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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2014

While Japan presses North on abductions, South Korea victims are forgotten

Kim Young-nam was a teenager living on the coast of South Korea when he disappeared in 1978, only to turn up in North Korea. There, he met and married Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents on her way home from school a year earlier.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2014

Obama should expedite a nation for the Kurds

President Barack Obama could put the U.S. on the right side of history — and the right side of justice — by expediting the liberation and nationhood aspirations of Iraq's Kurds.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2014

'The Missing Picture' (Kieta E: Khmer Rouge no Shinjitsu)

Cambodian director Rithy Panh has made a career out of documenting the brutal rule of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime, which murdered something like 2 million of its own people between 1975 and 1979. With good reason: His own family was lost to the genocide.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 2, 2014

High-energy Ono conducts a rare 'Hoffmann' critique

He is known best for the rapturously hysterical "Infernal Gallop" (aka "The Can-can") from his 1858 operetta "Orpheus in the Underworld," but the German-born, naturalized-French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-80) is credited with just one full-length, serious opera — "The Tales of Hoffmann" — which...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2014

Tokyo launches young volunteer training program ahead of 2020 Games

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has opened applications for a new summer seminar project that will prepare a cohort of young volunteers to act as guides for the growing number of foreign travelers expected to visit the city ahead of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 1, 2014

Japan's status quo crumbles with an apology to a woman

When Tokyo city assemblyman Akihiro Suzuki bowed to assemblywoman Ayaka Shiomura and apologized for publicly heckling her over her unmarried status, some people caught their breath, convinced that they were witnessing something epochal in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 1, 2014

Rome's Trevi Fountain gets face-lift

Rome unveiled the most drastic face-lift for the Trevi Fountain in its 252-year history on Monday, the latest in a series of privately funded restorations to Italy's prized landmarks.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2014

The government decides 'Redskins' bothers you

Some Americans who are paying attention to the absence of Native American revulsion over the name 'Washington Redskins' are not comfortable with the government saying, in effect, that if people are not offended, they should be.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 30, 2014

Tokyo: What can Japan learn from its dismal World Cup experience?

In the wake of Japan's early exit from the competition, Mark Buckton went looking for answers about what went wrong.
JAPAN / JAPAN TIMES FORUM ON FEMALE SCIENCE MAJORS
Jun 30, 2014

Examining women's roles in Japan's corporate structure

Rikejo, or women majoring in the sciences, are currently under the spotlight in Japan. As the country faces a severe labor shortage, a declining birthrate and a rapidly aging population, there is a need to employ more female talent.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 29, 2014

Reclusive cleric takes charge in Iraq crisis

Najaf is far from Baghdad's palaces and the battlefields of northern Iraq. Its mud-brick houses, dirt alleys and concrete office blocks project little in the way of strength or sway. But it is here, where Iraq's most influential clerics work from modest buildings in the shadow of a golden-domed shrine,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2014

Abe's 'drill bit' buckles on labor reform

When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed at the World Economic Forum in Davos to take a "drill bit" to the "solid rock" of vested interests blocking reforms to Japan's economy, executives at companies such as General Electric and IBM paid attention.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jun 29, 2014

Indonesia candidate battles puppet image

When one of Indonesia's most powerful politicians wanted to be part of a new government, he did not approach Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, the front-runner in next week's presidential election.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2014

Is a New York Times picture worth 1,000 polls?

New research suggests that positive images in The New York Times portend better poll numbers to come. If true, there's hope for President Barack Obama in light of the photo spread for a big story last week.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 29, 2014

British School runners hit historic Nakasendo trade trail

A team of students, staff and parents sets out to run the Nakasendo, the ancient route linking Kyoto and Tokyo, to raise money to build a school in Cambodia.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jun 28, 2014

UFC plans ambitious project in Japan

When DREAM and PRIDE were in their heyday about 10 to 15 years ago, Japan might have been considered the epicenter of mixed martial arts around the world.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 28, 2014

Abe's nuclear renaissance ignores stiff opposition

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's nuclear renaissance involves downplaying risks, restarting reactors, building new ones, and exporting reactor technology and equipment. A number of hurdles remain before he can rev up the reactors, but the summer of 2014 will probably be Japan's last nuclear-free one for decades...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 28, 2014

Mori classic was the epitome of Meiji style

There has been no period in the history of modern Japanese society so dramatic and so remarkably tumultuous and fluid as the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and no single work of fiction more revelatory in its depiction of that period than Ogai Mori's "The Wild Goose." Now we have, in Meredith McKinney's just...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 27, 2014

Manga seek digital ground as print magazines languish

It wasn't too long ago that you couldn't ride a train or bus without seeing many of your fellow passengers engrossed in manga magazines.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jun 27, 2014

Restaurant chains to make splash at Italian expo

Three restaurant operators from the Chubu region will participate in Expo 2015 Milano in Italy next year to promote Japanese food culture to the rest of the world.
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2014

Old silk mill gains new importance

Gunma Prefecture's Tomioka Silk Mill, which UNESCO has decided to add to the World Cultural Heritage List, symbolizes 19th-century Japan's efforts to become a member of the industrialized world.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jun 26, 2014

Drink responsibly when you're out with friends this summer

Now that we're well out of cherry-blossom season, the next round of outdoor drinking parties will take us out into the beer garden.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

Facing death at the Earth's highest reaches

Peter Hillary was born in 1954, one year after his father, Sir Edmund Hillary, and Nepalese sherpa Tenzing Norgay became the first men in history to stand on the summit of Mount Everest.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

'Transcendence'

Has the digital backlash begun? Spike Jonze's "Her" and Wally Pfister's "Transcendence" both open this weekend, and while they're very different films — one with a nerdy guy falling in love with his sultry-voiced operating system, the other a mind-bending thriller about uploading human consciousness...
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jun 26, 2014

Namja Town teams up with Otomate for food, games and gifts

Most people in Japan are familiar with Tokyo's Akihabara district and its fame as the center of otaku culture. Few, however, may know about Otome Road in the Ikebukuro area, which caters to a clientele of predominantly female otaku. Just around the corner from Otome Road is Namja Town, a dining amusement...
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 25, 2014

Is Japan a haven for expats with psychological problems? Readers discuss

Readers clash on the merits of William Bradbury's recent Foreign Agenda article, 'Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled.'

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?