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LIFE / Language
Jun 22, 2014

Today's weird words are tomorrow's standard speech

Last month, a most peculiar word, dotakyan, popped up repeatedly in the media in reference to former Beatle Paul McCartney, who was forced to cancel his entire schedule of concerts due to health concerns.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jun 17, 2014

New Lions slugger Mejia relishes opportunity to play in NPB

Ernesto Mejia remembers the bus rides. Those long trips to games in rookie ball, Single-A and a notch up the ladder in Double-A. Some of those rides could last for seven, eight, nine hours.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 1, 2014

'Live'

When I was 12 I thought the movie parodies in "Mad" magazine were hilarious. Now I suppose I'm harder to please — or just older — but parodies that self-consciously mock their source, while cutely paying homage to it, quickly put me in a trance.
EDITORIALS
Apr 20, 2014

Nuclear disarmament challenge

A conference in Hiroshima highlights the divide between nations that advocate the outright elimination of nuclear weapons and those, like Japan, that hope for a gradual phaseout because they rely on a deterrent 'nuclear umbrella' for their own security.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 19, 2014

Now is the time to research Alzheimer's

The team leader at the Laboratory for Proteolytic Neuroscience at Riken's Brain Science Institute is not a man usually given to making apocalyptic statements.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jan 20, 2014

Expiry dates

It's hard when our children decide we're past our prime. Let's prove we've still got a little shelf life sorting out an admittedly tricky subject.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 4, 2013

Trapped by human society

Osaka-born Tetsumi Kudo's oeuvre has been the subject of a number of major international retrospectives since his death in 1990, and these indicate the artist's increasing postwar historical significance. The current National Museum of Art, Osaka retrospective is magisterial. With more than 600 pages,...
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Nov 26, 2013

Look to pop culture if you want to blame someone for A-Chan's gay gaffe

All art is political. All pop culture is political.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 16, 2013

Alexei Navalny: firebrand bidding for Russia's soul

Last week, Alexei Navalny, the recently convicted Russian opposition blogger, lawyer and candidate for the post of mayor of Moscow, posted a provocative item on his site.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 29, 2013

America and Britain team up on mass surveillance

Twelve years ago, in an almost forgotten report, the European Parliament completed its investigations into a long-suspected Western intelligence partnership dedicated to global signals interception on a vast scale. Evidence had been taken from spies and politicians, telecommunications experts and journalists....
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Right to express religious views

When I noticed Drusilla de Lanor's June 13 letter, "No offense taken to 'that guy' " (which was a reaction to Brian Redmond's June 9 letter, "An offensive religious reference"), I thought of how enlightened De Lanor must be.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013

Hague Convention on child abduction may shape Japan's family law — or vice versa

Giant Hello Kitty-emblazoned kudos to Japan for finally signing the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. Now comes the hard part: actually making it work.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2013

Fukushima kids' thyroids screened

Forty-four children living in areas of Fukushima Prefecture subject to high levels of radiation were screened for thyroid cancer Saturday in Tokyo, highlighting widespread health fears following the 2011 nuclear meltdowns crisis.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 4, 2013

Witnesses reluctant to talk about Tiananmen

From a young age, Qi Zhiyong's daughter asked him how he lost his leg.
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 21, 2013

Islamic law takes root in Syria's rebel-held territory

The evidence was incontrovertible, captured on video and posted on YouTube for all the world to see. During a protest against the Syrian regime, Wael Ibrahim, a veteran activist, had tossed aside a banner inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Feb 16, 2013

China digs in history to bolster isle claims

Beneath its bellicose rhetoric, China has been quietly bolstering its territorial claims with ancient documents, academic research, maps and technical data.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2013

How will Australia rebalance its trade, security relations?

How does Australia reconcile the pull of its European heritage, the security imperatives of the U.S. alliance and its trading ties with East Asia?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 27, 2013

You read about them here first

Ever since 1897 The Japan Times has reported daily in English on people, places and goings-on in and beyond this country. During those 116 years, our articles have often included information that never made it into the Japanese-language press — as in 1934, when the Society Page carried an interview...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2013

'71 Pentagon paper says Agent Orange was stored on Kadena Air Base

LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 22, 2012

Politicians may ru the day their names became verbs

"Which new words would you like to see added to the dictionary?" A couple of months ago the publishing house Taishukan put this generous question to Japanese high school and junior high school students.
EDITORIALS
Sep 23, 2012

The endorsement that wasn't

The Noda Cabinet on Wednesday failed to endorse its new energy strategy announced five days before, which said that Japan will mobilize all available policy resources to achieve "zero operation" of nuclear power plants in the 2030s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 16, 2012

Izumo: The myths and gods of Japan's history

"Shinkoku is the sacred name of Japan — Shinkoku, 'The Country of the Gods'; and of all Shinkoku the most holy ground is the land of Izumo," wrote Lafcadio Hearn more than 100 years ago in his book "Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan." For Hearn, it had been an ambition to visit Shimane Prefecture's Izumo,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2012

Finessing one big banking union for Europe

In the last few weeks, the idea of establishing a European banking union has become the latest remedy advanced as a solution to the long-running euro crisis. But whatever the merits of a banking union — and there are many — proposals to establish one raise more questions than can currently be answered....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
May 15, 2012

Olympus fiasco was 'lost opportunity'

Waku Miller, a resident of Tokyo for over 30 years and a veteran translator who recently served as a spokesman for Michael C. Woodford — former president and CEO of Olympus Corp. — said he found it odd how indifferent major Japanese shareholders were even after a massive loss coverup by the camera...
COMMENTARY
Mar 9, 2012

Breakthrough is close, again

The recent "food for freeze" agreement between the United States and North Korea has been described accurately by the State Department as reflecting "important, if limited, progress" and inaccurately by the media as constituting a "breakthrough" in the seemingly endless march toward Korean Peninsula...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 3, 2012

'Alternative labor' helps Ishinomaki rebuild

Jamie El-Banna, 27, is a self-professed "cynical Londoner" who says he's "not a nice guy" and admits he is known to many as something of a party animal interested mostly in getting drunk. But a look at his recent track record reveals he's now spent over nine months volunteering in tsunami-ravaged Ishinomaki,...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.