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Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2013

Violent impulse of Americans

Regarding the April 3 AP article "Death penalty sought in Colorado shooting case": In the wake of each mass shooting, the question on everyone's mind is always "why?"
Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2013

TOEFL ranks individual ability

Regarding the March 31 editorial, "Testing English versus teaching it": I wonder why people who quote Educational Testing Service data ranking each country by people's scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language overlook the fact that the TOEFL test provides accurate scores at the individual...
Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2013

The LDP's annoying agenda

For many years I didn't hesitate to think of the Emperor as the head of state, despite disagreement from the Japanese I spoke with who said the Emperor was the "symbol of the state" — not the head of state. I tended to disregard them: first, because these were the same people who insisted that Japan...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 7, 2013

Men cry discrimination as women's status rises

Japan, it seems, is forever discriminating against someone. Women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, lifestyle minorities, the disabled, part-time workers — all have made claims against a state and a national psychology that define acceptability very narrowly relative to most other developed societies....
Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2013

Attitude toward foreign nurses

The March 26 Kyodo article "Only 30 foreigners pass nursing exam despite extra help" reminds me of a terrible experience.
Reader Mail
Apr 7, 2013

Blue is blue, and so is green

Regarding the Feb. 25 Bilingual Page article "The Japanese traffic light blues: Stop on red, go on what?": I drove in more than 15 countries and have been driving in Japan for years.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Apr 7, 2013

Many in Japan can't see the stars; some not even their home

Generally speaking, an architect's style is defined by particular forms or shapes. There's Frank Lloyd Wright's prominent horizontal lines, for instance; Le Corbusier's simple white boxes; or, more recently, the deliberately abstract masses of Frank Gehry — of Guggenheim Bilbao fame.
BASEBALL
Apr 7, 2013

High honor for Nagashima, Matsui

Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui both had legendary careers with the Yomiuri Giants, the latter also excelling in the major leagues after leaving the Giants. Now their accomplishments are being officially recognized with the People's Honor Award.
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 6, 2013

Ethics row over publishing DNA of unwitting heroine festers

The astonishing story of Henrietta Lacks, who died of cancer in 1951 but whose still living cells are now the basis for much medical research, has captivated the U.S. for the past two years — and there is no sign of the debate, or its controversies, abating.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 6, 2013

Di Canio hiring destined for disaster

Blunderland FC is searching for a new manager. Chairman Ellis Long heads a board meeting.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 6, 2013

Who turns a company into a 'wonderful place to be'?

Kazuhiro Tsuga, president of Panasonic Corp., addressed his new recruits on Monday telling them that he hopes they will turn the company into "a wonderful place to be." President Akio Toyoda encouraged his recruits at Toyota Motor Corp. to exhibit "the strength seen in cherry blossoms that can persevere...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2013

Can China's new government end corruption?

The typical Chinese public servant today collects feudal wages, yet he can afford cars, homes, travel, luxury goods and a Harvard education for kids.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2013

A new era in space observation

The main part of the world's most powerful radio observatory, ALMA — in which Japan has a 30 percent stake — is inaugurated in northern Chile.
JAPAN / Politics
Apr 5, 2013

Okinawa U.S. land return plan inked

Tokyo and Washington agree on a road map for the reversion of five U.S. military facilities in Okinawa south of the Kadena base and vow to accelerate the handover.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2013

Funds gripe snags SDF isle defense deployment

The Defense Ministry may have to abandon a plan to station a Ground Self-Defense Force coastal monitoring unit on Okinawa's Yonaguni Island because negotiations with the town over the price of land have deadlocked.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2013

To communicate in English, TOEFL is vital: LDP panel

English-language education at public schools should shift in emphasis to verbal communications skills, and for that purpose, universities must adopt the Test of English as a Foreign Language for entrance exams, the head of the Liberal Democratic Party's education reform panel said.
BUSINESS / Tech
Apr 5, 2013

Subway riders get connected thanks to free Tokyo Metro Wi-Fi service

Life underground has grown more mobile-Internet friendly with Tokyo Metro Co.'s trial free Wi-Fi service expanding to effectively all of its subway stations at the start of the month.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 5, 2013

John F. Kennedy's legacy may finally come to Japan

If Caroline Kennedy succeeds John Roos as U.S. ambassador to Japan, she will complete a trip that her father, John F. Kennedy, began 50 years ago.
CULTURE / Music / MONEY AND MUSIC
Apr 4, 2013

Barakan wants InterFM to dial down the talk

While station-surfing on my car radio several years back, I chanced upon a program about Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. The disc jockey said Page's solo in "Stairway to Heaven" was among his best.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 4, 2013

U.K. immigration critical to success of anti-EU party

For the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), defeat has never looked this much like victory.
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2013

Cooperation with Mongolia

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on his visit to Ulan Bator on March 30 agreed with Mongolian Prime Minister Norov Altankhuyag and President Tsakhia Elbegdorj to promote bilateral cooperation in the fields of mineral resources development, trade relations and the environment. They also agreed to launch a trilateral...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2013

Getting real on North Korea

The task in addressing North Korea's saber-rattling is made no easier by the world's having to confront an impoverished and effectively defeated country.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2013

Supreme Court has been no friend of freedom

The mythology of a heroic Supreme Court makes Americans forget that, for the most part, they've secured their status as a free people outside the courts.
Reader Mail
Apr 4, 2013

More reform from the Stone Age

Earth to Abe, Earth to Abe: Requiring the TOEFL test for university entry — or exit — will do diddly squat to enhance Japan's global competitiveness. It's just more harebrained "reform" from the Stone Age: If students need better skills, let's mandate another test!
Reader Mail
Apr 4, 2013

Reservations about 'Abecation'

Recently we've had an earful of "Abenomics." And now it looks like (wow!) "Abecation"! While any improvement in English education in Japan should be welcome, reservations regarding the prime minister's proposals demonstrate, at best, skepticism if not mistrust.
Reader Mail
Apr 4, 2013

English-teaching issues revisited

The March 31 editorial, "Testing English versus teaching it," again raises many old issues, except for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) requirement proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party panel on education.
Reader Mail
Apr 4, 2013

Where does human respect live?

Regarding Thomas Clark's March 28 letter, "Review of the Easter message": Clark would do well to take a look at the world he lives in rather than filtering his experience through the stained glass of dogma. It seems that all the places where human rights are well-respected and the quality of life is...
Reader Mail
Apr 3, 2013

Japanese-Brazilian's amazing feat

Regarding the March 30 article, "Japanese-Brazilian beats the odds to win place at university": Japan should offer more support to bicultural individuals such as this gentleman. (Twenty-year-old Rafael Yukio Kusuki, a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian, is said to be living in an Aichi Prefecture public...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic