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Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / GAME OF NUMBERS
Jul 4, 2013

LDP spin team hammers voters with 'Abenomics' mantra

The Upper House election will be a test of the economic strategies being pursued by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's coalition government — or so says his ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 1, 2013

Voting for idols is bigger than politics

Elsewhere in the world, the kind of sōsenkyo (総選挙, general election) that fires up public interest and garners media attention is one where political parties compete for national office. In Japan, however, the sōsenkyo of aidoru gurūpu (アイドルグループ, idol group) AKB48 tends to grab...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jun 30, 2013

Cartwright won't return to Osaka Evessa

Former Chicago Bulls head coach Bill Cartwright has parted ways with the Osaka Evessa, the bj-league team he resurrected after an awful start last season.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 30, 2013

Charting U.S. decline, without anger

One of the odd things about American news programs is how little American news they feature. Typhoons and hurricanes, crazies and lone gunmen, Barack Obama staging a press conference, 10 seconds about the Middle East, a famous actor doing something scandalous, back to the weather: All this giddy fragmentation...
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 27, 2013

Gifu man, 71, sues NHK for distress over its excess use of foreign words

A Gifu Prefecture man is suing NHK for mental distress allegedly caused by the broadcaster's excessive use of foreign words.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jun 27, 2013

Summer's best festivals are off the beaten path

For the past 10-15 years, Japan's festival season has been dominated by four main events: Fuji Rock, Summer Sonic, Rock in Japan and Rising Sun.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 27, 2013

Abe's fixations threaten newfound unified approach on North Korea

Just as U.S. President Barack Obama seeks a united front to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe threatens to go rogue.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 25, 2013

Deers beat Frontiers to win Pearl Bowl title

In April, the Kajima Deers found out they were going to need to find a new sponsor at the end of the current X League season.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 23, 2013

NHK discusses gender with a fresh openness

Two weeks ago, the nightly series "Heart Net TV," which is broadcast on NHK's educational channel, repeated a program about a 35-year-old Japanese man who married a 70-year-old Dutch man in the Netherlands. The series dedicates several programs a month to sexual minorities, and there was a sidelight...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 23, 2013

'Hate speech' in the media, but not the legal code

This writer, on previous occasions, has expressed irritation over the recent tendency for the vernacular media to rely heavily on English borrowings for neologisms with socially negative connotations, such as sexual harassment, stalking and domestic violence — to name three examples.
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2013

Strontium in groundwater at No. 1 soars

Groundwater contaminated with highly radioactive substances is detected from a monitoring well just 27 meters from the seashore within the compound of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jun 16, 2013

Nara selects Toyama as first coach

It didn't take long. Koto Toyama has landed another coaching gig.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 16, 2013

Miura oldest to climb Everest but some facts overlooked

The government has just established a new public award named after alpinist-skier Yuichiro Miura for "adventurers who challenge themselves to the limit of human potential." Originally the recipients of the prize, whom Miura will select himself, were going to be seniors, but at its namesake's insistence...
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jun 14, 2013

Lack of transparency on ball changes causes NPB grief

Nippon Professional Baseball did not err when it introduced a standardized baseball two seasons ago. The change was needed.
WORLD
Jun 12, 2013

U.S. tech giants urge NSA transparency

Technology companies stung by the controversy over the National Security Agency's sweeping Internet surveillance program are calling on U.S. officials to ease the secrecy surrounding national security investigations and lift long-standing gag orders covering the nature and extent of information collected about Internet users.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 9, 2013

Gray wolf to lose U.S. endangered species status

The government moved Friday to end endangered species protections for gray wolves in the lower 48 states, contending that the population of the apex predator has recovered from decades of hunting that drove it to virtual extinction.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jun 7, 2013

Tweet Beat: #tof2013, #ビフォーアフター, #rubykaigi

Events with hashtags attract tweets from attendees and beyond. Plus: the pro-wrestling dorm episode of 'Daikaizou Gekiteki Before After'!
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2013

Jobs' role focus of Apple e-book trial

Apple's late founder, Steve Jobs, was a key figure Monday in the Justice Department's suit against the Silicon Valley giant for allegedly leading an illegal scheme to raise the prices of e-books.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 4, 2013

Manning 'harvested' secret papers: prosecution

Opening the court-martial of U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, a military prosecutor charged Monday that he "harvested" a massive trove of classified information from secure networks and made it available to America's enemies by dumping it onto the Internet.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 4, 2013

A term for Abe's ilk? Well, nonliberal

Foreign media and overseas Japan experts largely use 19th- and 20th-century labels to describe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and current Japanese politics led by his Liberal Democratic Party — "right-wing," "hawkish," "conservative" and "nationalist."
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 3, 2013

Shinto's kami and jinja seeking world acceptance

Ise Jingu (伊勢神宮, Ise Jingu Shrine) has recently published a sasshi (冊子, booklet) in English, titled "Soul of Japan — An Introduction to Shinto and Ise Jingu."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

Going gracefully into the No. 2 spot is not what Americans had in mind

If the era of American dominance in international affairs is indeed coming to an end, then the main question is how well the U.S. is prepared for the No. 2 spot.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 2, 2013

Media polls on constitutional change reveal bias

In a democracy, the people's will is conveyed through representative government. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to rewrite the Constitution, but Article 96 requires the approval of at least two-thirds of the national assembly to do that, so in order to hasten the process he first wants to change Article...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2013

Mayor's spin deepens suspicions

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's attempt to spin his earlier remarks about Japan's wartime sex slave system deepens suspicions about his fitness for public office.

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