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JAPAN / OBITUARY
Mar 31, 2015

Obituary: Jane D. Rees

Longtime columnist for The Japan Times and other publications Jane Rees passed away on March 12 at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. She was 95.
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 30, 2015

Russia, Australia, Netherlands to join China's development bank

Russia, Australia and the Netherlands on Saturday became the latest three countries to say they plan to join the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, adding clout to an institution seen as enhancing China's regional and global influence.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 28, 2015

China benefits from Washington's bumbling diplomacy

The surge of nations agreeing to participate in China's new development bank — the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank — marks a stunning success for Beijing, which has overcome U.S. opposition and arm-twisting to lure key American allies.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 27, 2015

Abe, Portugal's Passos Coelho agree to bolster business ties

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told visiting Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho on Friday that shoring up ties with a country that plays central role in Portuguese-speaking nations around the world is in line with what he calls "diplomacy that takes a panoramic perspective of the world map."
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 27, 2015

Otsuka Kagu president prevails in bitter family feud

Otsuka Kagu President Kumiko Otsuka wins a high-profile proxy fight against her father the founder at the furniture company's annual shareholders' meeting.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 27, 2015

German co-pilot said to have suffered from depression, anxiety

The German co-pilot who is believed to have deliberately crashed a plane in the French Alps, killing 150 people, broke off his training six years ago due to depression and spent over a year in psychiatric treatment, a German newspaper reported on Friday.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Mar 24, 2015

Iran's 'empire' grows ahead of nuclear deal

With Iran moving closer to a deal with world powers to constrain its nuclear program in return for an end to sanctions, Arab analysts and leaders are focused more on how Tehran is working unfettered to tighten its grip on Arab states, from Iraq to Lebanon, and Syria to Yemen.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 23, 2015

Rakuten sues firm over 'stealth marketing' that plays up bogus orders on portal

The Rakuten online shopping portal has been plagued by "stealth marketing," whereby more than 100 retailers have reportedly paid an Osaka-based firm to place fake orders and post bogus customer reviews so their products are displayed prominently on Rakuten's website.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Mar 22, 2015

Former senior Chinese police chief detained on suspicion of murder

The former police chief of the northern Chinese region of Inner Mongolia has been detained on suspicion of murder, the official Xinhua News Agency said Sunday, citing public security authorities.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 21, 2015

The wanderer, writer and suspected spy who embraced Japan

T.S. Eliot may have written that "April is the cruellest month," but for Roger Pulvers, this spring is an extraordinarily felicitous one. In March, an English translation of his novel "Starsand" was published and in April, translations will be released of both an anthology of tanka poetry by Takuboku...
WORLD / Politics
Mar 20, 2015

Netanyahu backtracks on election opposition to Palestinian state

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is still committed to Palestinian statehood if circumstances improve, pulling back from comments he made during his re-election campaign rejecting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 19, 2015

One killed, five wounded in shooting spree in Phoenix suburb

A gunman opened fire inside a motel room in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa on Wednesday, killing a man and wounding two women before shooting three more people as he sought to elude an exhaustive manhunt that ended in his capture, police said.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 19, 2015

Accused murderer Durst deemed suicidal

Robert Durst, the real estate scion charged with first-degree murder, is suicidal, according statements by Louisiana authorities released on Wednesday after they moved him to a facility for acutely mentally ill inmates.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Mar 18, 2015

From a minstrel no-show to a black beauty queen, in a week

From preventing a blackface TV broadcast to the nation embracing a black face as the embodiment of Japanese beauty, it's been quite a week.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 17, 2015

Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew's condition worsens

The health condition of Singapore's founding father and long-serving former leader Lee Kuan Yew, who has been in hospital with severe pneumonia for nearly six weeks, has worsened, the government said on Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 17, 2015

Syrian asylum seekers sue for refugee status

Four asylum seekers from strife-riven Syria sued the central government at the Tokyo District Court on Tuesday, demanding that they be recognized as refugees.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 14, 2015

Failing to rebuild communities in Tohoku

The NHK travel program "Tsurube no Kazoku ni Kampai" ("Tsurube Toasts Families") recently aired a two-parter about the town of Watari in Miyagi Prefecture, which was devastated in the March 11, 2011, tsunami. In the series, rakugo storyteller Shofukutei Tsurube and a celebrity guest visit small towns...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 9, 2015

It's time for troubled Sharp to sink or swim

Continuing to prop up complacent Japanese companies deadens the creative destruction that chastens stagnant industries and makes way for innovative and new ones.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 6, 2015

Cabinet moves to put SDF officers, civilians on equal footing

The Cabinet approves historic proposals to weaken civilian control over the Self-Defense Forces by giving military officers equal footing with civil servants in planning SDF operations.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 4, 2015

U.S. military's Mosul briefing 'inaccurate': Pentagon

A U.S. military official who briefed news media about Iraq's upcoming offensive to retake Mosul provided inaccurate information but should never have publicly discussed war plans anyway, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday.
WORLD
Mar 3, 2015

Twitter, law enforcement investigate alleged Islamic State threats

Twitter Inc. and law enforcement authorities are investigating alleged threats made by Islamic State militants against the social media network's co-founder and other employees, the company said in reaction to media reports.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Mar 2, 2015

Japan coach Aguirre fired over match-fixing

Japan manager Javier Aguirre was sacked by the Japan Football Association on Feb. 3 for his alleged involvement in a developing match-fixing scandal in Spain, with President Kuniya Daini saying that the timing was now or never ahead of the fast-approaching World Cup qualifiers.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb