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‘Their cries, their wishes, their hopes… I feel a sense of duty towards them.’
With about 70 suicides per day in 2015, Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the developed world. At Tojinbo in Fukui Prefecture – notorious for its ‘suicide cliffs’, where numerous people have ended their lives – the retired policeman Yukio Shige has taken a hands-on approach to addressing the social issue. Alongside volunteers at his Tojinbo Nonprofit Organisation Support Center, Shige patrols the cliffs for anyone who looks distraught, and invites them to his nearby café, where he offers food, an opportunity to talk over their problems and longer-term support if necessary. Over the past 12 years, Shige’s organisation has been credited with saving some 550 lives, even as more and more people have flocked to the cliffs, which have become something of a morbid tourist attraction.
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Spirituality
Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan
6 minutes
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Thinkers and theories
Photographs offer a colonialist window to the past – one that must be challenged
14 minutes
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Meaning and the good life
The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor
16 minutes
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Art
Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form
14 minutes
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Gender
When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself
5 minutes
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Religion
From God’s shoes to satellites in heaven – children weigh in on religion
8 minutes
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Stories and literature
Myths from Earth’s edge – what the Icelandic sagas reveal about Norse morality
57 minutes
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Technology and the self
Why we should worry less about ‘sentient’ AIs and more about what we’re teaching them
16 minutes
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Art
Why European artists shifted their focus from power to peasants in the 16th century
5 minutes