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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2013

Chancellor Angela Merkel's American minders

Germans used to joke that Chancellor Angela Merkel's penchant for fleeting text messages effectively marked the end of historiography. At least American spy agencies have kept track.
WORLD
Nov 1, 2013

U.S. airline passengers get electronic gadget OK

Air travelers will soon be able to use their tablets and other electronic devices from gate to gate, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 31, 2013

Festival/Tokyo pushes a return to storytelling

In 2009, when Festival/Tokyo took over from the annual Tokyo International Arts Festival, it burst forth with the slogan "Towards a New Real" and the resolve to stamp the city's name on the global arts map.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 31, 2013

NSA hacking into, stealing from Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide

The National Security Agency has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world, according to documents obtained from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and interviews with knowledgeable officials.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 28, 2013

Online courses: Collegiate equalizer?

The latest trend in online education is taking the academic world by storm.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Oct 28, 2013

Getting published is easy; getting noticed is trickier

How can writers make themselves heard in the age of blog and self-publishing saturation? Japan-based authors offer a diverse range of views
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 27, 2013

Syrian refugee crisis pushes fragile Lebanon closer to breaking point

As you come through the military checkpoints on the way into Wadi Khaled, local mobile phones bleep with an unsolicited text: "The Ministry of Tourism welcomes you to Syria."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 26, 2013

Japan Inc.'s hurt pride may be behind bout of fresh phone fears

What's the explanation for the current surge in concern over the poor manners and inattention of addicted cellphone users — especially considering smart phones are arguably no more distracting than the previous generation of mobile gadgets
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 24, 2013

German leader calls Obama about alleged cellphone tapping

Furious German officials said Wednesday that U.S. intelligence agencies may have been monitoring German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cellphone, creating a fresh diplomatic headache for President Barack Obama after a week in which other close allies condemned his administration over allegations of other...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 23, 2013

Amid thaw, Iranians debate usefulness of anti-Americanism

Recent moves by the United States to engage the new Iranian government headed by a moderate president has triggered a public debate in the Islamic republic over its national interests, forcing hard-line conservatives to defend Tehran's 34-year-old enmity with Washington.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 20, 2013

Wildlife victory: shark fin falls from favor in China

Once a rare delicacy served to honored guests, shark fin soup had become so popular among China's fast-growing elite in recent years that it was pushing some shark species close to extinction.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 20, 2013

U.S. Navy rocked by bribery scandal

The U.S. Navy is rocked by a bribery scandal reaching high into the officer corps over prostitutes, cash and other kickbacks in return for insider information.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 19, 2013

The Little Book of Japan

Covering a broad range of topics for the first time visitor, yet comprehensive enough for the truly Japan-obsessed, "The Little Book of Japan" is certainly not small in scope. Sectioned into four chapters — Cultural Icons, Traditions, Places and Spiritual Life — this book includes 44 essays from...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2013

Past a papal-centric church

Pope Francis is raising eyebrows by criticizing the Catholic Church's obsession with 'small-minded rules' and narrow issues as well as its heretofore Vatican-centric view.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

Complex issues knitted into the fabric of art

It's difficult to say something new about the Holocaust in face of an immense body of work produced over seven decades. Consequently more outlandish forms of expression are often required to inspire a fresh reaction.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2013

Separating Jesus from the legends

There's enough biblical scholarship about the historical Jesus to raise questions about some of the myths that have formed around Him over the past 2,000 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 2, 2013

Kohfukuji Temple: under divine protection

Tucked away behind the main museums in Ueno, the Tokyo University Art Museum may not be on most people's radar, but it is definitely one of the city's top museums in terms of curatorial quality.
JAPAN / Media
Sep 28, 2013

Popular @Horse_ebooks web comic loses its comedic engine

Put enough monkeys in a room with a typewriter, the old theory goes, and they'll eventually hunt-and-peck some Shakespeare. But on Tuesday, the wired world learned that a couple of conceptual-art bards had been masking themselves as the equivalent of gibbons, sending seemingly random spam into the Twitterverse....
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 27, 2013

Lord Byron to Russell Brand: timeless appeal of the bad boy

When the singer Katy Perry spoke recently about her relationship with British comedian Russell Brand, not so long after their whirlwind courtship and immediately after their whirlwind divorce, she refrained from putting the boot in, despite Brand having ended the short marriage by text.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Sep 26, 2013

Wealthy guru's arrest on teen sex assault charges divides India

Men lay prostrate on the floor in front of the elevated seat of their guru: the man they call Asaram Bapu. Pictures of his avuncular face, with its flowing white beard, hang everywhere in his sprawling 12-hectare ashram in Motera, western India.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2013

The limits of multitasking

Studies of the effects of chronic multitasking suggest that the overwhelming risk of letting no task go untended is that you do nothing well.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2013

Businesses salivate over games boost

With the 2020 Summer Olympics and Paralympics headed to Tokyo, many see the next seven years as a chance to revive the nation's moribund economy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 21, 2013

Tsushima: a boundary island of Japan

If you want to get to Tsushima, an island in Nagasaki Prefecture, by ferry, you will have to start in Fukuoka — or a quicker option would be to start your journey in Busan, South Korea. The jet foil from Busan zips passengers across the nearly 50 km separating it from Tsushima in little over an hour....
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 20, 2013

Putin: arch manipulator on a mission to check U.S. will

In novelist Victor Pelevin's pungent satire on contemporary Russia, "The Sacred Book of the Werewolf," its narrator, a 2,000-year-old shape-shifter, kisses Alexander, a brutish but alluring officer with the FSB, the Russian security service — who is a werewolf, like all his colleagues. In doing so,...
Reader Mail
Sep 14, 2013

No 'correct' view of history

Regarding the Sept. 5 article "South Korean text lauds Japan colonial rule": The call for Japan to accept the "correct" view of history is routinely heard from South Korean politicians and most alarmingly, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. This is the rhetoric of the uneducated or the autocrat.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2013

Right way to send a message

It's harder for the U.S. to claim legitimacy for circumventing U.N. paralysis, it has used the veto more often than China and Russia combined since the end of the Cold War.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Sep 10, 2013

UrumaDelvi learn the importance of contacts

The husband-and-wife creative team known as UrumaDelvi has been cranking out quirky, quasi-psychedelic illustrations, animated shorts and music videos for over 20 years. They met in design school in 1988. Deciding that their married surname, Kobayashi, was too common in Japan to be memorable, they took...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 7, 2013

What's the real story behind 'Emperor'?

"Emperor," a film directed by Peter Webber that takes up the subject of Emperor Showa and the postwar occupation period, has been showing at local theaters since July. The film's protagonist is Gen. Bonner Frank Fellers, who served as a subordinate to Supreme Commander Allied Forces Gen. Douglas MacArthur....

Longform

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