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Reader Mail
Jun 13, 2013

Hashimoto's distracting hoopla

Regarding the June 7 front-page article "Hashimoto to Abe: Fly Ospreys at Yao" by Eric Johnston: Yao Airport is a general aviation airport (a second-class airport under Japan's aviation law) with two runways that intersect, one 1,490 meters in length and the other 1,200 meters. An aerial photograph shows...
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2013

San Francisco spurned Hashimoto amid sex slave outrage

A senior San Francisco official urged the city of Osaka to cancel Mayor Toru Hashimoto's visit after he angered residents by saying Japan's wartime 'comfort women' system was necessary.
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Jun 12, 2013

Obama in Bush surveillance territory

For four years, President Barack Obama's approach to counterterrorism has been defined by his embrace of paramilitary power — the drones and the commando teams whose ruthless pursuit of al-Qaida helped cripple the terrorist network through a global targeted killing campaign.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 12, 2013

Monitoring scandals unite left, right

A late spring storm of Washington controversies has created a rare event in these partisan, polarized times: a shared I-told-you-so moment for the left and the right.
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 12, 2013

Planet on course for 5 C warming at current rate

Global emissions of carbon dioxide from energy use rose 1.4 percent to 31.6 gigatons in 2012, setting a record and putting the planet on course for temperature increases well above international climate goals, the International Energy Agency said in a report issued Monday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 12, 2013

The Confederate soldier in the American family tree

The sun was blazing overhead, and the horses and the men were waiting in the woods. They could see the Union cannons across the open field near the peach orchard.
EDITORIALS
Jun 11, 2013

Cease promoting nuclear power

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's decision to move forward with the development of nuclear power technology represents his cynical disregard for the victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2013

Group targets miscarriages of justice

Seven months after Nepalese Govinda Prasad Mainali was last year acquitted of a 1997 robbery-murder of a Tokyo woman, his supporters launched a new civic organization to call for eradication of wrongful convictions, which they claim are still rampant in the legal system.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2013

Fukushima kids' thyroids screened

Forty-four children living in areas of Fukushima Prefecture subject to high levels of radiation were screened for thyroid cancer Saturday in Tokyo, highlighting widespread health fears following the 2011 nuclear meltdowns crisis.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jun 9, 2013

Teen standout Watanabe faces major challenges in pursuit of NBA dream

When young athletes leave their home nation for a bigger challenge, nobody can really halt their overflowing passion and hope.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

Dark sides of Toyota's drive to be No. 1

Like most corporate giants, Toyota isn't all squeaky clean. Yet in their book 'Toyota no Shotai' ('The True Colors of Toyota') published in Japanese in 2006, Hajime Yokota and Makoto Sataka catalog the Japanese media's timidity when it comes to covering the nation's top advertiser.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

How even the mightiest can sometimes succumb to their own success

Toyota was famously slow to respond to the glut of claims of sudden acceleration problems afflicting some of its vehicles — at least until a now-notorious recording of an emergency 911 call made from one of the passengers stuck in 45-year-old California Highway Patrolman Mark Saylor's speeding Lexus on Aug. 28, 2009.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 9, 2013

'Lurching' Lexus fortunately just ran into a wall

Tanya Spotts, a real estate agent from Hamilton, Virginia, bought a new Lexus E350 in 2011. This is her story.
Reader Mail
Jun 9, 2013

Vital info for men and women

According to the newspaper, the central government planned to distribute an information booklet about pregnancy and childbirth only to women for the purpose of raising the nation's low birthrate.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 9, 2013

Scrutinizing identity through one's family

Lucky great-grandfather Julius. This first member of the Helm family to settle in Japan was "as rooted in his German identity as an old oak tree." For his mixed-race descendants, life would not be so simple.
Reader Mail
Jun 9, 2013

Cooperation among past enemies

The June 4 AFP-JIJI article "South Korean president gets baptism by fire" is interesting for many reasons. I lived in a small town in North Korea until the end of 1950. I remember colonial life before 1945.
Reader Mail
Jun 9, 2013

Conditions for a global education

I read with interest Masaaki Kameda's May 29 article, "Education panel touts more global approach." Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's exhortation that Japanese universities establish super-global universities by recruiting faculty staff from overseas, establishing partnerships with overseas universities and...
Reader Mail
Jun 9, 2013

An offensive religious reference

Regarding Amy Chavez's June 1 column, "Everyone's own path to enlightenment": Chavez should be ashamed of herself.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

Esther Williams, champion swimmer and film star, dies at 91

Esther Williams, a championship swimmer and lustrous beauty who became one of the world's most popular movie stars in the 1940s and '50s by appearing in aquatic musicals featuring daredevil plunges from pedestals, trapezes and even a helicopter, died Thursday at her home in Beverly Hills, California....
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 8, 2013

How did Germany become the new champion of Europe?

Sitting in his brightly lit office overlooking the green hills of rural Westphalia, surrounded by photographs of aluminium and titanium castings, Phillip Schack has drawn a blue triangle on a piece of paper. Pointing to a small shaded section at its apex, he says: "Look. If that's your market, up at...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 8, 2013

Encouraging, not comparing, accomplishments

Aging Japan. We hear this phrase all the time. The question is, what are they talking about — the infrastructure? The people? Four Roses whisky?
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2013

Tax rule lags the technology

The National Tax Agency has said for years that people who bet on the horses cannot deduct losses from taxable winnings. Enough of that, an Osaka court rules.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 8, 2013

A great big one up on the roof

A Japanese colleague trying to improve her English via episodes of the TV sitcom "Friends" once asked me this . . .

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped