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JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Apr 20, 2014

'STAPgate' shows Japan must get back to basics in science

On Jan. 30, as NHK kicked off its evening news program with upbeat music, footage aired of a young woman with immaculately coiffed brown hair wearing pearl earrings and her trademark "kappogi," a Japanese-style white apron.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 20, 2014

Telescope to probe deepest space

Cerro Armazones is a crumbling dome of rock that dominates the parched peaks of the Chilean coastal range north of Santiago.
EDITORIALS
Apr 20, 2014

Exports that defy reason

Why would a country that suffered disastrous accidents at a nuclear power plant three years ago choose to push the export of its nuclear power technology around the world? Yet, the Abe administration sees this as a pillar of its economic strategy.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

India's status quo is riskier

The political party that proudly led India into independence has been reduced to a self-serving coterie of sycophants, courtiers and court jesters. Is the status quo more risky than the 'Modi alternative' in the current election?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 20, 2014

The one that got away

In 2004, the job of looking after the local foreigner went to Rikimatsu-san, a 75-year-old fisherman intent on teaching me the ways of the Seto Inland Sea.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

Double tragedy of long-term unemployment

To be among America's long-term unemployed — workers who have been jobless at least six months — is especially demoralizing for midcareer professionals and managers in their 40s and up because, from the perspective of potential employers, not hiring these workers can make sense.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2014

Why not teach students what's going on now?

Who do textbook publishers think it's smart to start a fourth-grade history textbook with prehistoric humans who lived 10,000 years ago? Why not begin by teaching students what's going on now?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 19, 2014

Koza: the carbonized city

My first glimpse of Koza was a burned out car on a monochrome print I picked up at a recycle shop in Naha. I would see the image again when I visited the history section of the Okinawa City Hall, where there was a prominent display on the Koza Riot of 1970.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 19, 2014

Dresden cashes in on German unification

American novelist Kurt Vonnegut, a prisoner of war in Dresden during World War II, has a scene in "Slaughterhouse Five" where time-traveling hero Billy Pilgrim sees the city's firebombing in reverse, with phosphorous bombs sucked back into warplanes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 19, 2014

How should a civilized nation treat women?

In 1872, a Peruvian ship transporting Chinese coolies docked at Yokohama for repairs. One of the coolies jumped overboard and sought refuge, complaining of gross ill-treatment. What to do?
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 19, 2014

Australian predator fierce but no Tasmanian devil

A fox-sized marsupial predator that roamed Australia from about 23 million to 12 million years ago had plenty of bite to go along with its bark. But while it was certainly fierce, it was no Tasmanian devil, Australia's famously ferocious bantamweight brute.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 19, 2014

Team Abe's alternate-reality Kool-Aid

Japan's relations with China and South Korea are in tatters, there has been no progress on dealing with North Korea's nuclear weapons program, strains with Washington persist, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) talks are at an impasse, whaling got harpooned and hopes for a deal with Russia on the northern...
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Apr 19, 2014

U.S. militias await next call to arms

Flat on his belly in a sniper position, wearing a baseball cap and a flak jacket, a protester aimed his semi-automatic rifle from the edge of an overpass and waited as a crowd below stood its ground against U.S. federal agents in the Nevada desert.
EDITORIALS
Apr 19, 2014

Kids wasting too much time online

A Cabinet Office survey finds that the amount of time that Japanese youngsters spend on the Internet with mobile or smartphones has increased 50 percent from a 2010 survey.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2014

U.S. further delays making final decision on Keystone XL pipeline

The Obama administration further delayed its decision on the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project Friday, with no conclusion now likely until after midterm elections are held in November.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Apr 18, 2014

Nagoya appliance recycling drive reaps success

The city of Nagoya started collecting small household appliances for recycling in February and announced April 11 that it had received more than 31,000 kg of machinery in just two months — five times more than anticipated.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS
Apr 18, 2014

Weibo's Nasdaq debut highlights Chinese censorship

Weibo Corp. executives on Thursday toasted the Chinese social media firm's debut at Nasdaq's New York headquarters.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
Apr 18, 2014

Apps take new lead from social games

On Japanese TV, you may notice that a lot of commercials for smartphone social games emphasize the word muryō (free). Consumers have been purchasing digital content on their phones for years, even since the clam-shell cellphone days. Now, more and more Japanese people are migrating to the sort of smartphones...
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2014

Abu Ghaith is convicted

Late last month a New York court found Sulaiman Abu Ghaith guilty of multiple charges of conspiring to kill Americans and supporting acts of terrorism, in a trial that critics said should not be held.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2014

Tourism authorities eye travelers' tweets to fine-tune promotions

Japan is thinking of using Twitter, cellphone and GPS data to scope out tourists' wants and needs ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Apr 17, 2014

Celebrate Ooka in Chigasaki

Stories of Ooka Tadasuke (1677-1751) have been passed down through generations.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2014

Toyota ratchets up 'green car' race with 2015 fuel cell vehicle launch

In 1997, Toyota caught its competitors by surprise with the revolutionary Prius, the first commercially successful gasoline-electric hybrid car. Now it is trying to do the same with a technology that seems straight out of science fiction.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 17, 2014

China subverts Hong Kong bid for Tiananmen Square museum

A planned museum dedicated to China's brutal crackdown on the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests has run into a legal challenge in Hong Kong that some say is motivated by Communist Party interests ahead of the event's 25th anniversary.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Apr 17, 2014

Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai: Tales of the Weird and the Strange

While many overseas scholars are attracted to the retrained aesthetics of Japanese arts and letters, it was the country's wild and wooly folklore that captivated Zack Davisson, an American writer and translator. While pursuing his masters degree in Japanese studies Davisson immersed himself in the mysterious...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’