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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 21, 2013

With ban on lead in hunters' bullets, California hopes to protect condors

By 1982, the number of California condors in the wild had dwindled to 22, an entire species nearly wiped out by, among other threats, lead poisoning from hunters' ammunition.
EDITORIALS
Oct 21, 2013

U.S. deal is made

It is reflective of the mindset in Washington that the budget sequester — a solution that was intended to be punishment for lawmakers' failure to compromise — is the new normal.
BUSINESS
Oct 21, 2013

Green funds aid clean energy effort

Two Japanese clean energy funds plan to raise about ¥1 billion from the public and urge regional financial institutions to provide loans for wind and solar projects to boost the local economy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 20, 2013

You may find mei mystifying

It's almost Halloween again, so before I set out my カボチャ提灯 (kabocha chōchin, jack-o'-lantern), I thought the time is right to take up the topic of 迷信 (meishin, superstition). The first character is 迷, meaning lost or puzzled, made by combining the phonetic 米 (alternatively read mai,...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 2013

Fukushima 2020: Will Japan be able to keep the nuclear situation under control?

Thirty seconds into what may ultimately be regarded as one of the defining speeches of his career, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe slowly raised his hands chest high, then spread them out sideways in a gesture of confidence.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 19, 2013

'GTAV' aggro-risks doubt

In the last week I've been drunk in a strip club, got shot at by gangsters and driven a sports car into the ocean — where, regretfully, my partner drowned. But that's nothing compared to a friend of mine who has robbed a convenience store at gunpoint and broken into a military air base — then stolen...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 19, 2013

Countryside campaigner for us all

In the mid-1970s, Souichi Yamashita, a farmer in northern Kyushu who also writes books about rural Japan, got to know a young man named Yutaka Une.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2013

Critics say Olympic stadium is too big

A famed Japanese architect's criticism of the futuristic-looking national stadium planned for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is being shared by an increasing number of people who say it's too big and doesn't match the surrounding environment.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2013

Making do without Obama

More attention has been given to U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to cancel his trip to Asia because of Beltway politics than to what the regional ministers did without him.
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2013

Tough armchair conservationist

With his Oct. 10 missive, "Activists who act like terrorists," Grant Piper reveals himself to be a true hang 'em and flog 'em Tory. While he admits to caring "very much about environmental and wildlife conservation," he prefers, like most of us, to do his caring comfortably at home.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2013

Forum fetes Roppongi Hills decade

The Innovative City Forum is being held in Roppongi Hills in part to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the office and residential complex in central Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 15, 2013

Abe opens Diet session focused on the economy

A 53-day extraordinary Diet session opens with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stressing the need for deregulation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 11, 2013

Camera Grandma's photos document Gifu village's demise

Izu Photo Museum in Nagaizumi, Shizuoka Prefecture, is exhibiting the work of late amateur photographer Tazuko Masuyama on the Tokuyama Dam in Gifu Prefecture, where a small village vanished under the waters of a reservoir decades ago.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Oct 10, 2013

Farmers bring a slice of country life to Tokyo

With Tokyo Tower as a backdrop and being home to some of Tokyo's most famous nightclubs, several foreign embassies and upscale clothing stores, Roppongi has all the flash and glamor missing from slow-paced, rustic country life. Fields and farms have no place in the steel-and-concrete labyrinth of Roppongi...
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2013

Penalizing hate speech

In the first ruling of its kind, the Kyoto District Court orders an anti-Korean group to pay ¥12 million to a pro-Pyongyang school as compensation for the group's anti-Korean protests.
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2013

Relieving environmental malaise

Regarding naturalist C.W. Nicol's Oct. 6 article, "Canadian sojourn helps to shake off Japan malaise": Wouldn't it be grand if Nicol's son-in-law, Don McCubbing, could travel to Japan and get to work restoring some of those salmon streams that the construction ministry has bulldozed under in the name...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 9, 2013

Nissan-only N.Y. taxi fleet plan struck down

New York's plan for a new fleet of cabs from Nissan Motor Co. has been blocked by a judge who ruled that the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission overstepped its authority by requiring medallion owners to buy a specific vehicle.
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2013

Japan adults tops in reading, math but slip in tech-related tasks: OECD

Japanese adults excel at reading and mathematics but are less competent when it comes to using technology for problem-solving and other tasks.
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2013

Destroying Syria's chemical weapons

A team of nearly two-dozen chemical weapons specialists begin the critical, and Herculean, task of dismantling Syria's chemical weapons program and stockpiles by yearend.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2013

Keep Asia in the forefront of U.S. foreign policy

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to cancel his visits to the economic and political summits in Asia is a setback for the U.S. position in the region.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2013

Navigating the risks of investing in Asia's future

Markets and economies need to work now to brace themselves for a period of higher borrowing costs, some market volatility and slower economic expansion in Asia.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Oct 6, 2013

Unique ginkgoes are living fossils

This fall, the fan-shaped leaves of the ginkgo tree will turn a golden yellow, and in the silence of the night, the tree will offer a little arboreal tremor and drop its entire canopy in a total release of its unique and primal foliage.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan