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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2014

U.K. must not be left behind in the global drugs debate

Britain owes it to its own young people to help countries such as Colombia break the stranglehold of the drug lords once and for all, writes Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Feb 10, 2014

Tokyo model community melds fashion and compassion

Male model Dean Newcombe runs what surely must be the most photogenic all-volunteer organization around. And although some of the volunteers are indeed fashion models, the 'model' in Intrepid Model Adventures refers to role models as well as the catwalk variety.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2014

A wealthier Africa will depend on health care

One of Africa's biggest challenges to greater GDP growth and personal wealth is inadequate health care. Preventable and treatable diseases plague the population.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 8, 2014

Blast from the past: Lucky Dragon 60 years on

Sixty years ago, on March 1, 1954, a Japanese fishing boat named Lucky Dragon No. 5 was doused by radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test, codenamed Castle Bravo, on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Although the bomb was over 1,000 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 8, 2014

Kamikazes live on at their Chiran base

As a child growing up in California in the 1980s, I learned my share of Japanese words. Sushi, which my family would get for a treat on birthdays. Mochi (chewy rice cake), ramen and karaoke — all encountered at the Japanese shopping arcade downtown.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 8, 2014

NHK drama takes a wild stab at a dying art

The hero of 'Uzumasa Limelight' has made his living for half a century as a kirare-yaku in sword-fighting movies. Kirare-yaku have a specific role: Their job is to die on screen.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Feb 7, 2014

American tuna trader shares passion born in Tsukiji with the world

'I want to roll together the beauty of the history and culture of Japan into a quality tuna product and export that to the West,' says American David Leibowitz. 'I want the West consuming that and having it become part of them.'
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2014

Hollande's split may scar the female electorate

French President Francois Hollande's glacial dismissal of the 'official' First Lady — 18 words long, including three uses of the personal pronoun 'I' — will do him no good with the French electorate.
OLYMPICS / ICE TIME
Feb 6, 2014

Hanyu to skate first for Japan in team event

Grand Prix Final champion Yuzuru Hanyu will represent Japan in the men's singles portion of the inaugural Olympic Games figure skating team competition it was revealed on Wednesday.
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 5, 2014

Sendai's White recognizes importance of team chemistry, close-knit family

The Japan Times features periodic interviews with players in the bj-league. Wendell White of the Sendai 89ers is the subject of this week's profile.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 3, 2014

Uphold basic living standards

To attain a national minimum for social welfare, some urge introducing a basic income — provision of a fixed sum of money to each citizen — to replace social security, which covers only needy people.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2014

Parents of mixed kids look abroad for high schools

College preparation for bicultural young adults may include seeking out international as well as domestic opportunities. Some youngsters, however, are heading abroad much sooner — for high school or junior high school.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Feb 1, 2014

Steamer surveys new island; Forces land on Hainan Island; Kyu Sakamoto profiled; Leftists suspected in shrine bombing

The N.Y.K. Bonin liner Chefoo, which returned to Yokohama yesterday, gave an interesting account of her exploration of the newly formed island near Minami Iwojima.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2014

Harassment for acting like a dad

According to a Japanese trade union survey, more than one in every 10 working men have either been barred from taking childcare leave or harassed for even applying.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2014

Indie designer Kanai carves out niche with analog board games

In an age when every toddler fiddles with electronic game consoles and smartphones, Seiji Kanai says his passion lies in creating analog board games.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 30, 2014

Film provides some food for thought

New documentary 'Drops of Heaven' focuses on Yoshiko Tasumi, the woman whose 'soup of life' made her culinary efforts famous.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 29, 2014

What's the worth of words?

By popular demand, Shizuoka Performing Arts Center is set to stage a revival of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," its sell-out 2011 production adapted by contemporary theater paragon Hideki Noda and directed by its own artistic diector, Satoshi Miyagi.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Jan 28, 2014

Local pioneers of natural farming strong after 60 years

"Soil is a living thing" is almost a mantra for Sakae Suka, wife of Kazuo Suka, who has practiced shizen nōhō (natural farming) in Kamisato-machi, Saitama Prefecture, for more than 60 years. Truly the father of natural farming in our Kanto area, Kazuo has quietly and gently mentored most of the organic...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2014

Why the world must remember the Holocaust

This year's observance of the International Remembrance Day — the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp — fell at a time when there are reminders all around us of the dangers of forgetting.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jan 27, 2014

A death in detention in Tokyo and a bitter belated farewell

What was the back story to this Ghanaian's death from pneumonia? A pre-existing condition? Or something the immigration authorities wanted hidden? Without an autopsy, there would be no answers to these gnawing questions. We already knew all we would ever know.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Jan 26, 2014

Tenkin-de kite, sonomama sumitsuite-shimau hito-mo ooi-sō-desu

Tenkin-de kite, sonomama sumitsuite-shimau hito-mo ooi-sō-desu. (There are many people who settled there after getting transferred, I heard.)
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 25, 2014

Age brings no respite from hard times for the 'lost generation'

Poverty is a relative term. As with age, you're as poor as you feel. Affluence brings with it rising expectations. Failure to meet them feeds the psychology, if not the dire physical deprivation, of poverty.
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jan 25, 2014

The Tale of Genji

Recognized as the world's first novel, Murasaki Shikibu's "The Tale of Genji" is a spiraling epic that encompasses a beautifully complex portrayal of 11th-century Japanese Imperial Court life.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 25, 2014

A double dose of Fumiyo Kohinata; arson attack survivor featured on "NHK Special"; CM of the week: Ajinomoto

Well-known character actor Fumiyo Kohinata not only gets a rare opportunity to star in a two-hour drama, but stars twice — playing twin brothers in the mystery "Twins: Saotome Kyodai no Suiri Nisshi" ("Twins: The Saotome Brothers' Deductive Diary"; TBS, Mon., 9 p.m.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 23, 2014

'Chiisai Ouchi (The Little House)'

Several veterans of Japan's old studio system are still working, but Yoji Yamada is the only one still directing for the studio he started out with, back in 1954. He has directed 81 films for Shochiku; his extraordinary box-office success with the "Tora-san" series, 48 films from 1969 to 1995 about the...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic