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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 6, 2011

Kang family takes fight for justice to Tokyo

Sung Won, the father of Hoon "Scott" Kang, the Korean-American tourist who died in mysterious circumstances in Shinjuku last year, arrived in Tokyo this week to continue his fight to seek justice for his son.
COMMUNITY
Sep 6, 2011

Japan needs your mascots

In last week's Light Gist column, headlined "Mascots on a mission to explain the mundane," Colin P. A. Jones explored the marvellous menagerie of mascots deployed by Japanese authorities to educate adults and children alike about the law and the workings of government.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 6, 2011

Yokohama: What should be new Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's top priority?

Yusuke Kamei, 31
EDITORIALS
Sep 5, 2011

World's biggest blog obsession

Internet users in Japan spend more time reading blogs than any other country in the world, according to a recent study from comScore, a research company measuring the digital world. The average Japanese user spent 62.6 minutes reading blogs during June of this year, when the survey was conducted.
COMMENTARY
Sep 5, 2011

Revolution no boon to the Copts

Ugly reality has dashed the high hopes of the "Arab Spring." In Egypt the fall of Hosni Mubarak has encouraged religious intolerance and persecution, especially against the Coptic Christian community.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 4, 2011

Alfons Deeken: Priest-philosopher makes death his life's work

On Friday, July 22, as the stifling heat and humidity of summer relented for just a fleeting few days, hundreds of people filled a hall at Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, to listen to a lecture by philosophy scholar Alfons Deeken.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 4, 2011

Flowering of civic activism

MAKING JAPANESE CITIZENS: Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japan, by Simon Andrew Avenell. University of California Press, 2010, 356 pp., $24.95 (paper) In recent years the growth of civil society in Japan has attracted considerable attention. The invaluable contributions of Japanese...
COMMENTARY
Sep 3, 2011

Doctors among victims in Arab uprisings

Doctors and medical personnel have become additional victims of the uprising taking place in several Arab countries. Attacks on doctors violate the principle of medical neutrality that ensures that doctors and medical personnel should be free to treat those in need — regardless of politics, race or...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2011

Libya's next fight: the West

At a press conference in Tripoli on Aug. 26, a statement read aloud by top Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj was reassuring. Just a few months ago, disorganized and leaderless rebel fighters seemed to have little chance at ousting Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadhafi and his unruly sons.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2011

Beijing wastes no time with Noda

China lost no time warning Yoshihiko Noda what it expected of him, after he was chosen by the ruling Democratic Party of Japan as its leader this week and subsequently was elected prime minister.
EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2011

Leading a nation in crisis

Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers on Monday chose Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as the party's new chief. On Tuesday, the Diet elected him as Japan's new prime minister, succeeding Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 30, 2011

Winning: 'The Alien': readers remember life in '90s Japan

The following are a selection of the winning submissions in response to last month's Zeit Gist competition to win copies of "The Very Best of Neil Garscadden's Alien Humor," a collection of many of the pieces Garscadden wrote while editor of the humor section of The Alien magazine.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Aug 30, 2011

Japan's 'silent tsunami' severs parental ties, wrecks children's lives

To the next Prime Minister,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 30, 2011

Views from Kobe: Who is your favorite Japanese mascot?

David Mystify
EDITORIALS
Aug 28, 2011

Global citizen Haruki Murakami

Recently the cover of the British magazine The Economist showed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Barack Obama in kimono (with an erupting Mount Fuji in the background), to illustrate its feature story, "Turning Japanese: Debt, default and the West's new politics of paralysis."
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 26, 2011

Vlaikidis knows path won't be easy in Iwate

Before sitting down for dinner on Tuesday evening, Iwate Big Bulls coach Vlasios Vlaikidis spoke in measured tones about the difficult work of building a team from scratch.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 26, 2011

Tokyo Jazz Festival plays to a plethora of tastes

Jazz is always progressing. When the first jazz cafes began appearing in Yokohama around 100 years ago, nobody could have imagined the world they'd be a part of. Bebop and blues, tap dancers and turntables — the essential ingredients of the genre have evolved, and that is the main focus of the Tokyo...
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2011

Nuclear refugees struggle to cope with uncertain future

Like thousands of other people, Miwa Kamoshita's life was turned upside down when the March 11 tsunami struck the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, leading her and her family to voluntarily evacuate their home in Iwaki, some 40 km south of the crippled power station.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2011

Harvard talks pump up overseas study, work

Japanese high school students were glued to the screen as a Harvard University student, acting as teacher, clicked on the computer and fused photographs of people's faces, claiming she could create a face people would find attractive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 25, 2011

Japanese brothers who championed Korean ceramics

In ancient times, Japanese arts and crafts were greatly influenced by the introduction of techniques and aesthetics from Korea and China. In particular, Japan owes the development of its ceramics to the skilled craftsmen brought over from Korea at the end of 16th century, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 25, 2011

Red Bull invests in tomorrow's dance-music stars

Thirty-two-year-old Yoshiyuki "Yosi" Horikawa from Ibaraki, Osaka, couldn't believe his eyes when he went online the morning of July 16.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2011

Fukushima fallout said 30 times Hiroshima's

Video footage of Tatsuhiko Kodama's impassioned speech before a Diet committee in July went viral online recently, showing the medical expert's shocking revelation that the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant spewed some 30 times more radioactive materials than the fallout from the Hiroshima atomic bombing....
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2011

America's databook is far too valuable to kill

If you want to know something about America, there are few better places to start than the "Statistical Abstract of the United States." Published annually by the Census Bureau, the Stat Abstract assembles about 1,400 tables describing our national condition. What share of children are immunized against...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 23, 2011

Yamanashi: What's so unique about Yamanashi?

COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2011

Latest famine in Somalia born of old failures

If the past is anything to go by, televisions the world over will show heart-wrenching pictures of malnourished Somali babies with distended bellies; of flies feeding on their eyes; of mouths sucking at milkless breasts. Environmental experts will pontificate on the recurrent droughts in Somalia.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji