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JAPAN / Politics
May 16, 2013

Iijima's North trip ups hope for progress on abductions

Tokyo authorized and is in charge of the surprise trip to Pyongyang by special adviser Isao Iijima, a senior government official indicated Wednesday, while Cabinet members all remained tight-lipped in public amid speculation the government hopes to resume direct talks with North Korea to resolve the...
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2013

Lessons from the Iressa case

The Supreme Court upholds rulings that the Japanese unit of British drug maker AstraZeneca PLC is not liable for fatal side effects of the lung cancer drug Iressa.
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2013

Putin's hand in radicalizing a secular rebellion

It was Vladimir Putin's refusal to distinguish legitimate Chechen demands for independence from terrorism that created the jihadist movement in the North Caucasus.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 27, 2013

AJ Foyt Racing deserves credit for IndyCar victory: Sato

Takuma Sato says joining AJ Foyt Racing put him in position to become the first Japanese driver to win an IndyCar race.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Apr 27, 2013

What will allow the last Briton in Guantanamo to come home?

Shaker Aamer remembers the frantic knocking on the door, the voices screaming for him to get out. Outside, in the dark streets of Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, the soldiers stripped him of his belongings at gunpoint and marched away their latest prisoner.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 12, 2013

Funahashi: 'Good stories don't need happy endings'

A graduate of the University of Tokyo's cinema studies course, Atsushi Funahashi studied directing at the School of Visual Arts in New York and shot his first two films, “Echoes” (2002) and “Big River” (2005), in the United States.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 27, 2013

India's Modi sets sights on top job

If Indians were to vote against corruption, a slowing economy and weak leadership in the 2014 national elections — all that urban middle-class population is roiled by — controversial Hindu nationalist politician Narendra Modi could win the office of prime minister hands down.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Mar 18, 2013

Man who shot '47 Percent' video reveals identity

Until last week, Scott Prouty's only bout with fame came when he dived into a canal in Florida and saved a woman from drowning. Like many Americans, the Boston area native held down working-class jobs, ran into some financial trouble and remained generally anonymous.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2013

Democracy votes to kill in Indonesia, Pakistan

The recent slaughter of Shiites in Pakistan is another grisly reminder of the perilous condition of its minorities. Indeed, in Pakistan and Indonesia, the two largest Muslim countries, both of which are in the midst of a fraught experiment with electoral democracy after decades of military rule, murderous...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 27, 2013

Interviews with 'evil personified' reveal very different men

He shuffled into the room and stopped, plexiglass and cinderblocks framing his slight figure. He looked much as I remembered him from nearly a decade earlier: big eyes in a boyish face, a thin build, long fingers, waist chains. But his eyes, once cold and flat, had mellowed into something resembling...
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2013

Decline of manufacturing

A labor force survey shows the number of people employed in Japan's manufacturing industry dipping below 10 million for the first time since 1961.
Reader Mail
Feb 14, 2013

Loath to see return of old drills

The Feb. 3 editorial "Entrance exam change needed" reminded me of Japan's continuous failure to educate its young citizens. The problem of college entrance exams is directly tied to how the system itself is structured.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 1, 2013

Cirque offshoot 7 Fingers has lofty ambitions

Since first touring its native province of Quebec in 1984, the self-styled "multifaceted creative force" that is Canada's Cirque du Soleil has become a major global phenomenon with several permanent venues.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 6, 2013

Matsui's stellar career, easy charm won admirers on, off baseball diamond

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013. One of the bigger stories to close out the 2012 baseball news year was the retirement of former Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees slugger Hideki Matsui at the age of 38. The Dec. 28 announcement ended the career of one of the more memorable players in Japanese baseball...
SOCCER
Dec 17, 2012

Guerrero carries Corinthians to CWC title against Chelsea

Paolo Guerrero headed home a 69th-minute winner to crown Corinthians world champions for the second time with a 1-0 victory over Chelsea in the Club World Cup final on Sunday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 18, 2012

New universities are big business, needed or not

People who use the Tokyu Toyoko Line, which connects Tokyo and Yokohama, may wonder why there are stations called Toritsu-Daigaku and Gakugei-Daigaku when there are no daigaku (universities) near them. There used to be a Gakugei Daigaku (Tokyo Gakugei University) but it moved to Koganei in 1964. There...
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2012

A chance to pay pension arrears

At the beginning of October, a system started to allow people who are up to 10 years in arrears on premium payments for the kokumin nenkin pension to pay the unpaid premiums. Kokumin nenkin mainly covers self-employed or jobless people, but also serves as the basic pension for corporate workers. The...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2012

New North korea approach needed

A decade has passed since five Japanese abducted by North Korean agents were returned to Japan on Oct. 15, 2002. That event took place a month after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il held a summit that culminated in the signing of the Pyongyang Declaration in which...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2012

Award-winning Born a global success

Participants from around the world attending the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group in Tokyo were treated to award-winning sake during a hospitality event in the glitzy Ginza shopping district on Oct. 11.
EDITORIALS
Oct 6, 2012

Future of senile dementia

The health and welfare ministry says that the number of elderly people suffering from senile dementia and in need of nursing care has topped 3 million this year. As Japan's population continues to gray, the number of such elderly people will inevitably increase.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 8, 2012

Eye surgeon makes a difference, performing 'miracles' in Vietnam

In 1965, Akira Kurosawa directed "Akahige" ("Red Beard"), the story of an Edo Period doctor who teaches his arrogant intern the importance of compassion, responsibility, and empathizing with his patients. Ophthalmologist Tadashi Hattori has seen this movie, but he insists that he was not thinking about...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 11, 2012

Import club caters to need for home comfort

The blonde man in shorts and a baseball cap, sporting a lopsided grin and a dangling backpack and parking a rusty bicycle, looked less like a captain of industry than a superannuated college student. Yet American Chuck Grafft, 50, is founder and CEO of Foreign Buyers Club, one of the largest importers...
EDITORIALS
Jul 23, 2012

Aid with strings for Afghanistan

The international community has agreed to continue its support for Afghanistan, committing at a conference on July 8 in Tokyo to provide $16 billion in aid to the embattled government. But donors have adopted a new mindset, demanding that the money be well spent and promising the government in Kabul...

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