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Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 4, 2014

Aichi researchers track doe in bid to reduce crop damage

The Aichi Prefectural Government is using GPS to track wild deer and research new ways to keep them from damaging crops in mountainous areas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 3, 2014

World-weary and resigned, yet the samurai spirit soldiers on

Since the emergence of conceptual art in the 1960s, artistic skill and superlative craftsmanship came to be derided as almost artistic embarrassment, a suspect accusation leveled at the supposed old guard who took pride in their technical proficiency. Think of Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol, their artistic...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jul 2, 2014

Health studies explode the myth of the 'safe' nuclear power plant

There remains one final myth regarding nuclear power plants in Japan: Namely, that in the absence of a major accident, a normally operating nuclear power plant is safe.
WORLD / Politics
Jul 1, 2014

Timeline of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement

July 1997: Hong Kong is handed back to Chinese authorities after more than 150 years of British control. Tung Chee-hwa, a Shanghai-born former shipping tycoon with no political experience, is hand-picked by Beijing to rule the territory following the takeover.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 1, 2014

Square Enix seeks China game partners beyond Tencent, Shanda

Square Enix Holdings Co., maker of the "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" video game series, is seeking partners in China to win sales in Asia's biggest economy. The shares rose the most since February.
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 26, 2014

Broader foreign aid urged

Japan should expand its use of overseas development assistance by targeting new regions and projects and consider funding noncombat operations led by foreign military forces, a panel said Thursday in a report to Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 26, 2014

Kurds to pump more oil from new fields

Iraq's self-ruling Kurds outlined plans on Wednesday to swiftly ramp up oil exports now that their forces have taken control of Iraq's main northern oil fields, a move that could tear up the settlement holding Iraq together since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 26, 2014

'Oldboy'

For an Asian female, watching Park Chan-wook's "Oldboy" in 2003 was somewhat agonizing, akin to a wisdom tooth extraction by a dentist with a limited supply of painkillers. Now Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing," "Miracle at St. Anna") has made a remake under the same name — "Oldboy." This time, the dentist...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 24, 2014

Spurs set example for rest of league with consistency

The great American sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote a poem, "Alumnus Football," that ended like this:
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2014

America's addiction to war

Somewhere out there in an alternative universe, we should expect a more rational reaction to Barack Obama's announcement that he plans to re-invade Iraq. Perhaps a half-dozen Cabinet members would rush into the Oval Office and bundle the president off to an institution that can give him the treatment he seems to require. Why are American politicians addicted to war?
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2014

World needs to take a dose of realism about Iraq

As imbalances of power, wealth and productivity become magnified in our age, ethnic and religious loyalties as well as notions of honor and dignity have become more seductive than iPhones and elections. Just ask the despots who've lost the monopoly of force in Syria and Iraq.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 23, 2014

Car industry struggles to solve air bag fiasco

As automakers hype self-driving cars, the industry's struggle to fix Takata's exploding, shrapnel-spraying air bags shows how much can still go wrong with the most established technologies.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 23, 2014

Abe looks to put his stamp on foreign aid

Next up for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe? Figuring out how to put official development assistance (ODA) to "strategic" use so the international aid program can help Japan make a more "proactive contribution" to world peace, one of Abe's pet policy goals.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 23, 2014

'Black box' antidepressant warnings reviewed after rise in youth suicide attempts

A widely publicized warning by U.S. regulators a decade ago about risks for teens taking antidepressants led to plummeting prescriptions and increased suicide attempts, Harvard University researchers said.
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.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2014

Japan urged to do more to promote its language overseas

Japan needs to make bigger efforts to promote its culture and gain public support for the promotion of Japanese-language education overseas, according to a linguistics scholar who has taught the language for more than 40 years in the United States.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 21, 2014

Any publicity is good news for beer firms

At a Tokyo news conference on June 4, Sapporo Beer President Masaki Oga announced his company would halt sales of its Goku Zero alcoholic beverage after current inventory was shipped. The parent company, Sapporo Holdings, had been contacted by the National Tax Agency in January regarding the manufacturing...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 21, 2014

Advances in robotics present singular worry

'Singularity' is an odd word. Originally it meant peculiarity. Then 20th-century physicists got hold of it and situated it at the very boundary of space-time, to the eternal bafflement of the lay mind.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 21, 2014

Ending Japan's sexism requires men to lean in, too

Ayaka Shiomura's tears show why Shinzo Abe's talk of empowering Japan's women is still more hot air than policy.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jun 20, 2014

Insurers balk at cost as gene tests unlock medical mysteries

Aimee Robeson just wants an answer.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 20, 2014

Obama sends U.S. military advisers to Iraq as battle rages over refinery

President Barack Obama said on Thursday he was sending up to 300 U.S. military advisers to Iraq but stressed the need for a political solution to the Iraqi crisis as government forces battled Sunni rebels for control of the country's biggest refinery.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2014

Retreating from a policy of ruinous grandiosity

The U.S. Republican challenge is to articulate a policy that fills the vast space between President Barack Obama's retreat on foreign policy and the ruinous grandiosity of the 'freedom agenda' of Obama's predecessor.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 18, 2014

Battling insurgency, Iraq's leaders make rare show of unity

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki broadcast a joint appeal for national unity on Tuesday with bitter Sunni critics of his Shiite-led government — a move that may help him win U.S. help against rampant Islamists threatening Baghdad.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 17, 2014

Sectarian monster reawakens

The systematic political marginalization of Iraq's Sunni communities demands the establishment of a new political and social contract to re-order the mess created by the U.S. invasion and Iran's intervention.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2014

The damage done by 'moderates'

Every day the insipid overlords of America's inane corporate news media put out the same message: Extremism is extremely bad. But might the so-called moderates be worse?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 16, 2014

Heavy fighting in northwestern Iraq as Islamists advance

Sunni insurgents seized a mainly ethnic Turkmen city in northwestern Iraq on Sunday after heavy fighting, solidifying their grip on the north after a lightning offensive that threatens to dismember Iraq.

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick