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JAPAN
May 26, 2014

Aso complains his taxes shouldn't be used to fund health costs of 'lazy'

Blue-blooded Finance Minister Taro Aso stirs up a debate on social welfare costs by complaining it's unfair his taxes are financing the medical costs of lazy people.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 26, 2014

Roll with it: Tama-chan on the art of making maki zushi

With often hilarious and shocking results, Takako Kiyota, aka Tama-chan, embeds illustrations into rice, wraps them in seaweed and presents them as both dishes and artworks.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 26, 2014

Poland's last communist ruler, Wojciech Jaruzelski, dies at 90

Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, Poland's last communist leader who imposed martial law to crush the Solidarity movement only to hand over power less than a decade later, died aged 90 on Sunday following a long bout of illness, a military hospital in Warsaw said.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
May 26, 2014

[VIDEO] World Cup 2014 views from Tokyo: Ghana and Costa Rica

Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 25, 2014

Nissan abandons Japanese roots to flaunt a more 'passionate, seductive' Latin Infiniti

Nissan Motor Co. is looking to give its luxury Infiniti cars a design makeover that will dilute its Japanese roots and flaunt a more "passionate" Latin feel.
WORLD / Society
May 25, 2014

'Revenge porn' ruling ignites debate

A court in Koblenz, Germany, has ruled that intimate, compromising photographs should be deleted at the end of a relationship if one partner wants it. In this case, the woman wanted the man to delete erotic photographs she had consented to pose for. When he refused, she sought legal help.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
May 25, 2014

Warm Pacific may have caused U.S. cold

Unusually warm western Pacific waters linked to global warming may be the paradoxical cause of a bone-chilling winter in parts of the United States earlier this year, a new scientific study says.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2014

Supercharged CEO Musk aims for cars and stars

When Hollywood wanted to bring to life Tony Stark, the comic-book engineering prodigy who grew up to be the billionaire industrialist and slick playboy alter ego of Iron Man, it turned to the closest thing the real world seemed to offer.
WORLD
May 25, 2014

Bahraini rights activist is set free

Bahrain released one of the Arab world's best-known activists on Saturday after he served a two-year jail sentence for his role in protests calling for democracy in the U.S.-allied kingdom.
MORE SPORTS
May 25, 2014

Murofushi urges Japanese athletes to expand horizons in preparation for 2020 Games

Former Olympic hammer champion Koji Murofushi has urged Japan's athletes to embrace the pressure of the 2020 Tokyo Games and end the country's track and field gold drought.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2014

Decisive battle looms for Syrian rebels in Aleppo

High spring in Syria's largest city and the final battle has arrived. From his vantage point on a front line in Aleppo's northeast, Abu Bilal, a rebel commander, had spent the past month staring at a ridge line about a kilometer away that marked the closest Syrian military position.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2014

World largely turns a blind eye to male rape

The number of male victims of rape in some conflict situations is staggering. And when they return to their communities, men are particularly reluctant to declare that they were subjected to sexual violence.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
May 25, 2014

Australia to push retirement age to 70

The A ustralian government said May 2 that it wants to raise the pension entitlement age to 70 — the highest in the developed world — by the year 2035 to help cope with an aging population.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 24, 2014

Will Japan be a country that welcomes all?

"A nation of immigrants." Japan? The leading proponent of that vision has been Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, current executive director of the private think tank he founded in 2007, the Japan Immigration Policy Institute.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
May 24, 2014

Thai coup leader insists on reform before election

Thai Army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha set out his plans for the country on Friday, a day after seizing power in a coup, saying reforms were needed before an election can be held and enlisting the help of the civil service.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
May 24, 2014

What's blowing in the wind around Ushigome-yanagicho

Wind gusts airborne detritus down toward Ichigaya-yanagicho, an intersection in central Tokyo infamous for having the highest density of carbon monoxide in Tokyo during the 1970s. Researchers at the time linked this poisonous gas to the area's high incidence of lung cancer, and the outcry from citizens...
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
May 24, 2014

Tiananmen Square stokes patriotic education

Last week, I discussed the prelude to the Tiananmen Square uprising and the ruthless government crackdown on June 4, 1989. The slaughter of students and their supporters who gathered in Beijing in the spring of 1989 and occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks made the world recoil in horror and isolated...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
May 24, 2014

One Man's Justice

To borrow historian John Dower's expression, the conflict in World War II between Japanese and American forces was a "war without mercy." The atrocities committed by Japanese forces are well documented, those by American military personnel less so.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 24, 2014

Godzilla Awakening

The first thing that must be said about the comic prequel to the new "Godzilla" movie is that it seems to contain a massive spoiler! So if you haven't yet seen the movie, then perhaps you should wait until you have, before reading either the comic or this review.
Reader Mail
May 24, 2014

A free society can handle wing nuts

Regarding Timothy Bedwell's May 11 letter, "Deniers won't let war wounds heal": While agreeing with the first part of Bedwell's letter, I cannot agree with his conclusion [that anyone that denies the reality of the horror of Japanese imperialism should be thrown in jail].
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 24, 2014

A "New Interpretation of Japanese History"; the seawall debate; CM of the week: Yomeishu

Teacher-cum-TV personality Osamu Hayashi has made Toshin, where he works, the most famous juku (cram school) in Japan. One Toshin colleague who has ridden on his coattails is history instructor Shinichiro Kanetani, the host of the new series "Shinkaishaku Nihonshi" ("New Interpretation of Japanese History";...
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2014

Reflect on Fukui nuclear ruling

The Fukui District Court's ruling that prohibits the restart of two nuclear power reactors run by Kansai Electric Power Co. challenges the Abe administration's energy policy of relying on nuclear power as a key source of the nation's electricity supply.

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