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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Aug 23, 2014

Nick Ward: 'It's just as hard to live outside Yorkshire as it is inside of Yorkshire'

I have a love-hate relationship with (Haruki) Murakami. I think his prose is really beautiful but he gives me vivid nightmares.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 22, 2014

How WWII could have ended

A Soviet attack on Japan proper leading to the destruction of the Emperor system and the establishment of a communist government frightened Japan's militarists even more than the atomic bombings at the end of World War II.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2014

Can the Chinese help save Africa's elephants?

Over the last two years, restaurants in Shanghai have dropped shark fin from their menus amid an awareness campaign against the shark-fin trade. Could a similar campaign curb the Chinese public's demand for ivory and help to save Africa's elephants?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Aug 20, 2014

A high price to pay for a little peace of mind

Sometimes it's hard to believe the American that emerged, naked and naive, from Narita International Airport back in 2004 and the person writing this column are one and the same. Life in Japan has made me, unmade me and remade me. I've unpacked and sorted through all sorts of koto (generally, things...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 19, 2014

Critics of Tokyo 2020 venues misguided

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are still almost six years away, but in many ways the games have already begun.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Aug 19, 2014

Japan's historic love of corn

The fact that corn or maize has a Japanese name — tōmorokoshi — indicates that it entered the country centuries ago, before it was the norm to import the name of a food as-is and spell it out phonetically (as with tomatoes or asparagus, for instance).
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014

Asia's budding reform trinity

Three of Asia's most populous countries — China, India and Indonesia — are poised to enter a historical sweet spot, as their respective leaders build a reputation as one of his country's greatest modern reformists.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014

Eurasia's 'Reagan revolutions' degrade democracy

The three boastful, rabble-rousing leaders of Turkey, India and Russia possess ideological bases like the one U.S. President Ronald Reagan had among Christian fundamentalists and neoconservative intellectuals.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Aug 17, 2014

Could the lingua franca approach to learning break Japan's English curse?

Learning English as a lingua franca (ELF) involves approaching the language as a tongue shared by non-native speakers around the world rather than as a lingo that must be mastered to native-speaker level.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 16, 2014

Weather systems stalling more often

Summer heat waves and downpours have become more frequent in the northern hemisphere this century, apparently because extreme weather can get trapped for weeks in the same place in a warming world, a study showed Aug. 11.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 15, 2014

First dust particles from interstellar space are found in samples collected from comet

A NASA spacecraft that was dispatched 15 years ago to collect samples from a comet also snared what scientists suspect are the first dust specks from interstellar space.
JAPAN / History
Aug 14, 2014

Surrender had lasting impact on many Japanese after war's end

Many Japanese people remember Aug. 15 as the day World War II ended. Sixty-nine years ago today, in a speech broadcast on the radio, Emperor Hirohito announced that Japan had notified the Allied powers of its acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2014

Danger from loose nukes in volatile countries

The inherent danger in possessing nuclear assets becomes far more acute in a combat zone, such as today's Middle East, where nuclear materials and weapons are at risk of theft, and reactors can become bombing targets.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 14, 2014

Injecting bacteria shrinks tumors in experiment

Common soil bacteria that were injected into solid cancers in dogs and one human shrank many of the tumors, scientists reported on Wednesday.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 14, 2014

In threat to coastal cities, Antarctic melt may lift sea level faster than previously believed

The melting of glaciers in Antarctica because of global warming may push up sea levels faster than previously believed, potentially threatening coastal cities including Tokyo, New York and Shanghai, researchers in Germany said.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama should follow Nixon's lead and do the right thing

Richard M. Nixon's White House efforts to cover up the Watergate scandal in 1972 look positively penny-ante compared to President Barack Obama's coverup of government-approved torture 40 years later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Who will give refuge to the last pagans of Iraq?

Already the Islamic State has practically eliminated the Shiite Muslim and Christian populations from the lands it controls. The worst of the persecution has been aimed at the Yezidi, a religious group whose pagan roots go back at least to the late Bronze Age.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2014

Obama can't afford to wage another Cold War

The U.S. may not be facing a new Cold War, but it will only weaken its position in the world, and especially against Russia, if it fails to heed the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 11, 2014

Never trust a realist when it comes to politicians

If you're looking for one big reason the U.S. seems to be on the wrong track, try the marginalization of idealism that coincided with the collapse of the peace movement and the American Left at the end of the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2014

Microsoft's emerging markets problem: Few want to pay for genuine product

On a trip to Beijing a decade ago, Bill Gates was asked by a senior government official how much money Microsoft Corp. made in China. The official asked the interpreter to double check Gates' reply as he couldn't believe the figure was so low.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 9, 2014

Okinawa: pocket of resistance

The battle over Henoko Bay looks set to challenge the power of the archipelago's protest movement.
EDITORIALS
Aug 8, 2014

STAP scandal turns fatal

Not only has the reported STAP cell discovery come to naught, it has also resulted in a leader in the research of regenerative medicine deciding to end his life.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

Gaza war may be a taste of the future

The latest war between Israel and Hamas is further testament to the historical fact that Israel's forefathers had to conquer the land that today's Israelis dwell in and ferociously defend. Is there hope of finding a lasting settlement with the Arabs?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2014

Latin America, Israel trade after trading insults

As Gaza smolders, the anti-Israel drumbeat in Latin America is likely to continue, but the smart money says the damage will remain confined to the rhetorical battlefield. Trade will go on.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND
Aug 7, 2014

Foster parent shortage takes growing toll on children

Veteran foster parent Mika Hobbs was surprisingly frank when she confessed how nerve-racking her job can be.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2014

Theater's magic brings wonderful 'War Horse' to life

It is now 100 years since the start of World War I, which claimed close to 17 million lives before it ended in November 1918. Hence the Tokyo opening of "War Horse" — a play set during that so-called "war to end war" — serves in part as a memorial to the awful conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2014

Israeli nationalism shows weakness, not strength

The conduct of its latest Gaza war suggests that Israel, which is blessed with a robust high-tech sector, embodies the greatest contradiction today between the imperatives of old-style territorial nationalism and a modern globalized economy.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2014

Most shared Japan Times stories from July

In case you missed them, here are the most shared stories from The Japan Times for July 2014. The top 10 most shared new stories Welfare ruling stuns foreigners The landmark decision by the Supreme Court that permanent foreign residents of Japan are not entitled to welfare benefits will discourage more...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 2, 2014

Hot in the city: scorching Kumagaya

Exploring new ways of dealing with the heat from a city in Saitama that certainly knows a thing or two about keeping cool

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake