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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2014

Mei Shigenobu's words continue the fight for her mother's cause

On her 8th birthday, Mei Shigenobu's mother sat her daughter down and told her that she was the leader of the Japanese Red Army Faction, a group of revolutionary Marxists fighting to violently overthrow global capitalism. It was part of a very unconventional childhood.
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2014

Watch progress on abduction issue

The government needs to watch North Korea to ensure that it follows through on a pledge to reinvestigate the fate of Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents, now that Japan has decided to lift some economic sanctions on the country.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / DEALING WITH DEMENTIA
Jul 4, 2014

Assistance for vulnerable elderly on the rise

Last in a three-part series
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2014

While Japan presses North on abductions, South Korea victims are forgotten

Kim Young-nam was a teenager living on the coast of South Korea when he disappeared in 1978, only to turn up in North Korea. There, he met and married Megumi Yokota, a Japanese national abducted by North Korean agents on her way home from school a year earlier.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jul 3, 2014

Japanese banks trail peers on dividend payouts

Japan's biggest banks, which posted record earnings last year, are less generous than their global peers in sharing profits with investors while they search for more takeovers abroad.
Japan Times
Events / Events In Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Get your kids into music

With so many pop and idol groups in Japan, classical music is often neglected when it comes to kids' preferences in music. But, perhaps surprisingly, infants and toddlers have been found to respond just as positively to works such as Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" and Mozart's piano sonatas.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Belgian beer, food and music

Who doesn't enjoy a frosty cold beer in the hot weather? This weekend you can drink to your heart's content, while enjoying a little culture at the Belgian Beer Weekend in Yamashita Park.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Dancing between cultures in Yokohama

Contemporary dance has always pushed the boundaries of corporal expression by exploring themes that traditional dance genres and their movements have difficulty conveying. As one of the Month of France series of events organized by the Yokohama branch of the Institut Francais du Japon, CrossDance continues...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 2, 2014

Battle it out in Shinshiro

During the Sengoku period (1482-1573), the Takeda family was one of the strongest clans in Japan, known in particular for its successful cavalry charges. Yet in 1575, it found itself up against something that rendered it powerless — the new western technology of firearms.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 1, 2014

Thousands get behind Article 9 in last-ditch rally at prime minister's office

On the eve of a historic decision, thousands of people turned up at the prime minister's office on Monday evening to shout their opposition to his plan to reinterpret Article 9 of the Constitution to permit collective self-defense, which could pave the way for Japan to wage war.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 1, 2014

China's 'shadow banking' challenge

A new financial service operated by China's biggest e-commerce firm Alibaba could crack open the country's economic system as it draws customers from the major state-owned commercial banks by paying higher interest rates to depositors.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 1, 2014

Shokuhin Matsuri aka Foodman cooks up footwork on 'oiss'

"I used to be a video-game nerd," says Takahide Higuchi, the experimental footwork producer also known as Shokuhin Matsuri in Japanese and Foodman in English. "I thought that guys who were popular with girls made music, but I was sort of stubborn and didn't try. Then, in my last year of high school I...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2014

Why are 6,000 reporters keeping a U.S. nonsecret?

Why would thousands of journalists representing hundreds of press and broadcast media outlets agree to keep a CIA secret that wasn't much of a secret in the first place and that ceased being secret the second they learned about it?
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2014

The government decides 'Redskins' bothers you

Some Americans who are paying attention to the absence of Native American revulsion over the name 'Washington Redskins' are not comfortable with the government saying, in effect, that if people are not offended, they should be.
EDITORIALS
Jun 30, 2014

The new squeeze on Argentina

Hopefully Argentina and the creditors who've held out on agreeing to a decade-old deal to restructure Argentine debt will redouble efforts to reach a settlement in the next month before a real default occurs.
JAPAN / JAPAN TIMES FORUM ON FEMALE SCIENCE MAJORS
Jun 30, 2014

Examining women's roles in Japan's corporate structure

Rikejo, or women majoring in the sciences, are currently under the spotlight in Japan. As the country faces a severe labor shortage, a declining birthrate and a rapidly aging population, there is a need to employ more female talent.
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 29, 2014

North fires two missiles into sea

North Korea launches two short-range ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan ahead of another round of talks with Japan on the abduction issue.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Jun 29, 2014

Comic books champion debate on Fukushima disaster

Farmers in Fukushima try to convince skeptical visitors that their crops are safe from radiation. Blood trickles from the nose of a reporter who visits the area.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2014

Shamelessness of neocons

How do we impress on U.S. neocons-cum-chickenhawks — and their Australian-British fellow-travelers — the enormous disparity between the vision dreamed for Iraq, the goals pursued, the means used and the results obtained?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 29, 2014

British School runners hit historic Nakasendo trade trail

A team of students, staff and parents sets out to run the Nakasendo, the ancient route linking Kyoto and Tokyo, to raise money to build a school in Cambodia.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / ADOPT ME!
Jun 29, 2014

A dog named Gramma: dark spirit

Gramma, rescued from Tohoku after the 3/11 disaster, is his own dog, with a distinct touch of the cold northeast coursing through his veins.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 28, 2014

Abe's nuclear renaissance ignores stiff opposition

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's nuclear renaissance involves downplaying risks, restarting reactors, building new ones, and exporting reactor technology and equipment. A number of hurdles remain before he can rev up the reactors, but the summer of 2014 will probably be Japan's last nuclear-free one for decades...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jun 27, 2014

BBC news to turn Japanese with translated website

A recent job posting for a digital editor for BBC World Japan sparked interest online, with local Web-watchers noting that the job description called for a Tokyo-based editor with fluent Japanese to head up a team that will publish content from the main BBC News website on "a new, Japanese-language...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 27, 2014

MH370 jet passengers likely suffocated, Australia says

The passengers and crew of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 most likely died from suffocation and coasted lifelessly into the ocean on autopilot, Australian officials said Thursday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 26, 2014

Man who killed three, including kids, hanged

A 68-year-old death row inmate is hanged for killing three people seven years ago, including children, despite growing unease about capital punishment.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2014

Deceptive labor shortages

Is Japan experiencing a real economic recovery or an attempt by the Abe administration to cheer people up with the appearance of lively labor markets?

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick