Search - community

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ABE'S PROMISES
Jun 19, 2013

Lofty educational ideal: Ability to prevail on global stage

Universities are starting to try out all sorts of new and innovative ways for Japan to develop human resources capable of 'prevailing on the world stage.'
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Jun 19, 2013

Private money pours into Syrian conflict as donors pick sides

Syrian tanks were closing in on the rebel-held town of Qusair last month when a Kuwaiti sheik named Hajjaj al-Ajmi and his money machine roared into action. In a series of urgent messages on his Twitter account, al-Ajmi appealed for cash to help save the town's defenders.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ABE'S PROMISES
Jun 18, 2013

Yokohama day care centers scramble to keep kids off waiting lists

In the shadow of an imposing highway bypass in Yokohama, laughter and excited voices mingle in the small playground of a day care center attended by 52 children no older than 5.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013

Chatting about Japan with Snowden, the NSA whistle-blower

Edward Snowden, the fugitive former CIA employee and NSA contractor who leaked secrets about America's spying operations, often hung out online with foreigners in Japan who shared his interests in anime, video games, martial arts, the stock market and the expat lifestyle.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 18, 2013

Democracy, interrupted: How local voices were silenced in Tokyo's first referendum

On Sunday, May 26, something quite remarkable happened in Kodaira city, western Tokyo: Over 50,000 citizens voted in Tokyo's very first local referendum (jūmin tōhyō) on the issue of whether a 50-year-old plan to construct a road should be reviewed or not.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jun 18, 2013

Why workers can no longer wear their demands on their sleeves

Dear reader, where are you from? To what era do you belong? I was born in 1971 in Japan and grew up here, too, but I've never — in all my years visiting hotels, restaurants, shops or government offices — seen workers wearing vests, armbands, badges, ribbons or bandanas with political messages. I've...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jun 17, 2013

After Newtown shooting, mourning parents enter into the lonely quiet

They had promised to try everything, so Mark Barden went down into the basement to begin another project in memory of Daniel. The families of Sandy Hook Elementary were collaborating on a Mother's Day card, which would be produced by a marketing firm and mailed to hundreds of politicians across the country....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 16, 2013

Family-crest master fears he's one of a dying breed

Dressed in a black kimono and wearing a pair of eye-catching black, triple-framed spectacles, Shoryu Hatoba straightens his back as he sits on the tatami floor of his quaint studio in Ueno, central Tokyo, holding a pair of bamboo compasses fitted with a brush dipped in ink in place of a pencil.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 16, 2013

Humble true tales of a 'good man'

The journals of Kenjiro Setoue, a doctor at a clinic on a small Kyushu island, chronicle a life that is, as the doctor himself notes, for the most part, unexciting. It is difficult to believe that a version of this life has been retold — and, one has to believe, embellished — in an ongoing series...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3
Jun 16, 2013

Insecticides pit trees against bees

"That's where they're going to spray."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2013

Snowden Web manga profile still online

Edward Snowden has become the world's hot-button item since divulging that the U.S. National Security Agency has engaged in a massive spying effort targeting Americans and individuals overseas, touching off one of the country's most explosive intelligence scandals of recent years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Jun 15, 2013

Actor Ethan Hawke: still playing all the angles

Ethan Hawke is out and about in New York, the city he's lived in for 30 years, a place where famous faces slide past every day. He's wearing a baseball cap, a hoodie and a pair of cords. It's an outfit you might think he chose especially to look nondescript, but in reality it's because he likes corduroy...
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 15, 2013

Clinton re-enters limelight, plans charitable work — for now

In her first major public appearance since stepping down as secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced key pillars of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda Thursday and said she will strive to act as an envoy between businesses, nonprofit entities and the federal government.
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 14, 2013

The economics of men's cosmetics; top six meaty menus; CM of the week: Toyota

Though everyone is fretting about Japan's economic future, the young people who are destined to become tomorrow's leaders have had little opportunity to share their own ideas on the topic. NHK's new information program, "Oikonomia" (NHK-E, Tues., 11:30 p.m.), a madeup term based on the English word "economics,"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 14, 2013

Parolee in 1963 Saitama girl's slaying hits authorities for lying, forcing confessions

Investigators will lie, grill for hours on end and withhold exonerating evidence — in effect do anything — to extract a confession from a suspect they have pegged for a crime, a 1994 parolee seeking a retrial to clear his name in the 1963 kidnap-murder of a Saitama Prefecture girl said Thursday in...
WORLD
Jun 13, 2013

U.S. quietly sabotages al-Qaida's flashy online magazine

U.S. intelligence operatives covertly sabotaged a prominent al-Qaida online magazine last month in an apparent attempt to sow confusion among the group's followers, according to officials.
Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Principled bargaining over islets

As someone who has been a guest in Japan for a relatively short time, I find some of the culture unfamiliar, as doubtless many a Japanese citizen would find it so in my country — especially the likely method of handling the dispute over the Senkaku Islands.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2013

San Francisco spurned Hashimoto amid sex slave outrage

A senior San Francisco official urged the city of Osaka to cancel Mayor Toru Hashimoto's visit after he angered residents by saying Japan's wartime 'comfort women' system was necessary.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2013

Syria bleeds as West watches

The only proper response to those who fret about 'where do you stop?' if the international community intervenes in the Syrian conflict is 'when do you start
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2013

Japan may announce humanitarian aid for Syrian rebels at G-8 summit

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe could announce Tokyo's intention to provide humanitarian assistance to Syrian rebels at next week's Group of Eight summit in Britain, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 11, 2013

Hague Convention on child abduction may shape Japan's family law — or vice versa

Giant Hello Kitty-emblazoned kudos to Japan for finally signing the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction. Now comes the hard part: actually making it work.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Jun 11, 2013

Please, prime minister, just let me be a father

Dear Prime Minister Shinzo Abe,
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Jun 11, 2013

Prabal Gurung takes to the sky, Swedish style lands in Osaka and NukeMe creates turbulent fabrics

Prabal Gurung is being tapped to design new uniforms for All Nippon Airways group's 60th anniversary last year. ANA surely chose New York based-Gurung in a bid to show its global aspirations, and it helps that he is one of the hottest commodities on the market, as a young up-and-comer with some major...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 9, 2013

Darvish impressing experts with his strikeout ability

If you watch the home broadcast for one of Yu Darvish's starts for the Texas Rangers, you will, at some point, hear play-by-play man Steve Busby exhorting, "got him swinging," after Darvish fans a batter.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

U.S. taps servers in vast data-mining program

The National Security Agency and FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet firms, extracting audio and video chats, photos, emails, documents and connection logs. U.S. taps firms' servers, mines Internet data
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

Esther Williams, champion swimmer and film star, dies at 91

Esther Williams, a championship swimmer and lustrous beauty who became one of the world's most popular movie stars in the 1940s and '50s by appearing in aquatic musicals featuring daredevil plunges from pedestals, trapezes and even a helicopter, died Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, California....
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Jun 7, 2013

Rice festival at Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine

Fushimi Inari Grand Shrine in Kyoto will hold a rice seedling festival Monday in which women in traditional clothing from the Heian Period will dance and other women in farming outfits and hats will plant shoots in the shrine's sacred rice field.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jun 7, 2013

Tweet Beat: #tof2013, #ビフォーアフター, #rubykaigi

Events with hashtags attract tweets from attendees and beyond. Plus: the pro-wrestling dorm episode of 'Daikaizou Gekiteki Before After'!
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 7, 2013

Yokohama needs to set new course after capturing title

More than two weeks have passed since the Yokohama B-Corsairs captured a championship in their second season. It was a remarkable achievement in a 21-team league.

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