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WORLD / Society
Sep 5, 2014

WHO calls for action to reduce global suicide rate of 800,000 a year

More than 800,000 people each year worldwide commit suicide — around one person every 40 seconds — with many using poisoning, hanging or shooting to end their own lives, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
WORLD
Sep 4, 2014

Boko Haram battles for land in northeast Nigeria, 26,000 displaced

Boko Haram militants have driven more than 26,000 people from the northeastern town of Bama amid fierce fighting, witnesses and security sources said on Wednesday, as the Islamists focus more on taking and holding territory.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Sep 3, 2014

Fan-favorite Inaba jumping into sunset

Atsunori Inaba may have been Japan's most popular player among foreign fans during the 2013 World Baseball Classic. The quadrennial competition doesn't just bring 16 nations together, it allows the baseball cultures of various nations to come together. Prominent among these is Japan's ouendan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 3, 2014

Visible minorities are being caught in police dragnet

Around noon on Aug. 13, in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, a local apartment manager notified the police that a "suspicious foreigner" was hanging around the nearby JR train station.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Sep 3, 2014

Giving up your seat on a train is a public affair

A recent article in the media in Japan about the attitudes and behavior of able-bodied passengers toward reserved seating on trains reminded me of one of the few negative experiences I have endured as a disabled foreigner in Japan, and it pertains to the tricky art of acquiring use of the "priority seats."...
EDITORIALS
Sep 2, 2014

War criminals don't deserve praise

Reports that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe expressed sympathy for Japan's World War II war criminals during a memorial service for them in April will only deepen the perception that Abe is a revisionist when it comes to Japan's wartime behavior.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2014

Wrong path to full sovereignty

The change in the government's long-standing interpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution may lift some restrictions on Japan's use of military force, but Japan will not become a full-fledged sovereign state as long as it has a leader who can neither think autonomously nor press a case on behalf of Japan with a negotiating partner.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 2, 2014

Modi goes to Japan chasing a foolish crush

It is hard not to suspect naivete in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's plan to model India's economy on Japan's postwar achievements. After all, Japan owes much of that economic miracle to America's willingness to open its own markets to Japanese manufacturers while turning a blind eye to Japan's blatantly protectionist trade policies.
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2014

A cease-fire in the Gaza Strip

Israel and Hamas have agreed to an indefinite cease-fire after 50 bloody days of fighting in the Gaza Strip. It is estimated that 10,000 buildings were destroyed by the Israeli assault, and entire neighborhoods razed. And for what?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Sep 1, 2014

Pragmatism, charm are Tusk's hallmarks

Donald Tusk relied on a mix of charm and pragmatism to rise to the top of Polish politics and stay in power longer than anyone since the Cold War. Being the European Union's president will test the extent of those talents.
Japan Times
WORLD
Sep 1, 2014

Zuma summons Lesotho leaders for emergency talks after army attempts coup

Lesotho's political leaders were summoned by South African President Jacob Zuma for emergency talks after the military in the landlocked kingdom carried out an attempted coup.
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 31, 2014

Health workers strike at major Ebola clinic in Sierra Leone

Health workers have gone on strike at a major state-run Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone, hospital staffers said on Saturday, a further blow to efforts to contain the deadly virus.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2014

Fukushima fallout: solidarity turns to resentment in city hosting evacuees

Like many of her neighbors, Satomi Inokoshi worries that her gritty hometown is being spoiled by the newcomers and the money that have rolled into Iwaki since the Fukushima nuclear disaster almost 3½ years ago.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 30, 2014

Asahi rivals pile on over sex slaves retraction

It has been almost a month since the Asahi Shimbun printed a long, two-part retraction of its reporting in the 1980s and '90s on the "forced mobilization" of so-called comfort women during World War II based on the published confessions of a man named Seiji Yoshida.
BASKETBALL
Aug 29, 2014

Ishikawa Prefecture awarded bj-league expansion team for 2015-16 season

The bj-league will add a 23rd team for the 2015-16 season, it announced on Friday.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2014

The Middle East crack-up

The horror stories emerging from northern Iraq, as well as the continuing slaughter in Syria's civil war, point to the unraveling of the state system established after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire almost 100 years ago.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 28, 2014

Nearly 50 years on, Bradley recalls 1964 Tokyo Games

As Bill Bradley remembers an unforgettable time in a life filled with extraordinary accomplishments, national pride as a collective experience remains a cherished memory from the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Aug 28, 2014

Philippine Festival kicks off in Tokyo

In the Philippines, every city and community regularly celebrate local fiestas, and on Aug. 30 and 31, Tokyo, the home of one of Japan's largest Filipino communities, will host its own local festival at Ueno Park. Until last year, this annual festival was known as the Barrio Fiesta and was held in Yokohama's...
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Aug 28, 2014

Somali users of amphetamine-like 'paradise flower' khat enjoy low prices after Britain bans its import

"The president has arrived, the president has arrived," chant youths in Mogadishu's Beerta Khaatka market as armed men in trucks mounted with machine guns escort trucks with horns blaring through the throng.
Reader Mail
Aug 27, 2014

Bank's customers deserve better

Regarding the Aug. 20 Kyodo article "Citibank Japan to withdraw from retail banking business": Both Japanese and foreign customers of Citibank Japan should pressure the bank to remain in Japan. As most U.S. corporations show zero long-term loyalty to a local community, the bank's departure would not...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Aug 27, 2014

Tipping points: Japan, North America and the limits of performance pay

Many in Japan believe that performance pay equals the American way, full stop. But the U.S. custom of tipping even for mediocre service suggests things are not so clear-cut.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 27, 2014

U.S. man fighting with Islamic State believed killed in Syria

An American man suspected of fighting alongside Islamic State militants who have seized large areas of Iraq and Syria to the alarm of the Baghdad government and its allies in the West has been killed in Syria, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Aug 26, 2014

Jakarta tiptoes around issue of gas-rich islets

The word "sleepy" could have been invented for Ranai, the largest town in Indonesia's remote and sparsely populated Natuna archipelago.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

Trayvon Martin parents join Missouri rally for slain teenager Michael Brown

Hundreds of people gathered in a St. Louis park on Sunday for a rally against police violence that is expected to bring together the family of Michael Brown, killed by an officer in Missouri this month, and the parents of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager shot dead in 2012.
WORLD / Society
Aug 24, 2014

U.K. Muslims lash out at 'jihadi cool' after beheading

A British Muslim leader has called for action to tackle a jihadi subculture after an Islamic State video showed a suspected Briton beheading U.S. journalist James Foley in Syria.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 23, 2014

Dealing with addiction: Japan's drug problem

Some kid shot up a dose again tonight
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 22, 2014

National Guard to withdraw from riot-torn Ferguson as tensions ease

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the withdrawal on Thursday of National Guard troops from riot-torn Ferguson, where tensions have eased after sometimes violent protests were staged nightly since police killed an unarmed black teenager.

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