Transport authorities launched a full-fledged investigation Sunday into the derailment of a bullet train on the Akita Shinkansen Line in Daisen, Akita Prefecture, on Saturday afternoon.
It's a dangerous, unpredictable world. Twice in January Chinese warships in the East China Sea challenged Japan's Maritime Self Defense Forces patrols in a manner deemed threatening. And on Feb. 12 came North Korea's nuclear test.
Here's an open secret: Japanese men have a bad international reputation on the romance front.
SELLING WOMEN: Prostitution, Markets and the Household in Early Modern Japan, by Amy Stanley. University of California Press, 2012, 282 pp., $49.95 (hardcover) In the vast cultural landscape, Japan fascinates the mainstream with manga and anime, the martial arts, Zen and kimono. Of course, ...
Kenta Maeda shook off worries about his form with five shutout innings as Japan beat China 5-2 in first-round Pool A of the World Baseball Classic on Sunday at Fukuoka Dome. Japan improved to 2-0 following a tough win over Brazil in Saturday evening’s ...
The antiwhaling activist group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society accused a Japanese whaling vessel of intentionally ramming two of its ships Wednesday near Antarctica. The Fisheries Agency, however, blamed the protesters for the collisions. Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson said he was aboard the ship ...
Antiwhaling activist group Sea Shepherd said Wednesday it had intercepted the Japanese fleet in its annual Southern Ocean hunt “before a single harpoon has been fired.” Sea Shepherd claims to have saved the lives of 4,000 whales over the past eight whaling seasons with ...
Nearly a quarter of a century since Japan began its controversial “research whaling” cull off Antarctica, there was a major development this year in the annual contest of wills between whalers and conservationists. In mid-February, Japan’s whaling fleet was recalled home, with the government ...
Whales once fueled the industrialized world. First there was wood, then coal fired its steam engines alongside seal oil and whale oil that powered and lit the age of “dark satanic mills.” Once, too, whale meat fed coastal communities, while baleen provided strong flexible ...
With Christmas behind us and New Year’s less than a week away, this month’s column combines a bit of yearend desk clearing with some suggestions for belated stocking stuffers. But fair warning: These gifts are not eco-treats or recyclable necessities; they are downloadable PDFs ...
Almost every day, pods of dolphins ply their way across Hatagiri Bay near the whaling town of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture, central Japan. It’s a scenic, serene area on the beautiful Kii Peninsula. But death haunts two pristine coves adjacent to Taiji’s whale museum. ...
Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger. Japan’s domestic campaign is backed by the 98-strong Parliamentary Whaling League (PWL), whose ...
At the government’s Fisheries Agency in Tokyo, which drives the prowhaling campaign in Japan, there is thinly disguised contempt for the antiwhaling finger-wagging of New Zealand, a country with boundless rich farmland and a tiny population to support. In contrast, Japan’s food self-sufficiency is ...
In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them. Inside Japan, the government’s Fisheries Agency ...
For many years, I have been attempting to inform people that our life-supporting oceanic wildlife is being rapidly destroyed by human misuse and overuse. I came to this conclusion not simply by reading reports written by faraway scientists, but by sadly watching my own ...
Several years back, the Fisheries Agency of Japan began claiming that whaling is necessary to protect valuable fisheries. The agency argues that if we do not kill whales, they will eat millions of tons of fish that are rightfully destined for human consumption. Since ...
Early this week, readers of the New York Times may have been surprised to find among its pages a full-page petition, in English and Japanese, signed by 21 eminent scientists, including Richard Dawkins, E.O. Wilson and Jane Lubchenco, and the Nobel prize-winners Roger Guillemin, ...
