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WORLD / Politics
Jul 15, 2014

In Ukraine war, Putin playing a double game

As fighting intensifies in eastern Ukraine, signs are emerging that Russian President Vladimir Putin has adopted a twin strategy: pledge his willingness to support a negotiated settlement, but continue funneling arms to separatist rebels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 15, 2014

YMO's Yukihiro Takahashi recruits Towa Tei, Cornelius, Yoshinori Sunahara, Tomohiko Gondo and Leo Imai for an impressive supergroup

One of the unspoken rules in the progress-fixated world of electronic music is that you don't get bonus points for dwelling on past glories. So when Yukihiro Takahashi — drummer, vocalist and dapper elder statesman of electro-pop — convened a star cast of musicians at Tokyo's Ex Theater Roppongi...
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 15, 2014

Backlog of orders, savvy marketing stave off carmaker crisis

A backlog of orders as well as concerted marketing efforts by carmakers have minimized the impact from April's consumption tax hike on sales between April and June — but there are still concerns about sales volume after July, the chairman of the nation's automaker lobby said Tuesday.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Jul 15, 2014

[VIDEO] Art Aquarium 2014

Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / HIT AND RUN
Jul 14, 2014

NPB, MLB keeping track as Otani continues to blossom

Shohei Otani struck out 12 batters over seven innings on July 2 and fanned 16 in a complete-game effort in his next start July 9. He was in the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' starting lineup twice in the days between those outings on the mound and hit two home runs during a July 5 contest against the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2014

Polio's comeback laid to immunization ruses

Owing to spurious immunization programs for political purposes, people in several countries are rejecting immunization against polio, a disease that by now should have been a fact of history.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2014

A consensus for giving BRICS more leverage

Leaders of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) travel to Brazil this month with the hope of establishing a new development bank and a reserve currency pool arrangement.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2014

A caliph in his own mind

The recent declaration of a caliphate by the militant group the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria is an unprecedented event in modern times, showing that violent jihadism is now an entrenched feature of the Arab political landscape.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ADVANCES IN PROGRESS
Jul 13, 2014

Cyberdyne's HAL suits give lift to mobility-challenged

Robotics engineer Yoshiyuki Sankai, 56, has been driven by his passion for innovative technology for about half a century.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 12, 2014

Abe's constitutional putsch and U.S. security cooperation

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's putsch involves bypassing constitutional procedures to revise the Constitution because he lacks sufficient support to win two-thirds approval in both houses of the Diet and a majority in a national referendum. Instead, Abe achieved by diktat what he could not gain democratically,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jul 12, 2014

Koichi Hanafusa: 'I'd like everyone to see that life is worth living'

Fuji Rock fansite organizer on music, festivals and bugs.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2014

Tohoku teens plan thank-you festival in Paris

Some 80 Tohoku teenagers in an OECD-supported educational project will hold a cultural festival in Paris in August to express gratitude to those who supported the region's recovery, student representatives said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

If only the U.S. had stayed out of WWI

Did U.S. intervention in the latter stage of World War I end up in just prolonging the European slaughter? David A. Stockman, first-term budget director for President Ronald Reagan, says it did as well as trigger a cascade of offenses later on in the 20th century.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 11, 2014

Ryukyu Golden Kings won't re-sign league icon Newton

Big man Jeff Newton, who has played on a bj-league record six championship teams, will not be back with the Ryukyu Golden Kings for the 2014-15 season, his longtime agent Wallace Prather told The Japan Times on Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

Cost of 'making' democracy

For most of the American electorate, the U.S. perseveres as the messenger of democracy to a world that usually hasn't earned it and probably doesn't deserve it. But consider what this proud effort in the Mideast, Afghanistan, Ukraine and elsewhere has done to U.S. civil liberties and to U.S. democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

The silver fox of dictatorship and democracy

The reality of the times was that Eduard Shevardnadze was both a democrat and a despot. His death brings closer to the end the Gorbachev generation of reform communists who presented a stark contrast to the dour Brezhnev-era hard-liners, spurring (mostly inadvertently) the collapse of the Soviet empire and the long transition to democracy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2014

Is there a right to secede?

If a majority of the voters in a distinct region of a country favor independence, does that mean that they have a right to secede? Paradoxically the EU has made it more feasible for states like Scotland and Catalonia to consider independence.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2014

Agent Orange ingredients found at Okinawa military dumpsite

Rusting barrels unearthed on former U.S. military land in the city of Okinawa are confirmed as containing chemical precursors to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 10, 2014

Argentina advances to final with dramatic shootout win

Argentina's Sergio Romero launched himself left and right to save two penalties in a 4-2 shootout win over the Netherlands on Wednesday that sealed the South Americans' first World Cup final appearance in 24 years.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2014

Business climate is ever-changing

The business environment surrounding U.S. companies has changed and they are looking for ways to not only survive, but thrive against severe competition.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 9, 2014

Goldman's Japan M&A chief sees hunger for more deals

When a 210-year-old vinegar company bought Unilever's Ragu and Bertolli pasta sauce business last month, it showed that Japanese firms are becoming more adventurous in their search for growth, said Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s national head of mergers and acquisitions.
BUSINESS / Markets / CURRENCY MARKET
Jul 9, 2014

Japan may act to weaken yen: Pierpont

Japan may intervene to weaken its currency as the yen approaches its strongest level versus the dollar this year, according to Pierpont Securities LLC.
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 8, 2014

Time for fans, media to get real about Samurai Blue

"The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it."
Japan Times
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
Jul 8, 2014

Sotnikova to headline field at NHK Trophy

The epic 2013-14 season is behind us and it is onward to a new campaign, and in many ways a new era.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2014

Thomas Piketty with Chinese characteristics

As property prices have risen faster than wages and profits in manufacturing, China's top 1 percent income earners are accumulating wealth significantly faster than their counterparts in the rest of the world — and far faster than the average Chinese.

Longform

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