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Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 10, 2013

Will robots end up creating jobs or end them?

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a management robot is learning to run a factory and give orders to artificial coworkers, and a BakeBot robot is reading recipes, whipping together butter, sugar and flour and putting the cookie mix in the oven. At the University of California at Berkeley, a robot...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 10, 2013

Crime is down but elderly prisoners on the rise

Last July, a lay judge panel in Osaka handed down a 20-year prison sentence to a man convicted of killing his sister after the prosecution had only asked for 16 years. Earlier this month the Osaka High Court reduced that sentence to 14 years, because the defendant had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome,...
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2013

Resuscitating Japan's fishing culture

The efforts by young fishermen engaged on fish culturing on the Uwa Sea, west of Ehime Prefecture, may offer an example of a new direction that Japan's fishing industry should take in making itself vibrant. In 2009, the Ehime Prefectural Government started a system of certifying fishermen younger than...
WORLD / Science & Health
Mar 9, 2013

Some acne germs may be helpful

People plagued by pimples may have bacteria to blame — but not all of them. Researchers have found that although some strains of the bacteria commonly associated with acne may cause problem skin, one appears to protect the skin and keep it healthy. The discovery may help dermatologists develop strain-specific...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 9, 2013

Sleeping on the train — a rite of passage into Japanese society

When I first came to Japan, I wondered how people could sleep on the train, a public and completely inappropriate place where you can be assured everyone will be watching you. But then I learned that sleeping on the train is involuntary — and should be classified as a sleeping disorder.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 8, 2013

Aspiring thespians get help in realizing dreams

If you had a son or daughter who announced they wanted to be a stage actor, whatever would you say to them?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2013

Power is increasingly fleeting

In 2009, during his first address before a joint session of Congress, U.S. President Barack Obama championed a budget that would serve as a blueprint for the country's future through ambitious investments in energy, health care and education. "This is America," the new president proclaimed. "We don't...
LIFE / Digital
Mar 6, 2013

Not even Google will be around forever

Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitize all of the world's printed books, was getting under way, the two cofounders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 5, 2013

Buying property in the age of Abenomics

According to most business media, now is the time to act if you are thinking about buying a home. Though the Liberal Democratic Party has yet to confirm that it will go ahead with the consumption tax increases the Democratic Party of Japan passed last year, it seems likely that the first hike to 8 percent...
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 5, 2013

Child's quibble with U.S. 'poverty superpower' propaganda unravels a sobering story about insular Japan

Last November, a reader in Hokkaido named Stephanie sent me an article read in Japan's elementary schools. Featured in a sixth-grader magazine called Chagurin (from "child agricultural green") dated December 2012, it was titled "Children of America, the Poverty Superpower" (hinkon taikoku Amerika no...
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2013

Fever from the fields

At least five people in Japan have died of severe fever from thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS), a virus infection said to be transmitted by ticks.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 3, 2013

Trying to get things done in the wake of 3/11

Two years have passed since the magnitude-9 Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, the devastating tsunami it triggered and the disgraceful and deadly fiasco at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant that followed.
Reader Mail
Mar 3, 2013

Japan doing well by its elderly

The Feb. 27 Bloomberg article "Seniors forced to go it alone as ranks swell, housing eludes" highlights some important issues, but overstates them. And by omission, it leaves the misleading impression that Japan is somehow behind other countries in providing for frail elderly people.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 3, 2013

A visit to Usa, the Japanese city that knows how to win

It is the time of the year when many people get nervous about winning and losing. Students are cramming hard to pass entrance exams to get into the high schools and colleges of their dreams.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 2, 2013

Teacher cultivates more bilingual education opportunities for children

As international marriages rose in Japan in recent years, the number of bicultural families increased, and many children of such families are being raised to speak the languages of both parents. American Mary Nobuoka, director of the Bilingual Special Interest Group (B-SIG) and parent of a bicultural son, devotes much of her time and energy to helping other families in their journey of language and discovery.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Mar 1, 2013

Qusca: a good place to nap on the job

People fall asleep everywhere in Tokyo, but this cafe is actually made for it.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2013

Inequity of slavery reaps vengeance in 'Django'

Quentin Tarantino, whose film plots are often fueled by a mania for vengeance, has struck again with the Oscar-winning “Django Unchained.”
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2013

Tough road ahead for the DPJ

The Democratic Party of Japan, which suffered a severe setback in the Dec. 16 Lower House election, on Feb. 24 held a party convention aimed at laying the foundation for its resuscitation. Although it adopted a party platform and a seven-point declaration, it is hard to see how the No. 1 opposition party...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2013

Today's take on Stalingrad

In one of Moscow's central subway stations — Arbatskaya — the escalator leading up to the city exit ends in a spacious vestibule. On the front wall, a classic frame several meters high is covered with white plaster. It bears no image, and the white paint must be regularly renewed to avoid ugly cracks....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 27, 2013

Glass may look geeky, but you have to applaud Google's vision

A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the university's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, where I work. Afterward, one of the questions I was most frequently asked by people who hadn't been...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / OUR MAN IN TOKYO
Feb 26, 2013

Romania envoy hopes cultural affinity boosts ties

Romanian Ambassador Radu Serban is a veteran diplomat with a mission to promote economic ties with Japan. But the envoy, 61, has another agenda — promoting cultural and educational exchanges, which ties into his personal love of Japanese literature, especially haiku.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 25, 2013

China and Japan: vital ties

Japan and China should reconfirm pledges made in the 1978 friendship treaty and set up a forum for dialogue to prevent ties from declining further.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Feb 25, 2013

As Medvedev is savaged, Putin silent

A campaign of insinuation and insult has targeted Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and in a country where all power flows from the top downward, his boss, President Vladimir Putin, has done nothing all winter to stop it.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 25, 2013

Reining in the welfare costs

British welfare reform advocates want to replace the current array of benefits with a single system of tax credits. This won't happen soon, however.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Feb 23, 2013

American teacher's spin on Japan's racism riles Net nationalists

Japan's informal army of young, hyper-nationalist Web users puts U.S. citizen Miki Dezaki in its cross hairs for uploading a video titled 'Racism in Japan' on YouTube.
Japan Times
WORLD
Feb 23, 2013

As Africa rises, Europe loses grip on Catholic power base

The muted light of an African sunset filters into the high, pointed roof of Christ The King church in Accra, a wide, understated building just metres away from the seat of government in Ghana's capital city.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers