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BUSINESS
Dec 24, 2013

AK-47 inventor Kalashnikov dead at 94

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the former Red Army sergeant behind one of the world's most omnipresent weapons — the AK-47 and its variants and copies, used by national armies, terrorists, drug gangs, bank robbers, revolutionaries and jihadists — died Dec. 23 at a hospital in Izhevsk, Russia. He was 94.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2013

U.S. Navy gives benefits to gay spouses in Japan

The U.S. Navy will provide military benefits to gay spouses stationed in Japan after previously denying dependent status to them, defense officials said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: GAMES
Dec 23, 2013

Playing with puppets, a Link adventure and hardware envy

Popular manga-turned-anime (and game) 'Attack on Titan' is now assailing fashion.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2013

When leaps in technology make cheating easier

As economists keep reminding us, the optimal level of cheating isn't zero. Sometimes the costs of monitoring tests and chess games, for example, can outweigh the benefits of the underlying activity.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Dec 23, 2013

Secrets, lies, gaffes, glory: 2013 in quotes

A mix of scandals, achievements, political missteps and commemorations highlighted 2013. Here's a rundown of the quotations that shaped the Year of the Snake.
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 23, 2013

'The bug that ate Christmas'

In West Virginia's scenic Canaan Valley National Wildlife Refuge, with its gently sloping mountains and emerald expanses of timber, Mike Powell relishes the perks of his job as a caretaker of the land: the sounds of a gurgling stream and the fresh pine scent of evergreens.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Dec 22, 2013

Duty-free goods for foreign travelers

The government has started to consider that the list of duty-free articles, which foreign tourists can buy without paying consumption tax, should be expanded.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 22, 2013

2013 Mideast twists give lessons in democracy

The news that Tunisia's competing political factions have broken months of logjam and appointed a technocrat as interim prime minister sets the stage for a yearend review of the events that have followed the Arab Spring.
JAPAN / KANSAI PERSPECTIVE
Dec 22, 2013

Kyoto aims to be Muslim-friendly city

Kyoto, a city known worldwide as a major center for Buddhism and as the home of some of the country's most famous Shinto shrines, is stepping up efforts to better welcome one particular group of foreign visitors: Muslims.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Dec 20, 2013

Cook, writer, TV host, actress and more: Briton toasts eventful half-century in Japan

Civil servant, cook, columnist and TV personality are among the hats Jill Sinclair Ito has worn during her 50 years in the country.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2013

Diplomat's arrest sparks clash of political cultures

The escalating diplomatic spat between India and the U.S. over the treatment of an Indian deputy consul-general who was arrested in New York highlights a clash of pathologies of two political cultures.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 20, 2013

To tap tourist yen, think train-packing, plastic grub and sumo

I think it is time for some up-to-date experiences — ones that the waves of tourists due to flood Japan up through the 2020 Olympics might savor more than those that revolve around traditional Japanese culture.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2013

Hope for reform in North Korea may have died

The chances of Deng Xiaoping-styled reform in North Korea may have just died along with the regimes No. 2 leader, Jang Song Thaek.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / EVERYMAN EATS
Dec 19, 2013

A year of pancakes, donuts, flying fish

Japan has reached peak donut.
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2013

Misguided focus on test results

Reversing its traditional position, the education ministry has decided to let municipal boards of education publicize the results for individual schools in the achievement tests taken by sixth and ninth graders nationwide. An even worse obsession with test scores could follow.
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN WEB WATCH
Dec 17, 2013

Looking at 2013's Japanese social-media scene

In the Japanese social-networking scene, Facebook still isn't dominating the way it does in the United States and many other countries. There are several other networks in Japan, both old and new, that occupy unique positions, though 2013 was an unusually quiet year, with no big takeovers among social-networking...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 17, 2013

Why do governments make such a mess of IT?

This is a tale of two cities — Washington and London — and of the governments that rule from them. What links the pair is the puzzling failure of said governments to manage two vital IT projects. In both cases, the projects are critically important for the political credibility of their respective...
Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 17, 2013

In Syria, jihadists train 'children of al-Qaida'

At first glance, the training camp appears no different from the many others shown in propaganda videos posted by al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria. Hooded recruits in camouflage shoot at targets or march in formation under the black flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
BASEBALL
Dec 16, 2013

Oka looking to rein in knuckleball

The last few years have seen a small group of pitchers trying to master the knuckleball in an attempt to revive or extend their careers.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2013

Long reform march from China's Third Plenum

Although China's leadership succession was completed earlier this year, the policy agenda for the coming decade has only just been revealed at its Third Plenum.
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Dec 16, 2013

Kobe beef

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Dec 15, 2013

No country for small-time rice farmers

In the suburbs of Tokyo, rice farmer Koichi Yuge is weighing how the government's change of heart on controlling rice prices will impact his 300-year-old family business.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 14, 2013

Why didn't Japan have a revolution like France's?

Why wasn't there a revolution in Japan like the one in France? The suffering was as great in 18th-century Japan as in the realm of ill-fated King Louis XVI, the government here as callous and incompetent as the government there. How did Japan's old order — rotting internally, as its collapse under...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Dec 14, 2013

Beyond Newtown: 71 other young children killed by deliberate gunfire in 2012

The man with the gun burst into the apartment and opened fire. The first victim was a young woman, dead at 21. The second victim was her 25-year-old roommate. But it was the third victim who would cause the most anguished screams when the bodies were discovered. Shot in the head, he was a 6-month-old...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight