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CLOUDY
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 ...
As it prepares to hold its latest annual summit in New Delhi on March 28-29, the BRICS grouping — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — remains a concept in search of a common identity and institutionalized cooperation. That is hardly surprising, given ...
In the early hours of March 11, Sunday, a U.S. soldier went on a rampage in a village in Panjway, southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan. He went from one mud house to another, shot, stabbed, and burned 16 villagers. Or so it has been reported. ...
The Democratic Party of Japan has been calling for incorporating irregular workers into kosei nenkin (a pension scheme originally for permanent corporate workers) as a means of helping to stabilize their life. But the plan the government and the DPJ adopted March 13 shows ...
A year after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan on March 11, 2011, all but two of the country’s 54 nuclear reactors are shut down. The Japanese people remain confused, apprehensive and distrustful of government statements and reassurances. The future of the ...
The election of the once and future president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, tempts one to despair that the brief and inspiring political awakening in Russia over the past year was for naught. He has gotten his way — replacing his protege Dmitry ...
The Lower House on Thursday passed the ¥90.333 trillion fiscal 2012 budget with the support of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and its coalition partner, the People’s New Party. But Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda cannot be optimistic about upcoming Diet business and must ...
After decades of official neglect and mistrust, Turkey has taken several steps to ensure the rights of the country’s non-Muslim religious minorities, and thus guarantee that the rule of law is applied equally for all Turkish citizens, regardless of individuals’ religion, ethnicity or language. ...
The last time U.S. President Barack Obama met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was obvious that the two men distrusted and despised each other. This time (March 5), their mutual dislike was better hidden, but the gulf between them was still as big, ...
Two murders in Nagasaki Prefecture in December 2011 show that the police are ineffective in preventing stalking-related crime. Police nationwide need to improve their methods for deterring stalkers, including how and when to share information with different police units. They should not forget that ...
The recent public-television documentary on the Clinton presidency has focused attention anew on the scandal involving Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Overlooked is the important role this affair played in the confrontation with Iraq in 1998. As the story was breaking, I happened to ...
On two occasions in my life I found myself living close to the South China Sea. The sea became my escape from life’s pressing responsibilities. There is no escaping the fact that the serene waters are now also grounds for a nascent but real ...
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appears strongly committed to revising the Imperial Household Law to let female members of the Imperial family remain in the royal family even if they marry commoners. The Imperial family is the oldest royal family in the world and Chapter ...