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EDITORIALS
Jan 6, 2013

Happiest people in the world

Japan may have a relatively high standard of living and the longest life expectancy in the world, but it does not have the happiest people. According to a new Gallup poll of 148 countries, Japan ranks somewhere in the middle of world happiness levels. The recent poll showed just how little economic levels...
EDITORIALS
Jan 5, 2013

A call for courage in 2013

There may be a temptation to coast through 2013. After all, we survived the end of the world last month, and if we can get through that, many people would like to believe that we have earned a respite. That do-nothing approach is probably the worst possible option. In truth, we have coasted for too long....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 5, 2013

Serpent hunting in the Year of the Snake

As 2013 is the Year of the Snake, for your serpentine pleasure, I've put together a list of snake-like creatures from Japanese legends and folklore. Loch Ness monster fans, Yeti fans and Bigfoot fans, you're going to have a heck of a year in 2013 with all the cryptids waiting to be discovered. Japan...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 5, 2013

Gender equality key to Japan's future prosperity

The queen's grandson Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, is second in line to the throne after his father Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. His wife, Katherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is pregnant. Under the present rules, if her first child were to be a daughter and they subsequently had a boy, the boy...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 4, 2013

Golden Kings hammer Hannaryz for straight day

Sure, there are others who can call Jim Boeheim a mentor or a source of inspiration.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 1, 2013

Guard Afghanistan's most sacred artifact at one's peril

For 250 years, Masood Akhundzada's family has protected Afghanistan's most sacred artifact: a cloak said to have been worn by the Prophet Muhammad. Its power drew Afghan kings and presidents and Taliban leaders to a small, blue shrine in a city conquered by Alexander the Great and contested ever since....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2012

Rightwing minister seeks to radically revamp education system

Conservative education minister Hakubun Shimomura said he wants to fundamentally change Japan's postwar school system to teach children about the nation's historical traditions and culture.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2012

High cost of disengagement from Afghanistan

The United States has spent nearly $600 billion over the past 10 years putting combat forces into Afghanistan. Now it's going to cost an additional $5.7 billion over the next year or two just to transfer or return most of the troops and equipment we shipped into that country, according to a new report...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 30, 2012

Time for 2013 resolutions for bj-league

It's time to look ahead to 2013 as each of the bj-league's 21 teams search for ways to improve.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / BEST OF 2012
Dec 28, 2012

Comparing notes: What they thought of each other's No. 1

Who says critics are out of touch? At the time of writing, entertainment website Pia's "Satisfaction Ranking" for current films has "Intouchables" at No. 3, and "Argo" No. 2. ("Ninkyo Helper" is No. 1.) Kaori Shoji, Mark Schilling, and Giovanni Fazio got together to chew over their No. 1 picks.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 27, 2012

In Japan it's never too late to get in on the ground floor with stocks

Will the Japanese public, in particular women, finally start investing in the stock market?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 27, 2012

Polar bear hunting, trade sparks global controversy

The polar bear was more than 1 km away and began running toward the dog sled, quickly closing the distance on the frozen Arctic waters of Canada's Resolute Bay.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2012

Actor Depardieu takes center stage in French tax debate

Gerard Depardieu, one of France's most beloved movie actors, has played memorable roles enshrining him as a monument of French culture: Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables," Cyrano de Bergerac in Rostand's kitsch classic and Obelix in a cartoonish spoof of wily Gauls resisting the Romans.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 24, 2012

Kerry provides new brand of diplomacy

Within four months of becoming a U.S. senator in 1985, John Kerry had traveled to both of that year's foreign policy hot spots. In Nicaragua, he sought a deal he hoped would end the Reagan administration's "contra" war. In the Philippines, he concluded that U.S. support for the decades-long dictatorship...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE YEAR IN BOOKS
Dec 23, 2012

Four aspects of Japan's history

"Oh, what happy people they must have been!" Thus Yukie Chiri (1903-22), reflecting on the pristine past of her people, the Ainu of southwestern Hokkaido. "Ainu Spirits Singing" (University of Hawaii Press) by Sarah Strong is an elegy to a lost time and an almost lost culture, seen largely through Chiri's...
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2012

Toyota scores 'poor' on insurers' crash tests

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Camry, the best-selling midsize car in the U.S., and the Prius V hybrid earned the lowest ratings in a new crash test simulating a severe front-end collision, an insurance group found.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 20, 2012

Old technology a threat to publishers' bottom lines

People who like reading books are increasingly getting over the need to own them.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Dec 19, 2012

2012 has been a big year on the Japanese social-media scene

Twitter continues to ride high. Facebook has grown a lot, but newcomer Line seems set to overtake it. Social game companies Gree and Mobage have shifted their overseas expansion into high gear. And Mixi finally admits that it needs to try harder to understand what its members want. In this month's column,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Dec 19, 2012

Asian coaching veteran Humphries seeking shot on sidelines in Japan

A ringing endorsement from someone who has worked at the elite level in his chosen profession probably couldn't hurt, eh?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / TRAVEL INSIDER
Dec 19, 2012

Win a futsal tournament, receive Liverpool tickets; new Korean Air benefits program

Liverpool FC tickets Virgin Atlantic Airways has announced that it will again cohost the third All England Cup Futsal Tournament in Japan in March with the international banking group Standard Chartered Bank.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ELECTION 2012
Dec 14, 2012

Dismayed Tohoku faces first post-3/11 poll

A mere 15 minutes before Azuma Konno, a Democratic Party of Japan candidate running in Sunday's Lower House election, was set to make a stump speech in front of JR Sendai Station last Friday evening, a 7.4-magnitude quake struck deep off Miyagi's shore, flooding one coastal district with 1-meter-high...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 14, 2012

Here's to a veggie, merry Christmas

Every holiday has its meal, and in Japan at Christmas it's takeaway crispy chicken that rules the roost. For faithful, joyful and triumphant vegetarians in Japan, however, the roasted holiday bird is as appealing as the piece of coal left at the bottom of a stocking.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Dec 12, 2012

Bright, clean and airborne gift ideas

The holidays are just around the corner, so for those who subscribe to a little late-December consumerism, here are a few ideas for your gift list.
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 12, 2012

High-profile European bank settlements since 2009

New York AP
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Dec 11, 2012

For Santa's little stand-ins, 'tis the season for cash gigs

At a salon in Rockville, Maryland, as a beautician carefully combed bleach through his beard and eyebrows, John Parks sat with the patience of a saint — St. Nicholas, to be exact. Parks was halfway through his annual transition from black-haired information-technology specialist to white-whiskered...

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