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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 9, 2014

Art on the brink of fragmentation

You can't go wrong by calling a show "Fragments," as the curators of this year's "MOT Annual" exhibition have done. With a name like that, whatever bits and pieces visitors encounter at the annual group show of Tokyo's Museum of Contemporary Art, they can't say they were cheated because a name like that...
Reader Mail
Apr 9, 2014

Retailers who'll come out ahead

Regarding the April 4 Jiji article "Tax hike to spur retailing industry shakeout": The three-percentage-point rise in the sales tax on April 1 was a rather earthshaking event, leaving Japanese shoppers and retailers groping for balance in the new market. Consumers are hesitant to buy as they gauge its...
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2014

Avoid voting age disparity

The question of whether the minimum voting age for participating in Japan's referendums should be lower than the voting age for other elections remains unsettled.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2014

Annexation by other means

Ukraine's former prime minister, Yuliya Tymoshenko, warns that Russian President Putin seeks to make the West complicit in the dismemberment of Ukraine by negotiating a Kremlin-designed federal constitution that would create a dozen Crimeas that Russia could devour later.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 8, 2014

U.S. labels some eastern Ukraine protesters as 'paid provocateurs'

The U.S. on Monday accused Russia of instigating the storming of government offices in eastern Ukraine, unrest that echoed the events preceding Russia's annexation of Crimea.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 7, 2014

Your Party chief Watanabe to quit amid scandal

Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe says he will step down as president of the minor opposition party due to the loan scandal swirling about him.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2014

'Gods' edging out robots at Toyota facility

Inside Toyota Motor Corp.'s oldest plant, there's a corner where humans have taken over from robots in thwacking glowing lumps of metal into crankshafts. This is Mitsuru Kawai's vision of the future.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 7, 2014

Kyoto re-elects Yamada to top post

Incumbent Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada, 60, easily won re-election Sunday night, defeating rival Nozomu Ozaki, 59, by over a quarter of a million votes in a lackluster race.
WORLD
Apr 7, 2014

Ghana fears it has first case of Ebola

Health authorities in Ghana are testing blood samples from a 12-year-old girl who died of a viral fever with bleeding, in the country's first suspected case of Ebola disease, officials said on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2014

Recep Erdogan's pyrrhic victory

The triumph of Turkey's beleaguered Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party in last week's local elections is unlikely to ameliorate the country's internal conflicts, much less revive its tarnished international standing.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2014

How inequality curtails a nation's creativity

Given the rarity of really good economic ideas, those who have already achieved success may be the least likely to find them — to be the 'job creators' of the future.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2014

Voters do not deserve blame for low turnout

There was a time in America when political activitists used to say that a candidate whose main strategy was to talk about how rotten the other side was wasn't worth a vote. Can the today's voters who share that sentiment be blamed for not voting on Nov. 4?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Apr 7, 2014

A dog named Harp: Music to your ears

The gentle Harp was found abandoned in a hot springs area. Concerned staff from a hotel fed her bread and, eventually, she got up the courage to come nearer and was caught. Luckily her destination was ARK.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 6, 2014

Light flyweight Inoue captures world title in sixth pro bout

Phenom Naoya Inoue, nicknamed "the Monster" for his unparalleled talent and considered the next big thing in Japanese professional boxing, took his first step toward greatness on Sunday night.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 6, 2014

Finnish PM to step down, seek new EU post

Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen announced Saturday he was stepping down in June with a view to taking a senior European Union post, a move that could further unsettle a coalition government that last month lost one of its parties.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 6, 2014

London church may have Shakespearean ties

Some people believe Shakespeare may have worshipped at St. Leonard's church, and that it might even have inspired scenes in "Romeo and Juliet."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 6, 2014

The sakura front sweeps across Japan

Spring — the season of sakura (桜, cherry blossoms) — has finally arrived and the entire country has been transformed into a fairyland tinted pale pink.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Apr 6, 2014

Flight MH370: Aussie PM hopeful, cautious on potential breakthrough

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on Sunday searchers were "hopeful but by no means certain" that a pulse signal reportedly detected by a Chinese ship in the Indian Ocean was related to a Malaysia Airlines jetliner missing for four weeks.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 5, 2014

Fallout from the tax rise may hit in surprising ways

Prior to the consumption tax increase last Tuesday, from 5 percent to 8 percent, Japanese consumers were spending to beat the band. The local business magazine Economist (not to be confused with the English language newsweekly) reports that ¥4 trillion was spent on goods and services in recent months...
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2014

Host clubs: a hotbed of human trafficking

The Japanese host. You can see them on the streets of Tokyo's Kabukicho: the dapper thin men with colored, blown-dry hair, fake suntans, snazzy suits and charming smiles, chatting up passing females and trying to get them to come and have drinks. They've been the subject of documentaries, television...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 5, 2014

Phuket puts Peranakan heritage back on map

As evidenced by all the Chinatowns dotted around the globe, over the centuries China has seen many of its people seek new lives in other parts of the world. And from about 1400, Southeast Asia was especially popular for Chinese emigrants who had a yearning for foreign shores.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 5, 2014

Horses power across time and places

As a wee nipper I'd sometimes be treated to donkey rides on our local beach at Port Talbot in South Wales, but the first time I sat astride a pony was near my home in Neath when I was 8. Around then, the old dairyman occasionally let me join him as he made his daily rounds with his horse-drawn cart collecting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Apr 5, 2014

The Cape And Other Stories From The Japanese Ghetto

When reading Kenji Nakagami, it is best to forget the stylistic niceties and aesthetic fussiness of writers such as Yasunari Kawabata. Instead, this collection of structurally complex stories by Nakagami contains accounts that, eschewing inference for the explicit, are nonetheless highly sophisticated,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 5, 2014

Steps to fight Net child porn

Police in April started increaseing cooperation with Internet service providers to help contain the distribution of child pornography in and from Japan, which has long been criticized for not taking strict enough measures,
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 5, 2014

A 'black company' comedy and a stock market drama; CM of the week: Takarakuji

The new Fuji TV series, "Black President" (Tues., 10 p.m.), is not about Barack Obama. It's about a man named Mitamura (Ikki Sawamura), an entrepreneur who has turned his apparel company into a national success, mainly by oppressing his workers, which is why his enterprise is called a burakku kigyo (black...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji