19
CLEAR
The head of an official inquiry into the deadly collapse of a Bangladesh factory complex said the building’s owner was the “main culprit” for the disaster because he violated construction codes. The cave-in of the eight-story Rana Plaza outside the capital last month killed ...
Throughout most of Japan, June is the rainy season. While all that rainfall is great for rice paddies so that we can have delicious new harvest rice in the fall, it makes it a rather dull month for seasonal produce: The summer’s bounty of ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Claude Regy says the team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) threw him the “best birthday party ever” when he arrived in Japan just days after the actual May 1 occasion. The 90-year-old French director is hoping for an even better birthday gift, ...
As far as debuts go, Shohei Otani's delivered. The celebrated rookie pitched fairly well on Thursday night, and though he finished outside the decision, he left the mound with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters well within striking distance of the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
Regarding the May 16 front-page article “Hashimoto sticks to guns on sex slaves“: The cruel and insensitive statements from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto about encouraging the U.S. military to make use of Japanese prostitutes and his apologism for wartime Japanese soldiers’ enjoyment of serial-sex ...
Many of us who are of Japanese descent, but who are now citizens of foreign countries by birth or emigration, are totally in shock and disbelief over the continuous stream of distortions of history that emanate from Japanese politicians. For what the world community ...
Perhaps I am in a rare position to comment, from almost firsthand experience, on the statements [about the inevitability of wartime prostitution] made by Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and former Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara. In the 1960s I served my country as a fighter ...
While there does seem to be some disagreement among historians about the degree of Adolf Hitler’s religious beliefs, I think it’s inaccurate for Jennifer Kim, in her May 16 letter, to claim his Catholicism was abandoned in his youth. Published in 1925 and 1926, ...
Regarding Kaori Shoji’s May 13 article, “It ain’t easy being a bilingual girl“: I agree that bilingual Japanese face obstacles today as they did 30 years ago. We are constantly subjected to bullying in private as well as in the media. Look at all ...
Jennifer Kim, in her letter of May 16, seems to be doing a bit of an Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto special. She appears to be suggesting that the mass murder of heretics [Cathars] was necessary at the time. She seems to take the apparent ...
It is instructive to parse Jennifer Kim’s May 16 letter, “Catholic link to human rights,” to see what she is really saying: 1. She calls my earlier letter “Catholic-bashing.” No, it’s Catholic Church-bashing. Catholics are bashed quite enough by their own pedophile priests. 2. ...
Regarding the May 15 front-page article “Hashimoto takes flak for sex slave rationale” and related media stories: Why would a system of government-sponsored brothels be considered inappropriate, not to mention criminal, in this day and age? If Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto doesn’t know the ...
Regarding the March 6 Kyodo brief “Tsunami ‘Noah’s Ark“: It would be a great idea for the infrastructure ministry to make special lifeboats for evacuation during tsunami. But we could save many more lives if car companies would make a new car or adapt ...
Regarding the Washington Post article by Jackson Diehl, which ran in The Japan Times on May 8 under the headline “Putin’s hand in radicalizing a secular rebellion“: The writer would appear to have little knowledge of Chechnya or Russia; nor does he seem to ...
Regarding the May 12 editorial, “Who’s to blame in Bangladesh?“: Globalization will inevitably proceed no matter what we want, but why must we hastily remove the boundaries that restrict the movement of money when borders prevent us from saving millions of people from abuse ...
I notice that a lot of senior employees of traditional Japanese companies often bemoan the fact that their daughters cannot easily find desirable husbands these days. Some people describe Japanese young men today as “grass-eating boys” who are too timid to find girlfriends. Others ...