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Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 24, 2014

College students' savings habits indicate anxiety about the future

In the last 10 years student savings has increased by 80 percent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2014

The amazing thing about a modern Spider-Man

Too often, superheroes are clueless about what women want. Sure, they can catch the villains and save the world, but when it comes to relationships, they stink.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 23, 2014

Bambitious excited about future after debut season

Nobody realistically expected the Bambitious Nara to win 35 or 40 games in their inaugural season. After all, an expansion team must endure a lot of growing pains as a first-year franchise during a challenging 52-game schedule.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 23, 2014

Bambitious excited about future after debut season

Nobody realistically expected the Bambitious Nara to win 35 or 40 games in their inaugural season. After all, an expansion team must endure a lot of growing pains as a first-year franchise during a challenging 52-game schedule.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Apr 23, 2014

In a world of pretense, are Japanese just more honest about lying?

The net sum of lying may be similar in Japan and America, but in their acceptance of life exigencies, the Japanese may be more realistic, more charitable and forgiving about the role that deception plays in our social relations.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Apr 12, 2014

Jun Nakayama: 'Don't think about it, just do it'

Jun means 'charm,' 'profit' and 'moisture.' I think it matches my personality perfectly!
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Apr 7, 2014

Smooth Afghan election raises questions about Taliban's strength

A bigger-than-expected turnout in Afghanistan's presidential election and the Taliban's failure to significantly disrupt the vote have raised questions about the capacity of the insurgents to tip the country back into chaos as foreign troops head home.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 4, 2014

Copenhagen Zoo opts to tell truth about life behind bars

Copenhagen Zoo, which sparked global protests over its killings of a young male giraffe and four lions, will continue to be open about its culling to show the truth about how animals are kept in captivity.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Mar 31, 2014

Do you feel like people have been deceived about issues surrounding Fukushima? And if so, by whom?

I'm suspicious about the whole thing. I don't know who is covering what up, but I definitely feel there's a lot we're not being told about. There's absolutely no way that everything could be as fine as we are being led to believe after such a massive disaster.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 28, 2014

Panasonic hesitant about investing in Musk's huge Tesla battery factory

Panasonic Corp., Tesla Motors Inc.'s primary supplier of lithium-ion battery cells for its electric Model S sedans, has not committed to investing in a massive U.S. battery plant proposed by Tesla's Elon Musk.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 26, 2014

A torturer speaks — about the pain and pleasures of Pinter

"Some years ago at Black Stripe Theatre in Tokyo, we did a reading of Harold Pinter's one-act play 'One for the Road,' and I have ever since wanted to put it on.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2014

Ukraine's battle is not about fascists

Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that fascists have taken control in Kiev is fundamentally bogus, while Russia's despicable actions in Crimea and eastern Ukraine are all too real.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2014

China no longer takes guff from U.S. about rebalancing

Just as China should be reducing savings and boosting domestic demand, it's equally important for the U.S. to be retooling its unbalanced economy. The big worry is denial in Washington.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 17, 2014

U.S. military report suggests cover-up over toxic pollution in Okinawa

Perhaps the most serious concern raised in the internal U.S. military report is the fear that PCB contamination at Kadena — if made public — would prompt demands for widespread tests on other U.S. bases.
WORLD
Mar 16, 2014

What we know about MH370 — and what’s still speculation

Why did it take so long before anyone realized the plane was missing?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2014

How about better health through good choices?

The premise that health is the product of medicine leads the U.S. government to believe it can deliver health by judiciously distributing preventive or therapeutic medicines rather than disseminate cost-effective public health information.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2014

Tatars are reason enough to care about Crimea

Put aside the cries of 'Munich' and 'Sudetenland' that surround Russia's ongoing annexation of Crimea. In human terms, Crimea's Tatars are the reason to care.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2014

What U.S. media won't say about Russia's actions

If America's foreign correspondents only knew that millions of ethnic Russians in former Soviet Republics have suffered widespread discrimination and harassment since the 1991 Soviet collapse — beginning with laws eliminating Russian as an official language — maybe they wouldn't be falling down on the job in Ukraine.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2014

Underwater gold rush spurs fears of ocean calamity

This is the last frontier: the ocean floor, 4,000 meters beneath the waters of the central Pacific, where mining companies are now exploring for the rich deposits of ores needed to keep industry humming and smartphones switched on.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2014

Trite TV drama about children's home misses a chance to edify and entertain

Groups including the National Council for Children's Group Homes and Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto have accused NTV of 'violating human rights' and displaying 'prejudice against the children as well as the staff who are working in these childcare institutions.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 26, 2014

What do you think about NHK chief Katsuto Momii's comments on 'comfort women'?

The new head of the national broadcaster argued last month that sex-slave systems were used by 'every country' in wartime and that the practice should not be judged by 'today's morality.' Osakans offer their views on the comments that have enraged Japan's neighbors.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 22, 2014

Japan takes baby steps toward a proper debate about animal rights

On Jan. 10, convenience store chain Family Mart started selling a new bentō (boxed lunch) with a heavy-duty name to complement its hefty ¥600 price: Famima Premium Koroge Wagyu-iri Hamburger Bento, which "contains" high-quality Japanese ground beef. For an added touch of extravagance, it also came...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Feb 12, 2014

ANA caricature speaks volumes about Japan's outdated mind-set

My personal opinion is that the ad is a disappointing anachronism, and a reminder of the parochial outlook of large Japanese corporations. The ad appeals to the facile formula that 'foreigner = white = blonde and big-nosed = English-speaking = globalization.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 12, 2014

Nagoya: What do you think about the April sales tax increase and how will it affect you?

Denizens of the Chubu capital offer their tuppence-worth on the impending 3-percent consumption tax hike to 8 percent from the start of the fiscal year.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 10, 2014

Myths about economic inequality

True, the gap between the rich and the poor is enormous, wider than most Americans would wish, but this reality has made economic inequality a misleading intellectual fad, blamed for many of our problems.
Reader Mail
Feb 1, 2014

No complaints about tuna cull

Stefano Virtuani, in his Jan. 26 letter, "Little respect for the oceans," is "outraged by the annual brutal slaughter" of dolphins at Taiji. He seems to be unaware of the age-old practice at La Mattanza, off the coast of Sicily, where blue fin tuna are rounded up in a death chamber of nets and then killed...
Reader Mail
Jan 29, 2014

Doubts about today's morality

On the basis of new NHK chief Katsuto Momii assertion that the use of "comfort women" only seems wrong by "today's morality," one might infer that there exists some shred of international morality in today's Japan and that there was no recognizable human morality here whatsoever in the past.
WORLD
Jan 26, 2014

Former leader reignites simmering debate about his role in Iraq conflict

Tony Blair reignited the debate about the West's response to terrorism Sunday, with a call on governments to recognize that religious extremism has become the biggest source of conflict around the world.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo