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BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 9, 2013

Darvish impressing experts with his strikeout ability

If you watch the home broadcast for one of Yu Darvish's starts for the Texas Rangers, you will, at some point, hear play-by-play man Steve Busby exhorting, "got him swinging," after Darvish fans a batter.
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 9, 2013

Everything under heaven: Big China rattles region

China's neighbors may have half-believed Beijing's previous "smile diplomacy" and frequent reassurances that its rise posed no threat to regional peace and stability — but now everyone understands what hegemonic aspirations look like.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 9, 2013

Scrutinizing identity through one's family

Lucky great-grandfather Julius. This first member of the Helm family to settle in Japan was "as rooted in his German identity as an old oak tree." For his mixed-race descendants, life would not be so simple.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 8, 2013

Yoga teacher finds creative voice — and success — in 'surreal' Tokyo

While hammering nails and cutting planks in the prop department at New York's Lincoln Center for the Metropolitan Opera in the early 2000s, Barry Silver never dreamed of a life in Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 7, 2013

AirAsia to up overseas flights to offset weaker yen

AirAsia Japan Co., one of the three Japanese low-cost carriers that started last year, is adding more overseas flights to increase foreign currency revenue to offset a rise in fuel and lease costs caused by a weaker yen.
BUSINESS
Jun 6, 2013

Abe's growth strategy hit for lack of details

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reveals his set of structural reforms to boost the economy, ranging from creating special economic zones to easing rules to set up international schools, but fails to impress market players.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 6, 2013

Hashimoto is Horie's kind of guy

Takafumi Horie, 40, the recently paroled founder of Internet firm Livedoor Co., said Wednesday he wants embattled Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto to become prime minister one day, citing his "ability to challenge" and "alter the status quo" of politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 4, 2013

As evidence of Agent Orange in Okinawa stacks up, U.S. sticks with blanket denial

In April 2011, these Community pages published the first accounts of sick U.S. veterans who believe their illnesses were caused by exposure to Agent Orange on Okinawa during the Vietnam War era.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 4, 2013

A term for Abe's ilk? Well, nonliberal

Foreign media and overseas Japan experts largely use 19th- and 20th-century labels to describe Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and current Japanese politics led by his Liberal Democratic Party — "right-wing," "hawkish," "conservative" and "nationalist."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 3, 2013

Abe pledges ¥100 billion to stabilize Sahel

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged Sunday to provide ¥100 billion in humanitarian and development assistance over five years to help stabilize Africa's conflict-torn Sahel region.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 2, 2013

Abe to Africa: Use aid as you see fit

The fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development opens with a look back over the forum's past 20 years and discussions about its future.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 2, 2013

Severe sports training methods became taibatsu in time

The martial arts were the inspiration for the famous baseball team at the First Higher School of Tokyo, a late 19th century powerhouse that helped make yakyu, as baseball came to be known, the national sport of Japan.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jun 2, 2013

Sex gaffes and the voluble Osaka shyster

If the Japan Restoration Party — headed by Toru Hashimoto, the mayor of Osaka, and former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara — needs a new political slogan, the proverb Kuchi ga wazawai no moto (The mouth is the source of great trouble) would do nicely.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013

Taking anime too seriously

'Why study anime?' the author of this study of anime asks himself. Good question, thinks the reader. Why indeed 'study' a pop art whose appeal is less to thought than to mass, unreflecting, spontaneous enjoyment?
Japan Times
JAPAN / NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
Jun 1, 2013

Somalia seeks return to global fold

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has told Japan's and Africa's leaders that his country faces four challenges as it struggles to become a constructive member of the global community again after decades of civil war and anarchy.
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

TICAD remains as important as ever

Twenty years ago, Japan and a number of international partners founded the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) to help boost human development across the continent.
Japan Times
WORLD / TICAD V SPECIAL
Jun 1, 2013

Yokohama continues to foster close African ties

Africa returns to Yokohama in the form of the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V), which is being held through June 3.
Japan Times
JAPAN / NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
Jun 1, 2013

TICAD's to-do list extensive, 20 years on

Looking back on the Tokyo International Conference on African Development and its achievements over the past 20 years, Masaki Inaba touched on the number of flights that now directly connect Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 31, 2013

Widow in farmer suicide sues Tepco

A Filipino woman whose Japanese husband committed suicide after his dairy farming business was decimated by the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster is suing Tokyo Electric Power Co. for about ¥126 million.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 30, 2013

'Fast fashion' of South Korea, Singapore arrives

In the competitive Japanese "fast fashion" market, two new Asian brands have recently come in to challenge domestic and Western rivals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
May 29, 2013

Coming together to move Africa forward

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development is a great opportunity for Japan to expand its business in Africa, as the resource-rich continent begins to shed its dependence on aid to emerge as an attractive consumer market and a swelling population, according to the Foreign Ministry's ambassador...
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2013

Abenomics vs. bad economics

The good news is that the Japanese economy and stocks are recovering. The bad news is that austerity hawks still view 'Abenomics' as a mere flash in the pan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
May 29, 2013

Envoy to investors: Look outside conflict box, think fast

The government should encourage Japan's private sector to invest more money and at a faster pace in Africa despite the security concerns that have plagued the continent, Ethiopian Ambassador Markos Tekle Rike said ahead of the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development, which kicks off...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 28, 2013

281_Anti Nuke's anger at authority is at a critical mass

More than two years after the triple reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, hundreds of thousands of residents of the Tohoku region of northeastern Honshu remain displaced, the power station teeters on the brink of further disaster and large swaths of northern Japan are so irradiated...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 28, 2013

Tokyo's Koreatown emerged from the flow of bilateral ties

Diplomatic friction between Tokyo and Seoul over territorial and historical disputes is making headlines once again, and Tokyo's right-wing protesters know just where to go to get in the face of its Korean residents: Koreatown in Shinjuku Ward's Shin-Okubo district.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 26, 2013

Xenophobia stretches from the street to the dinner table

The territorial disputes between Japan and its nearest neighbors over the islands of Takeshima (Dokdo in Korean) and the Senkakus (Diaoyu in Chinese) have gradually faded from the front pages; but this does not necessarily mean there have been no repercussions.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’