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DRIZZLE/RAIN
Farmers in the city of Tamura, Fukushima Prefecture, have begun planting rice in a district once designated a no-go zone because of radioactive fallout ejected by the disaster-hit Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity.
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
Panelists at a symposium this week in Tokyo voiced concerns over the government’s proposal to revise the Juvenile Law to allow crime victims or their next of kin to observe minors’ trials, which are basically held behind closed doors. Diet debate on the proposal ...
A small publisher is struggling to expand the circulation of its biannual English-language magazine, which features hard-hitting stories on controversial issues, including the overseas deployment of the Self-Defense Forces and gender equality. “We aim to deliver high-quality, critical stories about the political, economic and ...
Hiroko Arai was looking forward to teaching high school English as a nonregular instructor following her mandatory retirement as a full-time teacher, as part-timers are exempt from most miscellaneous duties and can focus purely on course instruction. But those hopes were dashed in March ...
Takehiko Hirasawa has devoted himself to clearing the name of his adoptive father, who was convicted in the Teigin Incident, the most notorious mass-poisoning case in postwar Japan. “I cannot leave the erroneous ruling on my father as it is,” the 49-year-old Tokyo resident ...
About 1,000 people from across the country converged on Tokyo Saturday to hold an assembly to speak out and counter any moves to revise the pacifist Constitution. The assembly was organized by the Article 9 Association, which was founded in 2004 by nine pro-Constitution ...
Legislation to enable people victimized by crime to question defendants in court and state the severity of punishment they want meted out, even before any determination of guilt, may turn courts into venues for revenge and render defendants even more vulnerable, a Tokyo forum ...
Should people be required to put public security first over their constitutionally guaranteed rights if it might prevent crime? Should visitors to Japan have to put up with being fingerprinted if it might catch terrorists? Lawyers, scholars and human rights advocates, struggling to find ...
the threat of nuclear bombs, it also has an important place in the history of Japan’s wooden fishing boats,” he said. The Fukuryu Maru was used as a training vessel for 10 years by Tokyo University of Fisheries after its radioactivity was confirmed two ...
For Tadashi Kato, the U.N. General Assembly adoption of a declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples around the world after more than 20 years of debate was long-awaited good news. “The declaration will enable us, the Ainu, to restore our way of life ...
have lived for more than half a century after the war, suffering practically as much as they did during the several years they spent in military comfort stations,” it says. The museum also preserves the testimony of several former comfort women. Born to a ...
Even though 10 years have passed since Norio Nagayama was executed for the murder of four people, his name still gets into the news. In debates over capital punishment, the so-called Nagayama Criteria is referred to as a basic guideline for applying the death ...
Osamu Ogawa was elected chairman of the Saitama Bar Association in February, and stated his opposition to the citizen judge system scheduled to debut by May 2009. Under the new system, six so-called lay judges, selected from the adult public, will examine serious criminal ...