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Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 21, 2014

Why the U.S.-Cuba talks had to be kept secret

When reporters needled her for details of delicate Israeli-Syrian talks 15 years ago, U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright replied: "Sometimes talks, like mushrooms, do better in the dark."
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2014

Broken U.S. moral compass

The most disturbing and basic question with regard to the maintenance of Guantanamo and any one of the so-called Black Sites in recent years is why American officials seemed to want so badly to torture when to do so was known — even to the CIA — to be so unprofitable.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Dec 19, 2014

South Africa struggles to tackle obesity

At lunchtime outside South Africa's biggest shopping mall, hungry workmen in hard hats pour out of a building site to buy cheap loaves of bread and jumbo bottles of fizzy drinks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 17, 2014

Maps to the Stars: 'Paranoia born of colossal self-obsession'

Can celebrities be numbingly boring? As far as "Maps to the Stars" is concerned the answer is a big fat "Yes," but in the hands of David Cronenberg ("A Dangerous Method," "Eastern Promises") you hardly notice. Ennui and varying degrees of hysteria define this Hollywood fable where everyone is a monster,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Dec 17, 2014

Sony tells theaters they can pull 'The Interview' after threats

Sony Pictures executives told theaters they are free to pull "The Interview" from their multiplexes following threats of violence by a hacker group, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 16, 2014

Pirouette, Craft Beer Market and more: some great new openings in Tokyo in 2014

The festive season is upon us, and 2015 beckons. But before we move on, herded into the Year of the Sheep, it's time to pause, celebrate and give thanks for the abundance of fine eating over the past 12 months.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2014

Political and economic factors driving devolution

The push to return powers from Brussels to the British government, and to devolve powers from the British government to the regions, have become buzzwords in the U.K.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 13, 2014

Twelve ways to spend 2015 with nature

As 2014 winds down and the promise of another year lies ahead, it's time to come up with a few New Year's resolutions. Instead of planning for the future or trying some new-fad diets or exercise regimes, how about a resolution to spend a little more time connecting with our wonderful natural world?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 13, 2014

From a hostess club to a mountain village: Five notable Japanese photo books of 2014

While selecting some of the best photography books released in 2014, I was struck by the range of specific places that Japanese photographers captured — from a pleasure district to a mountain village and an old rooftop. Photo books with such a geographic focus might be a good way to store up energies...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 10, 2014

1,000 Times Good Night: 'Should war and violence be a photo opportunity?'

Aperson can be greedy about a whole lot of things, but Rebecca (excellently played by Juliette Binoche) in "1,000 Times Good Night" is greedy about work.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Dec 10, 2014

Electoral dysfunction leaves Japan's voters feeling impotent

This Sunday's poll could well prove a high-water mark of pointlessness even for Japan: an election campaign waged against the unelected.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Dec 9, 2014

Historian seeks to clear embassy of Pearl Harbor 'sneak attack' infamy

Dec. 7 has never been an ordinary day for Takeo Iguchi. On that day 73 years ago, when Imperial Japanese Navy warplanes attacked Pearl Harbor, he was in Washington, the 11-year-old son of Sadao Iguchi, counselor at the Japanese Embassy there.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / Q&A
Dec 9, 2014

'Right to be forgotten' on the Internet gains traction in Japan

The Internet has made fact-checking easy and people routinely use it for this end, for example, to Google client names and personal backgrounds before their first business meeting, or to take a quick glance at a potential new hire's reputation.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Dec 9, 2014

NASA Mars rover Curiosity finds key evidence for lake at landing site

Billions of years ago, a lake once filled the 96-mile- (154-km) wide crater being explored by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, bolstering evidence that the planet most like Earth in the solar system was suitable for microbial life, scientists said on Monday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 8, 2014

Bangkok hotel is one crime scene in Sony hack

The incursion into Sony Pictures Entertainment's computer system reached its climax in, of all places, the elegant St. Regis Bangkok in the capital of Thailand.
Japan Times
Places
Dec 8, 2014

Oysters in Tokyo

Every food lover knows . . . when the temperature starts to drop, it’s oyster time.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 7, 2014

Group offers free English to kids in care in Japan and aid to children in Philippines

JOYFUL — the Japan Outreach Youth Foundation for Underprivileged Learners — is a volunteer group that helps children here in Japan and in the founder's homeland of the Philippines.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2014

U.S. drones kill 28 innocents for every 'bad guy'

Every single day, U.S. drone aircraft are stalking and killing innocent people in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere — all in the name of every American.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 5, 2014

Japan's 'zombienomics'

The hard reality is that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's vaunted economic reforms will not work unless he shows more guts, much more imagination and a lot more humility in dealing with a modern economy that cannot be commanded by fiat.
ASIA PACIFIC
Dec 5, 2014

North Korea's hackers are a hand-picked elite

Despite its poverty and isolation, North Korea has poured resources into a sophisticated cyber warfare cell called Bureau 121, defectors from the secretive state said as Pyongyang came under the microscope for a crippling hack into computers at Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat