Sunday, 3 August 2014

Fukuda may have met Xi during secret China visit

Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has made a hush-hush trip to Beijing, where he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping about mending bilateral ties, sources ...

Fast-food follies have media in a frenzy

Almost exactly a year ago (on July 27, 2013), this column reported on how the print media was inundated with concerns over the safety of ...

Is the next stop ‘brokesville’ for the maglev?

Robert Moses, the civil servant who built the great park-expressway-bridge network in New York state during the middle of the last century, succeeded by gaming ...

Emperor, councilors weigh war declaration; simplified Japanese created for foreigners; Russian musicians defect; foreigners’ office hears thousands of problems

100 YEARS AGO Sunday, Aug. 16 1914 Emperor, councilors weigh war declaration The Emperor of Japan, his councilors and his Ministers met yesterday in the ...

Climate change ravaging Antarctic fur seals

A food shortage likely caused by climate change is shrinking a South Antarctic fur seal colony and changing the profile of its surviving members, researchers ...

Taiwan explosions probe focuses on petrochemical firm

Authorities in Taiwan’s second-biggest city were focusing on a petrochemical firm Saturday in their investigation into a series of gas pipeline explosions that killed 27 ...

Getting tough on hate speech

Japan needs to respond to criticism of it by the U.N. Human Rights Committee for allowing instances of hate speech, directed mostly against Koreans, to ...

Watergate: Forty years since Nixon’s resignation

U.S. President Richard Nixon submitted his letter of resignation on Aug. 9, 1974 in order to save himself from the humiliation of being impeached and ...

More students opt for fifth year

According to a recent survey, many of the 103,000 Japanese students who opted for a fifth year of university study last spring did so to ...

U.S. think tanks turning into message merchants

Most U.S. think tanks were once idea factories, but now many are message merchants.

Hot in the city: scorching Kumagama

Exploring new ways of dealing with the heat from a city in Saitama that certainly knows a thing or two about keeping cool

Slow food and fast water in a rural corner of Kumamoto

It starts off as a dull roar, prompting those of us sitting in the rice paddies to look skyward in anticipation. Then it builds, in ...

Toxic gypsy moths — a most unpleasant infestation

Living in the countryside, the usual casual greetings include an observation about the weather, but for the last six weeks around my home in northern ...

A deeper look at Hayao Miyazaki’s nature

'The Art of Princess Mononoke' — a deeper look at Hayao Miyazaki's nature

The Inland Sea

In his lifetime, Donald Richie was best known as a pioneering expert on Japanese cinema; he famously first brought the films of Yasujiro Ozu to ...

Monster Volume 1

Naoki Urasawa is one of the giants of modern manga and is perhaps best known outside Japan for his epic series “Nijuseiki Shonen (20th Century ...

Brewed in Japan: The Evolution of the Japanese Beer Industry

Newly in paperback, history professor Jeffrey W. Alexander’s 2013 book charts the rise of beer in Japan, from early Dutch influence and the barrels brought ...

Bolt races back into spotlight

If Scots were offended by Usain Bolt they didn’t show it on Friday as the Jamaican sprint star made his Commonwealth Games debut. Despite a ...

Nasu rescues Urawa point but Sagan take top spot

Veteran defender Daisuke Nasu rescued a point with a dramatic late equalizer, but Urawa Reds surrendered top spot in the J. League first division on ...

Utsumi savors win as Giants beat Carp

Home runs by Hayato Sakamoto and Shinnosuke Abe lifted the Yomiuri Giants to a 3-1 win on Saturday over the Hiroshima Carp and earned ace ...

Brewers best Cardinals’ Wainwright

Aramis Ramirez knows he’s not supposed to have success like this against Adam Wainwright. “I don’t have an explanation for it,” the Milwaukee Brewers cleanup ...

George suffers serious leg injury

Indiana Pacers All-Star Paul George suffered a gruesome right leg injury late in the U.S. national team’s intrasquad scrimmage Friday night. George leaped to contest ...

Gasquet routs Nishikori

Richard Gasquet beat Kei Nishikori in straight sets to join Wimbledon semifinalist Milos Raonic in the semifinals of the Citi Open on Friday. The sixth-seeded ...