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WORLD
Sep 1, 2014

Germany to send Iraqi Kurds enough weapons for 4,000 fighters

Germany will send enough weapons to arm 4,000 Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq battling against Islamic State insurgents, whose advances threaten to destabilize the Middle East, the defense minister said on Sunday.
JAPAN / INTERPRETATION & TRANSLATION
Aug 31, 2014

Connecting two cities beyond interpretation

Interpreters and translators facilitate communication and understanding between people who speak different languages, which sometimes is instrumental in bridging two distant cities.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 31, 2014

Has Britain stepped closer to exiting the EU?

The likelihood of a British exit from the European Union seems to be increasing — which fundamentally alters the importance of the Sept. 18 referendum on Scottish independence.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 31, 2014

Health workers strike at major Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone

Health workers have gone on strike at a major state-run Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone, hospital staffers said on Saturday, a further blow to efforts to contain the deadly virus.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2014

Fukushima fallout: solidarity turns to resentment in city hosting evacuees

Like many of her neighbors, Satomi Inokoshi worries that her gritty hometown is being spoiled by the newcomers and the money that have rolled into Iwaki since the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost 3½ years ago.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 30, 2014

Ethnic strife blurs Myanmar's first census in 30 years

Following an incomplete count due to ethnic conflicts in parts of the country, Myanmar said on Saturday that its first census in 30 years shows the population to be 51.4 million, some 10 million less than expected.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 30, 2014

Macau casino dealers take industrial action for first time

Casino dealers working in one of the most popular casinos in the gambling hub of Macau started industrial action on Saturday for the first time in the Chinese territory as discontent over salaries and working benefits spreads.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 30, 2014

Ukraine says Russian tanks flatten entire town; EU ready to prepare sanctions

Ukraine said on Saturday Russian tanks had flattened a small border town and pro-Russian rebels had made fresh gains in its east, as EU leaders signaled they were ready to prepare more sanctions on Moscow over the crisis.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014

The Makioka Sisters

Junichiro Tanizaki may be best known for novels featuring protagonists with odd obsessions, but his masterpiece, family epic "The Makioka Sisters," has been hailed by many as Japan's greatest modern novel.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 30, 2014

Toy Tokyo

In a world now dominated by photographs taken with smartphones and swanky digital cameras, it's refreshing to come across a book that restores a little faith in old-school photography.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 29, 2014

METI tells nation to stockpile toilet paper against next disaster

Bureaucrats don't want Japan to get caught with its pants down the next time toilet paper supplies run short after a natural disaster.
Japan Times
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 29, 2014

United faces crisis as transfer window closes

Five years after Manchester United should have strengthened its squad and invested heavily in the transfer market, Louis van Gaal is doing what Sir Alex Ferguson did not do before retiring.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 29, 2014

For many Californians, cost of earthquake insurance outweighs the risks

During Sunday's 6.0-magnitude earthquake, about $75,000 worth of bottles of wine, rum and whiskey flew off the shelves of Aiyaz Masani's liquor store in Napa, California. He estimates about half his inventory was damaged, winding up in three-foot piles in the aisles.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 29, 2014

Gene studies of Ebola in Sierra Leone show virus is mutating fast

Genetic studies of some of the earliest Ebola cases in Sierra Leone reveal more than 300 genetic changes in the virus as it leapt from person to person, changes that could blunt the effectiveness of diagnostic tests and experimental treatments now in development, researchers said on Thursday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 29, 2014

West Africa Ebola outbreak could infect 20,000 people: WHO

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people, the U.N. health agency said Thursday, warning that an international effort costing almost half a billion dollars is needed to overcome the outbreak.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 28, 2014

Artist takes a jab at social identity

What will it take to save the world? If you visit Maison Hermes Le Forum in Ginza in the next few weeks, artist Tsuneko Taniuchi — in the guise of Ninja Girl, wearing a flower in her hair and with a toy M16 rifle tucked in her belt — will ask you to respond to this question, and you may be surprised...
EDITORIALS
Aug 28, 2014

Libya disintegrates

Little noticed by a world transfixed by the advance of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the surreptitious Russian invasion of Ukraine, and China's assertive behavior in the East and South China Seas has been the disintegration of Libya.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2014

Corporate blowback builds from Minamata treaty

The Japanese government lobbied hard for a global pact that limits mercury use and to name the resulting treaty after Minamata, the site of a homegrown industrial disaster from the 1950s when the toxic metal poured into a river, poisoning thousands.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Aug 28, 2014

Somali users of amphetamine-like 'paradise flower' khat enjoy low prices after Britain bans its import

"The president has arrived, the president has arrived," chant youths in Mogadishu's Beerta Khaatka market as armed men in trucks mounted with machine guns escort trucks with horns blaring through the throng.
WORLD / Society
Aug 28, 2014

Residents see Europe as best for gays and lesbians, Africa worst: poll

Most people in European nations say their community is a welcoming place for gays and lesbians, according to a poll released on Wednesday that also showed many in African countries see their homelands as hostile to homosexuals.
BUSINESS
Aug 28, 2014

Ebola causing huge damage to West Africa economies: development bank

The worst-ever Ebola outbreak is causing enormous damage to West African economies as foreign businessmen quit the region, the African Development Bank said, while a leading medical charity branded the international response "entirely inadequate."
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 28, 2014

Glaxo's Ebola vaccine may begin safety tests in humans next week

U.S. scientists will begin enrolling patients as soon as next week in clinical safety trials of GlaxoSmithKline PLC's experimental Ebola vaccine as the death toll from the disease rises in West Africa.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 27, 2014

The Finishers (Great Days! Yume ni Idonda Chichi to Ko)

Boys can be creatures of sheer wonder. That's the takeaway conviction after watching "Des Toutes Nos Forces (released in English as "The Finishers"). By boys, I mean young (or young at heart) men with pure minds and high ideals, willing to push themselves to the utmost limits to reach a goal that has...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Aug 27, 2014

UFC star Tate prepared to take fight to Nakai

Miesha Tate wants Rin Nakai to remember her after their fight next month. Nakai, who is undefeated (16-0-1), likely already knows all about Tate, a superstar in women's mixed martial arts, but Tate wants a special place in Nakai's world.
Reader Mail
Aug 27, 2014

Why universities can't compete

In his Aug. 25 article, "Japan's universities can't win," professor Takamitsu Sawa has once again written on the all-important topic of university education in Japan. He emphasizes that the noncompetitiveness of Japanese universities internationally is due to relatively poorer funding, especially by...
Reader Mail
Aug 27, 2014

See that changes fit the culture

Professor Takamitsu Sawa is an economist who should know better than to use statistics to extrapolate conclusions that could be misleading or erroneous. In his Aug. 25 article, he neither indicates tuition costs at European universities nor makes comparisons with EU dormitory housing.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2014

Abe sent message to ceremony honoring war criminals

A message from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that was read out at an April ceremony memorializing Japanese war criminals referred to them as “the foundation of our homeland,” an organizer of the event says.

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