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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013

'The Place Beyond the Pines'

Though religion is never an issue, the sins of the fathers is a theme that reverberates with biblical overtones in "The Place Beyond the Pines." After his intense examination of a marriage gone sour in "Blue Valentine," director/writer Derek Cianfrance teams up once again with actor Ryan Gosling...
WORLD / Science & Health
May 24, 2013

Discovery points way to universal flu vaccine

A new type of flu vaccine developed at the U.S. National Institutes of Health outperformed existing products in animal tests, possibly paving the way for a new generation of vaccines.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
May 23, 2013

Nationalism rearing ugly head with greater frequency

Angry protesters took to the streets Sunday in Tokyo's Shin-Okubo district, home to many Korean shops and restaurants, describing the Korean residents there as 'cockroaches' and calling for their immediate 'extermination.'
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 23, 2013

Olympus fears compact camera sales will keep falling

Olympus Corp. fears sales of its compact cameras may fall by half next fiscal year, extending a decline as consumers increasingly use smartphones to take pictures.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
May 22, 2013

Is computing speed set to make a quantum leap?

"Our imagination is stretched to the utmost," wrote Richard Feynman, the greatest physicist of his day, "not, as in fiction, to imagine things which are not really there, but just to comprehend those things that are there." Which is another way of saying that physics is weird. And particle physics —...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 22, 2013

Osaka takes plunge with canal pool

If an Osaka company has its way, getting roaring drunk and jumping, or falling, into Dotonbori Canal after either a Hanshin Tigers victory or a wild night out in neighboring Shinsaibashi will be less risky, healthwise, but it will no longer be free.
JAPAN / Politics
May 22, 2013

San Francisco mayor 'offended'; meeting in doubt

Embattled Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) coleader Toru Hashimoto faced fresh criticism Tuesday from the San Francisco mayor's office over his remarks about the necessity of Japan's wartime brothels.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
May 22, 2013

Apple used 'complex web' to avoid taxes, Senate inquiry finds

Apple used a "complex web" of offshore entities — with no employees or physical offices — that allowed it to pay little or no taxes on tens of billions it earned overseas, according to a Senate investigation unveiled Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

How modern nationalism gave birth to terrorism

If we want to understand what drove the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to terrorism, the answer almost certainly does not lie in Dagestan, where the brothers lived before moving to the United States, or in the two wars fought in Chechnya in the last 20 years. Instead,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

Substitute question marks for exclamation marks

A terrible tragedy is unfolding in (fill in the name of your favorite trouble spot). Something must be done. This (choose from sending troops, air strikes, enforcing a no fly zone, arming rebels) is something. Therefore it must be done.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
May 21, 2013

X Japan waxes lyrical at Madame Tussauds debut

This Monday, members of the seminal metal band X Japan were in Odaiba rubbing shoulders with the likes of Brad Pitt, Lady Gaga and AKB48's Yuko Oshima. The catch? They were all made out of wax.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 21, 2013

Fear and incarceration, from Kampala to Nagoya

"I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, where two men lay. I couldn't tell if they were dead or alive. They had been...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 21, 2013

Ambivalent Japan turns on its 'insular' youth

Japan's decision to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations shows that at least some in government have accepted the fact that 'opening up' Japan is in the nation's best long-term interests.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
May 21, 2013

Precedent backs (nearly) equal pay for equal work

In 2012, Japan had 51.73 million workers, of which 33.3 million were regular employees, or seishain, according to the latest survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Contingent, or nonpermanent, workers (including part-timers, haken dispatch and shokutaku semiregular employees) numbered 18.43 million, over 35.5 percent of the workforce.
JAPAN
May 21, 2013

Skytree's first anniversary marred by foul signals

Tokyo Skytree will celebrate its first anniversary Wednesday but has not yet completed its prime mission of reliably broadcasting to households in the capital and its suburbs.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 21, 2013

Fukushima No. 1 can't keep its head above tainted water

More than two years into the triple-meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, workers continue to wage a desperate battle to keep the stricken reactors cool while trying to contain the 400 tons of radioactive water produced by the process each day.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
May 21, 2013

Postal symbol

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
May 21, 2013

Thein Sein stresses 'special place' for military

The military that ran Myanmar for decades will continue to play a major role in the country, the former general who has presided over the transformation of a nation that only three years ago was considered one of the world's most repressive said Sunday.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 21, 2013

Goldman Sachs to invest big in renewable energy

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday that it plans to invest as much as ¥50 billion in renewable energy projects in Japan in the next five years, tapping demand for electricity produced from solar and wind-power generators.
EDITORIALS
May 21, 2013

Window on China's defense policy

China's critics are usually disappointed by its annual white paper on national defense. Beijing's eighth white paper since 1998 is notable for its view of U.S. policy.
BUSINESS / Economy / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 20, 2013

Utility, ubiquity playing key roles in corrupting policymakers' thinking

Two mind-sets seem to be catching on in Japan these days. They worry me. One is the notion that something has to be useful to be of value. The other is that anything is justifiable on the grounds that everybody else is doing it.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 20, 2013

What the Bloomberg terminal scandal reveals about the media and its money-making ways

The chatter across the world of financial journalism over the last few days has been the story of Bloomberg reporters accessing information about subscribers of the firm's financial data service that those customers thought should remain secret. The episode contains some important lessons for how the...
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 20, 2013

For a more 'friendly' Japan

A Shiga University professor has some reservations about a government industrial council's proposals to make Japan 'the world's most business-friendly environment.'
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2013

Creating roadblocks to cuts in nuclear arms

U.S. congressional dysfunction on defense rears its head when a subcommittee chair threatens to withhold funds for implementing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear