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Japan Times
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 22, 2013

Hakuho moves past Asashoryu to third on the all-time greatest list

On July 21, yokozuna Hakuho became the third most successful rikishi in the modern era, even if his 26th yusho victory since first holding aloft the Emperor's Cup 42 tournaments ago came with something of a bittersweet aftertaste.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2013

Is the age of automation taking a toll on jobs?

American colleges aren't worse today, but the skills required for solving unstructured problems and working with new info have become more complex.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 20, 2013

Teams jockeying for playoff position to battle Giants, Tigers

At the All-Star break for the 2013 NPB season, the Yomiuri Giants and Hanshin Tigers appear to have a lock on finishing in first and second place in the Central League pennant race. Unless there is total meltdown by one of them, we will be seeing them in the postseason Climax Series come October.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 17, 2013

Body fat sheds calories when chilled

Transforming fat cells into calorie-burning machines may sound like a fantasy — the ultimate form of weight control — but the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 13, 2013

Could passenger pigeons be on the brink of de-extinction?

It is often said that the passenger pigeon, once among the most abundant birds in North America, traveled in flocks so enormous that they darkened the skies for hours as they passed. The idea that the bird, which numbered in the billions, might disappear seemed as absurd as losing the cockroach. And...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2013

China eyes a canal project in America's backyard

It would be easy to blow off the plans to build a canal across Nicaragua to connect both oceans if it were not for the expected support of the Chinese government.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 29, 2013

America and Britain team up on mass surveillance

Twelve years ago, in an almost forgotten report, the European Parliament completed its investigations into a long-suspected Western intelligence partnership dedicated to global signals interception on a vast scale. Evidence had been taken from spies and politicians, telecommunications experts and journalists....
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 29, 2013

Global protest grows as citizens lose faith in politics

The demonstrations in Brazil began after a small rise in bus fares triggered mass protests. Within days this had become a nationwide movement whose concerns had spread far beyond fares: more than a million people were on the streets shouting about everything from corruption to the cost of living to the...
WORLD
Jun 25, 2013

U.S. probes if China played role in Snowden leaks; fugitive not on Cuba flight

U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating whether Edward Snowden's leaks may be a Chinese intelligence operation or whether China might have used his concerns about U.S. surveillance practices to exploit him, according to four American officials.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 23, 2013

French high school curriculum includes pitfalls U.S. should try to avoid with its Common Core

The rigorous French high school curriculum comes with pitfalls that the U.S. should try to avoid as it introduces a Common Core of national standards.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2013

Partition looms for Afghanistan

The U.S. effort to cut a deal with the Pashtun-based, Pakistan-backed Taliban is stirring deep unease among the non-Pashtun groups in Afghanistan.
JAPAN
Jun 20, 2013

Strontium in groundwater at No. 1 soars

Groundwater contaminated with highly radioactive substances is detected from a monitoring well just 27 meters from the seashore within the compound of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society / ABE'S PROMISES
Jun 18, 2013

Maternity leave, day care still elude many working mothers

Like many full-time working mothers in Japan, Eriko Soyama, 36, had a tough time getting her children into day care to continue her career.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2013

Is U.S. still the land of the free?

It is not the United Stasi of America. Nevertheless, one still ought to ask how far one can trust the security and law-enforcement complexes to police themselves.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Jun 11, 2013

Can brain scans explain crime?

University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Adrian Raine, author of "The Anatomy of Violence," believes that advances in brain imagery are helping to explain the biological roots of crime. American Enterprise Institute scholar and psychiatrist Sally Satel, co-author of "Brainwashed," is wary of the seduction...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2013

Debunking five myths about chemical weapons

The exact nature of what is going on inside Syria is tough to determine. The United States, Britain, France and Israel have focused on the question of whether forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad have used chemical weapons. To answer that question and understand its implications, some myths...
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 5, 2013

Abenomics cannot succeed without cheap nuclear power

Everybody knows that Japan has an energy crisis. We also know that the yen has greatly depreciated, by some 20 percent in just a few weeks. It's time to put these two facts together.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 2, 2013

Media polls on constitutional change reveal bias

In a democracy, the people's will is conveyed through representative government. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to rewrite the Constitution, but Article 96 requires the approval of at least two-thirds of the national assembly to do that, so in order to hasten the process he first wants to change Article...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 28, 2013

When can you fight a job transfer?

A foreign reader writes: "My husband is working for a company that has branches in Shinagawa, Narita and Ibaraki. He used to work at the Shinagawa branch, and then he was forced to move to the Narita branch.
WORLD / Politics
May 27, 2013

U.S. military's camouflage conundrum defies logic

In 2002, the U.S. military had just two kinds of camouflage uniform. One was green, for the woods. The other was brown, for the desert. Then things got strange.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2013

Weighing the costs and benefits

Judging from Chris Flynn's May 16 response, "Secondhand smoke is the enemy," it appears that the debate on the socialization of health care costs is off the table. Flynn states: "The main thrust behind banning smoking in most places is to reduce the harmful effects of secondhand smoke on nonsmokers."...
JAPAN
May 25, 2013

Are ghosts keeping Abe from moving to official residence?

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been in office for five months and reporters who follow him every day still have one question: why hasn't he moved into the Prime Minister's Official Residence?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 23, 2013

The humor of candid camera

With the advent of the digital camera, mobile phones and social networking, the world is now drowning in photographic imagery. This raises the question: Can photography survive as an art form in a world where it is ubiquitous?
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 22, 2013

Flawed strategy, mistakes jeopardizing Tokyo's bid to host 2020 Olympics

Have you ever given your best effort while striving to achieve something but felt like what you were doing was futile?
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
May 21, 2013

Records offer rare glimpse into Justice leak probe

When the Justice Department began investigating possible leaks of classified information about North Korea in 2009, investigators did more than obtain telephone records of a working journalist suspected of receiving the secret material.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
May 18, 2013

A glimpse inside the minds of sex slavery predators

The annals of criminal history are writ large with ordinary streets that hide dark secrets, but even so the peculiar horror believed to have been perpetrated by Ariel Castro on Seymour Avenue in the rust-belt city of Cleveland stands out.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
May 18, 2013

Psychiatrists under fire in mental health battle

It has the distinctly un-catchy, abbreviated title "DSM-5," and is known to no one outside the world of mental health.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news / OBITUARY
May 15, 2013

Dr. Joyce Brothers, TV psychologist, dies at 85

Dr. Joyce Brothers, 85, who held a Ph.D. in psychology and was one of the most prominent and widely known of those who provided the American public with personal counseling through the mass media, died Monday in New York City. Her longtime publicist reported the death.
WORLD / Science & Health
May 9, 2013

Hardy words that cross cultures traced

You, hear me! Give this fire to that old man. Pull the black worm off the bark and give it to the mother. And no spitting in the ashes!
COMMENTARY / World
May 8, 2013

Ideological splits endanger Arab nation-state

The 'Arab Spring' generated a wave of hope for democratization of authoritarian regimes. The outcomes have called into question the viability of the Arab nation-state.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.