANALYSIS
Oct 24, 2014

Give addicts priority over casinos, activist tells politicians

Gambling has always been a part of 50-year-old Noriko Tanaka's life.
Japan Times
JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2014
Oct 24, 2014

Haneda sees nation's first transit hotel

If Japan is famous for its omotenashi (hospitality) around the world, a new service to further strengthen the message is now available at Tokyo's Haneda airport, a gateway to Japan. Royal Park Hotel The Haneda, Tokyo opened this September to provide an option for passengers on layovers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / HOTEL SPECIAL 2014
Oct 24, 2014

Love the wine you're with

Finding the perfect wine to complement a delicious meal at one of the excellent restaurants at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo hotel in Roppongi is much less of a daunting prospect since the hotel welcomed its newest sommelier, Manuel Rodrigues, earlier this year.
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2014

Patent law must retain incentives

As the government drafts amendments to the patent law, the question is how effective the new rules will be in ensuring fair corporate remuneration to inventors so that they keep their engineering talent in Japan to enhance the nation's industrial competitiveness.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 24, 2014

Give Abe a break on 'womenomics'

What matters for Japan — after two female ministers resigned this week from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet — is not the number of women in the Cabinet, but whether Japanese women get good jobs en masse.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2014

Why the world shouldn't write off Iraq's army

There is little reason to think that the Iraqi army that the U.S. trained and equipped was professionally incompetent or unable to fight Islamic State forces recently. It simply chose not to fight.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 24, 2014

Old, cold and bold: Ice Age people dwelled high in Peru's Andes

In a bleak, treeless landscape high in the southern Peruvian Andes, bands of intrepid Ice Age people hunkered down in rudimentary dwellings and withstood frigid weather, thin air and other hardships.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 24, 2014

China Communist Party vows better rule of law, but gives no word of disgraced security chief

China's Communist Party unveiled legal reforms on Thursday aimed at giving judges more independence and limiting local officials' influence over courts, but it made no mention of the fate of its former domestic security chief who is under investigation for corruption.
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 24, 2014

MHI and Chiyoda plan first offshore hydrogen plant

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Chiyoda Corp. will jointly launch a project to build the world's first offshore hydrogen production plant, NHK reported Friday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Oct 23, 2014

Traffickers use prison ships, abductions to feed Southeast Asian slave trade

When Afsar Miae left his home near Teknaf in southern Bangladesh to look for work last month, he told his mother, 'I'll see you soon' and said he expected to return that evening. He never did.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Oct 23, 2014

Design showcase Any Tokyo aims to impress connoisseurs

The organizers of Any Tokyo want you to know that objects should do more than just look good.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 23, 2014

Toyota says possible Mexico plant far from getting president's approval

Toyota Motor Corp., the last major carmaker without a high-volume assembly plant in Mexico, said the group assessing whether to build a factory there is far from getting cleared by top management.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 23, 2014

U.S. calls out Japan on coal plant exports

The United States has challenged the Japanese government over moves to ramp up exports of coal-fired power technology and to offer cheap loans to lure buyers, according to a U.S. source with direct knowledge of the matter.
JAPAN / Society
Oct 23, 2014

Hospital worker scores big legal win over 'maternity harassment'

In its first ruling on “maternity harassment,” the Supreme Court nullifies a lower court's decision to reject a therapist's claim that she was unjustly demoted for being pregnant.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2014

Australia accepts Eiken certificate as proof of English ability

Holders of an Eiken English language certificate can now apply for admission to hundreds of high schools across Australia.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2014

Wealthy Japanese quickest to get richer in Asia

Japan's millionaires increased their wealth at the fastest pace in the Asia-Pacific region last year as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's campaign for an economic revival drove the stock market higher.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 23, 2014

Paraguayan plant stevia upends sugar market

The maker of America's top sugar brand, Domino Sugar, is launching its first no-calorie "natural" sweetener extracted from the stevia plant in Paraguay, the strongest sign yet that the upstart product is threatening to eat into demand for sugar.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 23, 2014

Technology companies winning battle with 'patent trolls'

For two decades, companies that buy software patents in order to sue technology giants have been the scourge of Silicon Valley. Reviled as "patent trolls," they have attacked everything from Google's online ads to Apple's iPhone features, sometimes winning hundreds of millions of dollars.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person