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JAPAN
Aug 20, 2014

U.S. ice bucket challenge picked up by Japan's movers and shakers

A U.S.-based social media challenge daring people to douse themselves with buckets of ice water spreads to Japan, with celebrities from billionaire Masayoshi Son to singer Ayumi Hamasaki taking up the gauntlet to boost awareness of what is known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Aug 20, 2014

Osaka mayor paints ambitious picture of prefecture in 2025 plan

If Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto has his way, by 2025, as it prepares to host that year's International Expo, Osaka will have become an international entertainment capital, home to a casino resort, the site of a major electronic car race and a bicycle race that rivals the Tour de France.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 20, 2014

Hackers steal encrypted passwords of MeetMe social network users

Hackers gained access to some names, emails and encrypted passwords of users of MeetMe Inc.'s social network, the company said.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

Liberia says all 17 runaway Ebola patients have been located

Liberia has found all 17 suspected Ebola patients who fled a quarantine center in Monrovia at the weekend and transferred them to another clinic, the information minister said on Tuesday.
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

China punishes Xinjiang official for openly practicing faith

China has reprimanded 15 Xinjiang officials for violations that include adhering to religious faith, state media said on Tuesday, amid a crackdown on what the government calls illegal religious activities in the unruly western region.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

Heinz to tighten supplier controls in China after infant food scare

U.S. foodmaker H.J. Heinz Co. said on Tuesday it will tighten controls over ingredients suppliers in China after it was forced to recall some infant food products from Chinese store shelves due to excess levels of lead.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2014

Tokyu Corp. taps foreign students to help make Shibuya more tourist-friendly

Railway operator and real estate developer Tokyu Corp. has kicked off a nightly seminar during which some of its employees will live with foreign exchange students for two weeks, and discuss how to make Shibuya "the world's most fascinating tourist spot."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 19, 2014

Musician Rory Viner turns Japan's suicide statistics into a song

Train delays due to jinshin jiko, which euphemistically translates to "human accident" — often a suicide on the tracks — are far from an infrequent occurrence in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014

Eurasia's 'Reagan revolutions' degrade democracy

The three boastful, rabble-rousing leaders of Turkey, India and Russia possess ideological bases like the one U.S. President Ronald Reagan had among Christian fundamentalists and neoconservative intellectuals.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 19, 2014

Two California youths accused of plotting high school shooting spree

Police in the Los Angeles suburb of South Pasadena said Monday they had thwarted a mass shooting plot with the arrest of two teenagers who were conspiring to kill several staffers and as many fellow students as possible at their high school.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

As Gaza war subsides, a battle over how it is investigated begins

Even before starting work as chairman of a U.N. human rights commission investigating the Gaza war, Canadian law professor William Schabas has been vilified as an apologist for Iran who is incapable of setting aside his perceived anti-Israel bias.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 19, 2014

Julian Assange hopes to exit embassy in London if U.K. lets him, spokesman says

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has spent over two years inside Ecuador's London embassy to avoid extradition to Sweden, said on Monday he planned to leave the building "soon," but his spokesman said that could only happen if Britain lets him.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2014

Nonprofit group aims to help female students meet their potential

Tokyo-based nonprofit organization Hanalabs is offering female college students in Japan a chance to advance their careers by devising solutions to social problems affecting communities in need of revitalization.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
Aug 18, 2014

New 'Bernanke shock' in cards for emerging markets: ex-IMF exec Kato

Emerging markets are at risk of revisiting last year's "Bernanke shock" should the Federal Reserve signal an end to near-zero interest rates earlier than investors anticipate, according to Takatoshi Kato, once a deputy managing director at the International Monetary Fund.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Aug 17, 2014

Could the lingua franca approach to learning break Japan's English curse?

Learning English as a lingua franca (ELF) involves approaching the language as a tongue shared by non-native speakers around the world rather than as a lingo that must be mastered to native-speaker level.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 17, 2014

From 2015, you may not have to work 25 years to draw a pension

The period you have to pay into the system to be eligible to draw a pension is supposed to be cut down to 10 years in October 2015, but this is inextricably linked to a planned consumption tax hike.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / ADOPT ME!
Aug 17, 2014

A cat named Piccola: talk to me

Piccola is a sassy Siamese that, naturally, loves to talk.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2014

Cricket star Khan overplays hand in Pakistani power game

Cricket hero Imran Khan rode a wave of discontent to finally break through as a serious player in Pakistani politics in last year's election. Now he is aiming even higher, leading thousands on a march to the capital in a bid to unseat the prime minister.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 16, 2014

What kind of life could live in the clouds?

Do you remember seeing clouds from an airplane for the first time? Even if that first time was as an adult, you were probably struck by the appearance of solidity. Seen from above, a cloudscape looks like a landscape — it looks like a place where things might live.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 16, 2014

Missouri protests reignite over shot black teen

Protesters clashed with riot police in the U.S. state of Missouri overnight after police reports released earlier on Friday said a black teen was a suspect in the theft of cigars from a store minutes before an officer shot him dead.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 16, 2014

German security 'by accident' taped Clinton conversation: media

German security agents recorded a conversation involving Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was U.S. secretary of state, media reported Friday, a potential embarrassment for Berlin which has lambasted Washington for its widespread surveillance.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2014

Three ministers visit Yasukuni on surrender day anniversary; Abe refrains

Three Cabinet ministers visit war-related Yasukuni Shrine as Japan marks the 69th anniversary of its surrender in World War II.
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Aug 15, 2014

Bon bonfires to be lit on five Kyoto mountains

Five mountains in Kyoto will be illuminated with huge bonfires on Saturday, the last day of the Bon festival, when ancestors' spirits are welcomed back to the world of the living.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 15, 2014

Rise of the machines? Tiny robot horde swarms to form shapes

They look vaguely like miniature hockey pucks skittering along on three pinlike metal legs, but a swarm of small robots called Kilobots at a laboratory at Harvard University is making a little bit of history for automatons everywhere.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 15, 2014

Japan imposes asset freeze on North Korean shipping firm

The government on Friday froze the assets of the operator of a North Korean ship seized for smuggling arms, the Foreign Ministry announced, just as Tokyo is engaged in talks with Pyongyang to return Japanese citizens kidnapped decades ago by North Korean agents.
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2014

A glut of unoccupied houses

Roughly one in every seven houses throughout Japan is unoccupied, and the number keeps growing. Blame the graying of society, the depopulation of rural areas and the 'fixed-property' tax break.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 15, 2014

First dust particles from interstellar space are found in samples collected from comet

A NASA spacecraft that was dispatched 15 years ago to collect samples from a comet also snared what scientists suspect are the first dust specks from interstellar space.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan