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Japan Times
WORLD
Dec 5, 2013

Congressional committee ponders aliens — the space kind

Lawmakers held a free-ranging and sometimes bewildering hearing Wednesday on the search for extraterrestrial life, gradually working around to the question of whether humans are alone in the universe. At the end of the 90-minute session, that issue remained unresolved.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jul 21, 2013

'Motor City Madman' rocks political world

On the final morning of the 2013 National Rifle Association annual convention in May, the day was bright, the mood was festive and Ted Nugent was neither dead nor in jail.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 3, 2013

Join Wall Street, save the world: The rise of the benevolent class

Jason Trigg went into finance because he is after money — as much as he can earn. The 25-year-old certainly had other career options. An MIT computer science graduate, he could write software for the next tech giant. Or he might have gone into academia in computing or applied math or biology. He could...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 19, 2013

Learning to live with your death

It can be a big challenge, even a burden, to strategize your life and prioritize your goals — and then stick to them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 14, 2012

NPO's projects seek to help Tuvaluans facing global warming issues

For many years people have been acquainted with the word "refugee." Though it usually brings to mind wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing, more and more often it has been linked to climate change and natural disasters. We may now be entering the age of the "environmental refugee."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 14, 2012

Some cups of revisionist history

There's this guy I drink morning coffee with. Like me, he came to Japan as a young man and now wonders where the decades have flown. We sit at the window and watch the people rush past, so much like the years of our lives.
CULTURE / Film
May 13, 2011

'Gainsbourg'

You just don't see guys like him anymore — and if you did, he wouldn't be on the guestlist of your next party. Serge Gainsbourg, the eternal enfant terrible of the Parisian culture scene who died in 1991 at the age of 62, has been resurrected on screen by French filmmaker Joann Sfar.
LIFE
Sep 26, 2010

The return of Lafcadio Hearn

I came to Japan in '90 — 1890, that was — died 14 years later, and here I am again after more than a century, exploring my old haunting ground just like in the good old days.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 14, 2009

Finding wisdom in fire and earth

Mishima, nestled at the foot of Mount Fuji, is certainly not a center for yakimono (ceramics), one of the most revered arts in Asia. But it is home to Robert Yellin, one of the foremost English-speaking experts on the craft.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 10, 2009

From East Berlin to the Far East, and vice versa

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. The East German nation, for 28 years hidden from the world's eyes behind almost impassable walls, suddenly opened up.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2009

Reaching young people with music

When someone asks his age, Michael Di Stasio sometimes responds that it is the same as the late king of pop, Michael Jackson: "May he rest in peace."
BUSINESS
Oct 15, 2008

AFLAC good match for Alico Japan: Amos

AFLAC Inc., the world's largest seller of supplemental health insurance, may bid for American International Group Inc.'s Alico Japan life insurance unit, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Amos said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 3, 2008

Jiang Rong: Writing in a world of wolves

Jiang Rong (pen name of Lu Jiamin), who is now 62, was born in Jiangsu Province, China, and educated in Beijing. In 1967, at age 21, he volunteered to go and work in Inner Mongolia, where he'd heard about the practice of people there paying homage to "wolf totems" erected in the rolling grasslands that...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 1, 2007

Drawing on experience

Cartoonists in Japan are as abundant as the cherry blossoms at this time of year -- but Rieko Saibara is probably the only one who has both a lyrical and rebellious side to her work -- along with an astonishing power and what has been called a "lethal poison.''
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2005

Meiji Yasuda's scandals likened to 'Pandora's box'

Two disclosures of payout misdeeds involving Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. in the last six months are casting a dark shadow over an industry plagued with offensives from foreign-affiliated life insurers.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 8, 2005

Pathway to joy offers sips of water, vision of light

Pauline Tsukamoto has been on two psychological paths in her life: trying to make peace with Japan, and trying to make peace with herself. Her body is on yet another journey, one that involves accepting the gift of life itself.
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2004

Insurers set for alliance in Thailand

Nippon Life Insurance Co. and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. said Wednesday they will link up in life insurance operations in Thailand.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Dec 4, 2003

Living on 3 million yen a year

Is there a conspiracy among Japanese politicians, economic experts and elite bureaucrats to destroy Japan's egalitarian postwar social and economic systems and replace them with an American-style, dog-eat-dog type of capitalism typified by a society of haves and have-nots? In his best-selling "Nenshu...
COMMUNITY
Sep 15, 2002

Did Plato's Republic find a spiritual home in Japan?

Four hundred and two years ago this week, a battle was fought near the village of Sekigahara, 40 km northwest of Nagoya. Though short -- it was over soon after lunchtime -- the battle was decisive, ushering in . . . Plato's Republic?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 23, 2002

All and nothing

"Just so, Subhuti, I obtained not the least thing from unexcelled, complete awakening, and for this very reason it is called 'unexcelled, complete awakening.' "
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2002

Moody's places ratings of insurers under review

Moody's Investors Service Inc. said Tuesday it has put the financial strength ratings of seven Japanese life insurers under review for possible downgrade, citing the weak economy and high incidences of policy surrenders.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 7, 2001

On a quiet crusade to end a tradition of injustice

BANGKOK -- On the first lunar cycle of the first month of this year, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh, an eminent Buddhist scholar, threw away her makeup, gave up eating meals after midday and relinquished the luxury of a comfortable bed. A month later, one day before the auspicious date of Buddha's holy Makhapuja...
BUSINESS
Apr 1, 2001

Tokyo Mutual gets court approval to start rehabilitation

Failed Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. said Saturday that it has received approval from the Tokyo District Court to begin rehabilitation procedures.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Oct 7, 1999

Taking time to simply stop and think

We are sitting up late sipping plum wine from small glasses at Atsuko Watanabe's dinner table next to the woodstove in an old farmhouse deep in the mountains of Shikoku. Her husband, Gufudo, is washing the dishes (the Watanabes' own handmade pottery) from tonight's seven-course Indian vegetarian meal....
Japan Times
PODCAST / deep dive
Feb 22, 2023

A Japanese photographer heads to Ukraine; a student flees to Tokyo

On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Gabriel Dominguez joins the podcast to talk about the effects this war in Europe has had on Japan.
Tony Bennett at the Apollo Theater in the Harlem neighborhood of New York in 1997
CULTURE / Music
Jul 21, 2023

Tony Bennett, masterful stylist of American musical standards, dies at 96

Bennett vaulted to fame in the early 1950s with a string of emotional hits, including "The Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "Because of You" and "Blue Velvet."
Already imprisoned Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny (second left) listens to his verdict over a series of extremism charges at the IK-6 penal colony, a maximum-security prison some 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Moscow, on Friday.
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 5, 2023

Putin critic Alexei Navalny has 19 years added to prison term

The jailed opposition figure said after said the sentence was designed to cow the Russian people into political submission.
In 'Ooku: The Inner Chambers,' a secretly female shogun rules Japan and is attended to by a group of male concubines.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Aug 17, 2023

'Ooku: The Inner Chambers': Alternative history explores gender norms

The Netflix anime tells a complex love story in an alternate-reality Edo Japan in which an illness upends gender roles.
The wedded rocks of Meoto Iwa in Mie Prefecture.
JAPAN / History
Aug 20, 2023

Good and evil defined by God … or gods

Much of our understanding of good and evil can be traced to definitions created by religion. Which religion (and definition) depends on where you live.
Zaein, created by artificial intelligence company Pulse9, is one of South Korea's most active virtual humans.
BUSINESS / Tech
Sep 26, 2023

In South Korea, AI-driven virtual humans go mainstream

Digital humans have been created for some of the country's largest conglomerates, with research indicating the tech could be worth $527 billion by 2030.

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