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ENVIRONMENT
Apr 30, 2013

California refines way to gauge water supply

Like a pitcher taking the mound on opening day, Frank Gehrke gets the media spotlight in California every April, when the otherwise obscure state water official trudges into the Sierra Nevada mountains and plunges aluminum tubes into the snow.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 28, 2013

An avian flu outbreak in Japan could kill 'Abenomics'

No one has ever fully explained why, in 2002-3, the virulent pathogen known as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) ran rampant in mainland China (5,328 cases, 349 deaths) but only infected four people in South Korea, with no fatalities, and none in Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 27, 2013

Can you really train your brain to be more intelligent?

My week has been pretty hectic so far. On Monday, I manned a busy beach bar and had to remember a range of ice-cream and pizza orders for a constant stream of customers.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 26, 2013

Newton's return sure to solidify Ryukyu's run at title

The reigning champion Ryukyu Golden Kings have been so good for so long that veteran forward/center Jeff Newton's recent monthlong absence due to a knee injury was far from a crisis.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 23, 2013

Is legislation weighty enough to rebalance election system?

While the Cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enjoys high support rates, hovering around 70 percent, its very legitimacy is being questioned.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 19, 2013

Kyoto's Hamaguchi proving again he is an elite coach

For Honoo Hamaguchi and Dai Oketani, longevity is one part of their success story as the bj-league's longest-tenured coaches. What's more, their quality teams are always competitive year after year.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2013

Pulvers wins Noma translation prize

Roger Pulvers, a noted writer and veteran contributor to The Japan Times, has won the 19th Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature, major publishing house Kodansha Ltd. said.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2013

Top French officials disclose personal wealth

The wealthiest member of France's Socialist government, French people learned Monday, is Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who inherited a $7.8 million fortune from his family's trade in art and antiques. But Michele Delaunay, minister for the aged, also disclosed a comfortable stash: $7 million, mostly...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 16, 2013

Startups find there's financing in numbers

In a country where a stubbornly stagnant economy has turned the adventurous away from high-risk investment, fundraising has become one of the highest hurdles a startup can overcome.
EDITORIALS
Apr 16, 2013

Improving teaching at universities

The University of Tokyo seeks to improve the quality of university class instruction with a graduate course on preparing presentations and lesson plans.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 14, 2013

Net TV expresses views the mainstream ignores

Last week's column mentioned "Pack-in News," a current-affairs talk show that used to stream on the Internet TV channel Kinkin.tv, which is the personal project of veteran actor-emcee Kinya Aikawa. It was a continuation of "Pack-in Journal," a show hosted by Aikawa on the satellite station Asahi Newstar...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Apr 13, 2013

How keeping it real took Matt Damon to the top

In 1987, when Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "Ain't Got You," he was the biggest rock star in the world. He had vast estates in New Jersey and Beverly Hills, and he had not long returned from a honeymoon at Gianni Versace's villa in Lake Como. "Ain't Got You" was Springsteen's attempt to make a self-aware...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 12, 2013

Disaster did little to shake up status quo, expert says

Disappointing expectations that the megaquake and tsunami two years ago — and subsequent nuclear calamity — would trigger a rebirth of politics and government, Japan's key policies remain largely unchanged, says Richard Samuels, director of the Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 9, 2013

Japan's foreign trainee system said still plagued by rights abuses

Last month, a Chinese trainee went on a stabbing rampage at a Hiroshima Prefecture seafood company where he worked, killing the president and an employee and wounding six others.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 9, 2013

Hashimoto to sue Asahi for story on family past

Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) chief Toru Hashimoto plans to sue the weekly Shukan Asahi and daily Asahi Shimbun, claiming they violated his human rights when the magazine ran an article six months ago touching on his family background.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 7, 2013

Government reveals contempt for constitution by ignoring it

Actor-emcee Kinya Aikawa has his own TV station on the Net, and because the only ads are for projects involving Aikawa and his equally famous wife, Midori Utsumi, he doesn't worry about making sponsors uncomfortable.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 7, 2013

Men cry discrimination as women's status rises

Japan, it seems, is forever discriminating against someone. Women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, lifestyle minorities, the disabled, part-time workers — all have made claims against a state and a national psychology that define acceptability very narrowly relative to most other developed societies....
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Apr 3, 2013

Local government attempts to make citizens rat on welfare recipients

Welfare recipients made to feel guilty for guilty pleasures.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 3, 2013

As U.S. wallows in debt, bright ideas to save country billions go to waste

After President Barack Obama set up a national online suggestion box in 2009 asking federal workers for new ways to cut the budget, 86,000 ideas came in. Some, inevitably, were a little odd.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Apr 3, 2013

Akita veteran guard Hasegawa to retire after season

What has been expected for many months is now official: Makoto Hasegawa is set to retire after this season, the Akita Sakigake Shimpo and other media outlets reported on Tuesday, Hasegawa's 42nd birthday.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society / FOCUS
Apr 3, 2013

Egypt's fundamentalist rulers crush lives, hopes of women

The ambush came from the left, from a side street which led up the hill to Mokattam Mosque. A rush of hundreds of men running down on the march of antigovernment protesters, bringing a sudden clatter of rocks landing all around, the crack of shots fired and the whizz of tear gas canisters. Sticks, stones...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 2, 2013

Resurgent rubella raises fetus threat

The rubella epidemic is spreading quickly, particularly in the Kanto region.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Mar 31, 2013

Cummings, father share hoop bond

Terry Cummings' success as an NBA player inspired his son, T.J., who now plays for the Sendai 89ers, to follow in his footsteps.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 31, 2013

Life is too short for an undesirable satori

The wise have always inveighed against materialism. But most people are not wise, and it remains a material world. The economy dominates the news, an indication of where our strongest interest lies. Our spirits rise or fall with the stock market, the unemployment rate, the value of the yen, the consumer...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 30, 2013

Ishihara too sick to attend Nippon Ishin's first convention

Shintaro Ishihara, coleader of Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), will miss its first-ever convention this weekend due to ill health, a party official confirmed Friday.
Japan Times
PRESS / Corporate Trends
Mar 29, 2013

週刊英字新聞『The Japan Times ST』リニューアル新創刊

4月より、英語力と時事ニュースの理解力を高める媒体へ
LIFE / Digital
Mar 27, 2013

Technology that works for prose is still a curse for verse

Washington poet and literary activist E. Ethelbert Miller insists there is a difference between his poem "Before Hip Hop" when it is shown like this:
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 26, 2013

Curse or cash cow: Japan ready for casinos?

Lawmakers are seriously considering legalizing casinos so Japanese can roll the dice without having to travel to gambling houses in the United States, East and Southeast Asia.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 24, 2013

In a nation shaken to its core, Japan's leaders offer more of the same

Roger Pulvers leaves Counterpoint at the end of this month after writing the column weekly since April 3, 2005. In his last three Counterpoints he has set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is his penultimate contribution.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2013

The West is in decline, but its values still prevail

The first ever non-European pope takes over at the Vatican, while Italy's economic ills and ungovernability foretell, it's argued, the wider decline of the West. First World Catholics enmeshed in scandal in Europe and the United States have turned to a devout Argentinian to clean up their mess.

Longform

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