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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2013

Capitalism is destroying southern European life

The popular civilizations of Greece, France, Spain and Portugal appear endangered, because of a pincer movement by tourism and the north's economic doctrines.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 2, 2013

Housewife takes time to make a difference volunteering in Tohoku

Sometimes making a difference just means making the time. Kerry Shioya, 49, travels two or three times a month to the Tohoku areas hit by the March 11, 2011, disasters. Sometimes setting out alone, sometimes bringing one of her five children, interested English students or other volunteers, Shioya continues...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: ARCHITECTURE
Jul 29, 2013

Kenzo Tange centennial celebrations

Kenzo Tange, one of the most significant Japanese architect of the 20th century, was born 100 years ago this year. Tange spent much of his childhood in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, on the Seto Inland Sea, and all of the most significant of his early works dating from the 1950s, from the Hiroshima Peace...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2013

African plan to end hunger

Earlier this month, away from the shadows of the Group of Eight, African ministers meeting in Addis Ababa made a pledge to end hunger on the continent by 2025.
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jul 17, 2013

Zaccheroni on lookout for new blood at East Asian Cup

Japan heads to South Korea for the East Asian Cup this weekend expecting a completely different challenge from last month's Confederations Cup, but with the disappointment of a first-round exit from Brazil still fresh in the memory, manager Alberto Zaccheroni will be keen to come home with the title....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2013

Surveying the city from a different viewpoint

Beside Stephan Balkenhol's sculpture "Big Head with Three Part Relief" a note reads, "Nothing here is as it should be." This figureless "head" set against a black void represents "Mr. Everyman," that common figure, detached from his surround and considering his place in the world.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 18, 2013

Readers' letters: praise for Article 9, scorn for TPP and concerns for education

Some readers' letters in response to recent Community articles:
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Jun 14, 2013

Hard-won battles produce great wine grapes

On an overcast morning high in the hills of the Priorat region in northern Spain, I found myself faced with a dilemma: I had to decide which shoots to prune from the gnarled arms of a 60-year-old Garnacha grape vine. It was mid-May, and several young grape clusters — tiny, green beads that fitted neatly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 13, 2013

Observing the present and past is to see into the future

For the past 48 years, Daido Moriyama has followed his photographic instinct, drawn to subjects whose characters appear as vibrant as they are tragic while leaving the question of which for us to decide. The act of exhibiting, through the unraveling of images, has charted this one man's continuous urban...
Japan Times
JAPAN / NURTURING PARTNERSHIPS
May 30, 2013

China biggest rival as Japan seeks to tap African resources

When the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami led to three core meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, an atomic calamity that effectively put the nation's remaining 50 reactors out of action, Japan was suddenly faced with an energy crisis unseen since the oil shocks of the early 1970s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 9, 2013

LA and Tokyo mix it up at Dublab

As cities, Tokyo and Los Angeles could not be more different. But as creative places, both cities resonate with one another as creative partners.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 4, 2013

Immigration shows no impact on U.K. violence

Crime in British neighborhoods that have experienced mass immigration from Eastern Europe over the last 10 years has fallen significantly, according to research that challenges a widely held view over the impact of foreigners in the United Kingdom.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 4, 2013

Off on a spring tangent on the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage

This week 14 years ago, I finished a five-week, 1,350 km journey running the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage. One of the axioms of the pilgrimage is: "You will, and must, get lost." I envision the great master Kobo Daishi, the patron saint of the pilgrimage, with a huge map of the pilgrimage in front of...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 21, 2013

New moves to save Japan's sacred trees from a fiery end

Spend a while walking the streets of any Japanese city and you are bound to notice it: Here and there among the concrete towers, shops and bustling streets, you'll find clusters of trees. In some places, five or 10 stately Japanese cedars provide a patch of welcome shade. In others a full-fledged urban...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Mar 9, 2013

'Kony2012' and the fight for truth in the Internet age

A year ago, Jason Russell was a nobody. Not a nobody, precisely, but just ordinary. Normal. He was a healthy father of two, living in San Diego, and was happy in his work as a director for Invisible Children, a nonprofit organization he'd helped found.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 3, 2013

A visit to Usa, the Japanese city that knows how to win

It is the time of the year when many people get nervous about winning and losing. Students are cramming hard to pass entrance exams to get into the high schools and colleges of their dreams.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 3, 2013

A native son's grim account of hard-luck lives

DETROIT: An American Autopsy, by Charlie LeDuff. Penguin Press, 2013, 286 pp., $27.95 (hardcover)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2013

Tokyo literary festival writes its opening chapter

Every time David Karashima took a Japanese author to New York or London to do a reading, the local audiences would ask two questions: "Who's the next Haruki Murakami?" and "Why isn't there an international literary festival in Tokyo?"
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 20, 2013

China's Tibet dam proposals raise eyebrows in India

Plans by China to build three dams in Tibet have rung alarm bells in next-door India, where fears are rising that the northern nation's thirst for power and water will one day affect the flow of the mighty Brahmaputra River, a lifeline for tens of millions of people.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 4, 2013

Composting food waste growing trend in America

Roy Derrick maneuvered his forklift with a pallet of neatly boxed expired produce and flowers and dropped it into an industrial compactor at Safeway's cavernous return center in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. As the compactor hummed, compressed food and floral scraps spilled through a chute into a 12-meter...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Feb 1, 2013

Canadian uses sports as bridge to teaching, writing, understanding

Writer, teacher and sports fan Trevor Kew, 32, pedals and kicks his way through culture shock. He uses sports to help him adapt to unfamiliar cultures or new places when traveling, trusting his bike or a soccer ball to bridge the gap with locals.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2013

How the Vietnam war will shape Obama's second term

The men who fought in Vietnam, a war that symbolizes America's overreach and failures abroad, haven't ascended to the presidency in the way that the World War II generation did. But now, under President Barack Obama, Vietnam veterans Chuck Hagel and John Kerry could get a chance to pull America back...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2013

Bloody outcome in Algeria

Algerian special forces on Saturday stormed a natural gas complex in Ain Amenas in the Sahara desert to end the four-day seizure of the facility by Islamic militants who took many workers of various nationalities hostages. Among those taken hostages were employees of JGC Corp., a Yokohama-based major...
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 14, 2013

Our menacing infrastructure

"Expressway tunnels as well as other infrastructure throughout Japan are nearing the crisis stage," warns a university professor who is a member of an advisory body for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2013

Christianity vs. secularism

Pope Benedict XVI had a busy holiday season, as you might expect, since it is a sacred time for Catholics and other Christians. He set himself the difficult-to- impossible task of trying to put Christ back into Christmas.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 30, 2012

Testing out tourism in Tohoku

Some, though not all, of our travels change our lives; they cultivate sensibilities, shape values and alter our outlook on things. One such trip I experienced was a sixth-grade school excursion to Hiroshima when, at the Peace Memorial Museum, I saw photographs of people who had suffered massive burns...
EDITORIALS
Dec 29, 2012

Probation system needs a boost

Volunteer probation officers (VPOs), known as hogo-shi, are playing an important role in helping rehabilitate convicts and minors released from prison or juvenile reformatories on probation, and adults and minors who have been placed on probation without going to prison or reformatories.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?