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EDITORIALS
Mar 31, 2013

Testing English versus teaching it

The proposal that all students take TOEFL to enter university shows that the LDP sees the need for better English in Japan but is missing the answer.
Reader Mail
Mar 31, 2013

Parental effectiveness irrelevant

Regarding the March 28 Washington Post article published in The Japan Times under the headline "Effects of same-sex parenting debated": When logically evaluating an argument, it is good practice to first eliminate irrelevant assertions.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 30, 2013

Survivor recalls Dachau on its 80th anniversary

Max Mannheimer will never forget the words of his block leader when he entered the gates of Dachau concentration camp on Aug. 6, 1944.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 30, 2013

Brazilian chief wields high-tech tools in battle to save tribe, forests

As a small boy in the early 1980s, Almir Surui hunted monkeys with a bow and arrow, wore a loincloth and struggled with Brazil's official language, Portuguese.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 30, 2013

The sakura season is here, but which one?

The sakura season is here! The question is, does this refer to the horsemeat season or the cherry blossom season? It's hard to tell when the Japanese use the word "sakura" to describe horse meat, which is pink. Sakura nabe is not nabe made with cherry blossoms, for example, but nabe made with horsemeat....
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2013

LDP takes aim at English education, seeks to boost TOEFL levels

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party is on a quest to reform the educational system in order to foster global talent to reverse the nation’s declining competitiveness on the world stage, and English-language studies have been especially targeted for improvement.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 29, 2013

Abe pushes 'openness' by inviting kids to tour his office, residence

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to demonstrate the "openness" of his government and to this end has invited schoolchildren on a guided tour of his office and official residence Saturday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 28, 2013

Otsuka to pay up to $825 million for Lundbeck Alzheimer drug

Otsuka Holdings Co. has agreed to pay H. Lundbeck A/S as much as $825 million (about ¥78 billion) to develop an experimental Alzheimer's treatment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 28, 2013

Pope Francis should look east to end poverty

Philippine President Benigno Aquino faces a huge roadblock in his push to end the poverty weighing on his 106 million people: the Catholic Church.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 28, 2013

Francis Bacon: The restlessness of human existence

In the 1989 Tim Burton film "Batman," there is a famous scene where the Joker and his gang break into an art museum and vandalize masterpieces by the likes of Rembrandt, Degas, and Vermeer. But, just as one of his henchmen is about to slash a Francis Bacon canvas, the Joker steps in to stop him, saying,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Mar 27, 2013

Kite artist Tetsuya Kishida

Japanese kite artist Tetsuya Kishida, 89, has been creating and flying kites since the age of 6. He used to be a salesman for the steel industry and he later sold bonsai. In his late 40s, he finally turned his hobby of painting kites into a profession. His artistic repertoire is inspired by images from...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / NOTEBOOK
Mar 27, 2013

Huge African Festival in Yokohama; learn business Japanese online

EVENTS
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 26, 2013

Curse or cash cow: Japan ready for casinos?

Lawmakers are seriously considering legalizing casinos so Japanese can roll the dice without having to travel to gambling houses in the United States, East and Southeast Asia.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

Supreme Court reflects 'modern marriage'

There's a widow who was a pioneer of the "modern marriage," and one who never wed. Two who have been divorced.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

U.S. gun deaths — and tougher laws — shaped by race

Gun deaths are shaped by race in the United States: Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and blacks are far more likely to be shot by someone else.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 24, 2013

In a nation shaken to its core, Japan's leaders offer more of the same

Roger Pulvers leaves Counterpoint at the end of this month after writing the column weekly since April 3, 2005. In his last three Counterpoints he has set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is his penultimate contribution.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2013

As rival theories tumble, mystery of Stonehenge keeps scientists guessing

It already attracts more than a million visitors a year. Yet these numbers could be dwarfed once Stonehenge, one of the world's greatest prehistoric monuments, completes its radical facelift.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 23, 2013

Are Russian assassins on the streets of Britain?

Shortly after 5:15 p.m. on Nov. 10, a jogger turned into Granville Road in Weybridge, southern England, running along the hedge-lined street of one of Britain's wealthiest enclaves. Then, 50 meters from his home, he staggered into the road and died.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 22, 2013

Kids with guns on film, blasting at the culture gap

Contemporary Japanese films are often extremely violent; the lives of ordinary Japanese, much less so. According to a multinational study by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Japan's homicide rate in 2009 was 0.4 per 100,000 population, for a total of 506 deaths. Similar figures for...
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Mar 21, 2013

Koe moe apps find their voice on smartphones

Hey girlfriend. Read me a bedtime story.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2013

The disenchantment of Iraq

Iraq is better off without Saddam Hussein, but if economic resconstruction and the establishment of democracy are considered, the Iraq war failed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 17, 2013

Playing to the beat of the gods

TAIKO BOOM: Japanese Drumming in Place and Motion, by Shawn Bender. University of California Press, 2012, 259?pp., $29.95 (paperback)
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 17, 2013

Tohoku coast faces man-made perils in wake of tsunami

One day in October 2011, marine ecologist Masahiro Nakaoka donned his scuba gear, paddled into the waters of Funakoshi Bay in Iwate Prefecture, and braced himself for his first glimpse of its underwater communities since a massive tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake swept through seven...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Mar 16, 2013

How can the royal family champion women and endorse Saudi Arabia?

In its latest human rights report, not a great read, the United Kingdom's House of Commons foreign affairs committee wondered if the government attitude to "countries of concern" isn't a wee bit too "low key." Britain's relations with Saudi Arabia, for instance, would benefit from a "bolder" approach,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 16, 2013

Cheering for cherries

If the Grinch — that well-known wet blanket of holiday mirth — were both a betting man and Japanese, it wouldn't be Christmas he was after. Nor New Year's, nor the Emperor's birthday, nor Golden Week, nor National Toilet Day (Nov. 10. Mark it down).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 16, 2013

Fabric artist clothes Tokyo's expat thespians with creativity and magic

Today's younger generation may be more used to getting their entertainment from the Internet or other high-tech sources than from the stage, but nothing can perhaps replace the magic of a live theater performance.
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2013

Beware the hockey stick

Findings from a new study suggest that average temperatures on Earth are likely to surpass levels not seen since the beginning of the last ice age.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2013

Miyabi Matsuoka takes an enlightened approach to teaching the harp

To Miyabi Matsuoka, the harp is a mirror that reveals who you really are. She says she can tell the personality of a harp player by the way he or she manipulates the instrument, which affects the sound they create.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami