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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

Going gracefully into the No. 2 spot is not what Americans had in mind

If the era of American dominance in international affairs is indeed coming to an end, then the main question is how well the U.S. is prepared for the No. 2 spot.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2013

France takes notice, the Yanks aren't coming

The realization that Europe can no longer rely on America to fill the military gap has given France pause. It is taking its security responsibilities more seriously.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 2013

The mathematician who could be a movie star

Amid the scandals swirling through the U.S. news media, you might have missed the announcement that one of the great puzzles of number theory had been solved.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 2, 2013

Complex tale told with great narrative facility

There is a bland, almost corporate flavor to the title of Khaled Hosseini's third book, suggesting a large but windy Afghan epic. Its narrative wares are clearly advertised in the book-jacket blurb to reassure his tens of millions of worldwide readers that they will be getting the brand they want.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 1, 2013

Space radiation makes any Mars mission hazardous

Of all the hazards facing a human mission to Mars — something NASA and countless other space buffs would love to see at some point — one of the hardest to solve is the radiation that saturates interplanetary space.
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 31, 2013

Why it matters where our food comes from

The latest trend in fine dining has nothing to do with molecular gastronomy or pan-Latin fusion: Sustainability is the new order of the day. At the influential World's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony in London last month, the organizers presented their first Sustainable Restaurant Award to Narisawa,...
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2013

Tumblr's boy wonder won't like grown-up world

A happy ending to the fairy tale of how David Karp, a 26-year-old autodidact who founded Tumblr, stands to make $250 million from Yahoo is in considerable doubt.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 29, 2013

Paul caused Del Negro's departure

The Los Angeles Clippers in 2012-13 had the best season in their franchise history, including their times in Buffalo and San Diego.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2013

Abenomics stumbling over sexism

No one needs a Sheryl Sandberg-esque 'lean-in' movement like Japan's women. Lack of women in the nation's workforce is impeding economic growth.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2013

Debunking the myths whirling around tornadoes

There is no trend, either up or down, in the frequency of tornadoes. We will continue to experience them regardless of whether Earth's temperature rises or falls.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 28, 2013

As Japan reeled from disaster, three men went cycling

In 1977, British author and long-term Tokyo resident Alan Booth made a journey on foot from the northernmost point in Japan, Cape Soya, to Kyushu's southernmost tip, Cape Sata.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2013

The iron fist in a trade glove

By ratcheting up disputes in the East and South China seas, China shows it doesn't let booming bilateral trade get in the way of its territorial assertiveness.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 27, 2013

ASEAN-China good will hunting

Clues to the character of China's new leadership have emerged from their interaction with other Asians. A greater confrontational posture with Japan looms.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 26, 2013

Are we close to understanding bipolar disorder?

It may seem perverse to express nostalgia for a category of mental illness, but many sufferers, as well as some psychiatrists, regret the passing of “manic depression.”
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 26, 2013

Mr. Abe: Bag the nukes and heed the Keeling Curve

Dear Prime Minister Abe,
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 26, 2013

History shows one man's rape is another's wooing

"The evolution of political thought in this relatively isolated island nation during the period in question is unique to the point of being somewhat freakish."
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2013

Angelina Jolie: a brave woman and a role model

An article written by Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie provoked headlines around the world when she chose "not to keep my story private" and revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy to lower her risk of breast cancer, which was high due to her genetic inheritance. The impassioned letter, published...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
May 24, 2013

Springtime beans aim for the sky

Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer's bounty of cucumbers, eggplants and so on comes a bit later. What are in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 24, 2013

'The Tree'

Ten-year-old Simone (Morgana Davies) has just lost her dad, felled by a sudden heart attack, and she finds solace high in the branches of a massive fig tree that grows outside her home under the big skies of rural Queensland. Sometimes, late at night, she thinks she can hear his voice; her mother, Dawn...
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2013

Mr. Murakami's tale of redemption

Mr. Haruki Murakami's latest novel, "Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage," his first since the publication of "1Q84" about three years ago, sold a million copies in seven days after it hit the stands.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

Why China's developmental state says no to liberalism

Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in Britain and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger...
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
May 21, 2013

Records offer rare glimpse into Justice leak probe

When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2013

Turkey's Erdogan undone by Obama and Assad

The car bombs that killed more than 40 people on May 11 in a town in southern Turkey are a reckoning for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
WORLD
May 20, 2013

English-language education proposal has French up in arms

There was a time, not so long ago, when anyone with a proper education spoke French. Diplomacy and business were conducted in French. Knowledge was spread in French. Travelers made their way in French and, of course, lovers traded sweet nothings in French.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Surviving dangerous encounters

In "The Lion's Game" (2000) and "The Lion" (2010), Nelson DeMille's character NYPD Detective John Corey battles and defeats Asad Khalil, a brilliant Libyan terrorist who infiltrates the U.S. to extract revenge for the deaths of family members killed in a U.S. air raid on Tripoli.
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 19, 2013

Trimming the fat from Japan's problems

Why do people disagree?
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 19, 2013

Dwarf bamboo's no pushover whatever the season

An unseasonably cold spring wind blasts in from the north shaking all before it. Oak trunks tremble; mast-like young white birches sway alarmingly and ineffectively rattle their branches at it.
JAPAN / Politics
May 18, 2013

The main question: Why did Hashimoto open his mouth?

Since news broke that Osaka maverick politician Toru Hashimoto said Japan's wartime sex slave system was necessary and U.S. soldiers in Okinawa should use more prostitutes, the question is why did he say this?

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