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Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2013

Cory Booker: hope, hype — and heir to Barack Obama?

If Cory Booker were a television character you might think the writers were over-egging things a bit. Tall, athletic, handsome, he is an ambitious politician with a flair for drama. He rescues a woman from a burning building, saves a freezing dog, chases a scissor-wielding mugger, invites hurricane victims...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2013

Emerging nations brace for economic ice age

After several years of riding high on foreign investment cash and commodity revenue, emerging markets are in for a shock amid creeping recession in much of th eurozone.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2013

Shocking exposé of Britain's police spies

Overexcitable publishers like to bandy around words such as "explosive" and "shocking" when trying to flog their books, even though generally you could substitute them for ones such as "mildly interesting."
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 24, 2013

A look back at when Tokyo was awarded 1964 Olympics

It's been more than 50 years since Tokyo was awarded the 1964 Summer Olympics, and it was done before several landmark events that shaped the second half of the 20th century.
BUSINESS / Tech
Aug 23, 2013

As promoters follow users, not sites, ads can pop up in distressing ways

Ads for knockoff Louis Vuitton bags pop up on the luxury retailer's official Facebook page. A Toyota advertisement shows up on a news article about a car crash. Or an ad for Dove promoting women's "real beauty" shows up on a Facebook page glorifying domestic violence.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 9, 2013

Film helps heal A-bombing, and family, wounds

In a poignant scene in the award-winning 2010 documentary "Atomic Mom," filmmaker M.T. Silvia tells the story of Sadako Sasaki, a Hiroshima atomic bombing victim, as she presents 1,000 paper cranes to Silvia's mother, Pauline, a former U.S. Navy biologist involved in radiation testing on animals in the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 8, 2013

The dead get their day as zombies go mainstream

My first zombie movie was "Night of the Living Dead," viewed at a midnight screening at the old Harvard Square Cinema, attended by a small coterie of late-night freaks and stoners. With its relentless dread and entrail-chomping ghouls, it was a film beyond the pale of normal, daytime moviegoers.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2013

Okinawa dump site may be proof of Agent Orange: experts

The recent discovery of 22 barrels buried on former U.S. military land in the city of Okinawa could be posing the same level of risks to local residents as dioxin hot spots in Vietnam where the American military stored toxic defoliants during the 1960s and 1970s, according to two leading Agent Orange...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Aug 5, 2013

SOFA: an unequal treaty that trumps the Constitution?

The prime minister's dogged focus on amending the American-tainted Constitution might reflect an uncomfortable unspoken truth — that it may be easier to change the Constitution than revise another document of potentially greater importance: the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the United States, which governs the legal status of the U.S. military presence in Japan.
Reader Mail
Jul 31, 2013

Preventing another caste system

Extraordinary, insightful and humane: These are the words that came to my mind upon reading Kevin Rafferty's July 24 article, "Obama's blunder with Bangladesh."
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jul 23, 2013

Obama's toughest campaign yet: selling health care reform

Deep inside the White House, in a bare room that the chief of staff uses for meetings, David Simas is still thinking about turnout.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 22, 2013

Standing up for a longer life span

Michael Jensen, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnessota, is talking on the phone, but his voice is drowned out by what sounds like a vacuum cleaner. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm on a treadmill."
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.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2013

Myanmar isn't out of the woods

Regarding the July 17 front-page AFP-JIJI article "Myanmar leader vows to free all political prisoners": It's ironic that history's biggest perpetrators of human rights violations — the erstwhile colonial powers — have today become the biggest advocates of human rights. This becomes all the more...
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 20, 2013

Nation set for rare political continuity

After cycling through seven prime ministers in seven years, the Upper House election is about to see the nation break free from its most vexing political pattern: instability.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2013

Vampire Weekend to go 'Modern' at Fuji Rock

Over the course of three albums, Vampire Weekend has cultivated a unique sound from a wide spectrum of influences, including experimental rock musician Keigo Oyamada (aka Cornelius). Vampire Weekend lead singer and songwriter Ezra Koenig has a fond memory of the musician, often described as Japan's counterpart...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Deserving of a medal of honor

Regarding the July 9 AFP-JIJI article "Man who battled Japan nuke disaster passes away": I am profoundly saddened by the news of the death this month of Masao Yoshida, 58.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Jul 17, 2013

Resting in peace has never been so easy

The array of after-life choices, especially for families with fewer financial means, is growing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 8, 2013

Police 'foreign crime wave' falsehoods fuel racism

These Community pages have reported many times on how the National Police Agency (NPA) has manufactured the illusion of a "foreign crime wave," depicting non-Japanese (NJ) as a threat to Japan's public safety (see "Upping the fear factor," Zeit Gist, Feb. 20, 2007; "Time to come clean on foreign crime,"...
JAPAN / Politics / GAME OF NUMBERS
Jul 4, 2013

Abe camp faces little true opposition, also little mandate

As one expert has it, the July 21 Upper House poll looks to be a cakewalk for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's ruling bloc.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2013

Brazen proposal on Okinawa

On a June 10 news talk show, Kevin Maher, the former U.S. Consul General Okinawa and chief of the Japan Desk at the U.S. State Department, said the suggestion by the Chinese People's Liberation Army deputy chief of staff that the Senkaku Islands issue be shelved for now is like a thief proposing a condition....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2013

Preposterous population forecasts for Africa

It's hard enough to see how the world can sustain another 4 billion people by 2100. The alarming figure is that three-quarters of that growth will be in Africa.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 28, 2013

Nippon Ishin pledges to 'clarify historical facts'

Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) unveils policy pledges for the Upper House election next month, including a promise to push for decentralization of government power and revise the postwar Constitution.
WORLD
Jun 28, 2013

Snowden had contempt for leakers

When he was working in the intelligence community in 2009, Edward Snowden, the U.S. National Security Agency contractor who passed top-secret documents to journalists, appears to have had nothing but disdain for those who leaked classified information, the newspapers that printed their revelations and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 27, 2013

Five myths about the National Security Agency

One common denominator of NSA whistleblowers is that they feel ignored when attempting to bring illegal or unethical operations to the attention of higher-ups.
Reader Mail
Jun 27, 2013

Responsibilities toward the state

The June 23 Bloomberg article by Peter Gumbel, "French high school curriculum includes pitfalls U.S. should try to avoid with its Common Core," talks about the relatively high standard of the French baccalaureat secondary school graduation exams, and a corresponding dropout rate.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

U.S. taps servers in vast data-mining program

The National Security Agency and FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio and video chats, photos, emails, documents and connection logs. U.S. taps firms' servers, mines Internet data

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji