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COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2012

Let posterity see how the Iraq war was created

When the Iraq War Inquiry Group (of which I am a member) issued a public call for an inquiry into the decision-making that lay behind Australia's participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, members of the then-Howard government dismissed it in effect as yesterday's news.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Sep 10, 2012

Today's J-blip: Gari Gari Kun corn soup ice pop sold out in three days

Japan reeeally has a soft spot for corn soup.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 9, 2012

It will take more than a pop group to save Fukushima's reputation

Last March, Tatsuya Yamaguchi of the idol group Tokio told the media that he was determined to someday reopen Dash Village, the farm that he and his bandmates built from scratch as an ongoing project on their long-running Nippon TV series "The Tetsuwan Dash." The farm is in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2012

Tohoku fisheries fight back from 3/11

"The facts about much of Japan's social, political, and financial life are hidden so well that the truth is nearly impossible to know," writes Alex Kerr in his acclaimed 2001 study "Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan." He continues, "A lack of reliable data is the single most significant...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 9, 2012

Final countdown under way for Ishii, Kokubo

Infielder Takuro Ishii of the Hiroshima Carp has announced his retirement as an active player effective at the end of the 2012 season. Ishii joins infielder Hiroki Kokubo of the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks who will also hang up his spikes when his club concludes its schedule in October or November.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2012

Sea changes set in motion

Between 20 and 30 percent of Japan's marine fisheries production was lost in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake that struck the Tohoku region of northeastern Honshu on March 11, 2011, followed by huge tsunamis and explosions and reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. In...
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Stop panicking over birthrates

Regarding the Sept. 4 front-page article "Population of Tokyo to drop to half by 2100": So much fuss has been made in the news media about the declining birthrate that it would be easy to mistake it for an impending disaster.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 9, 2012

My seminal link with manga god Osamu Tezuka

In this month's column I am going to claim an audacious link with that great "god of manga," Osamu Tezuka.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2012

Economists in denial as conventional tools fail

In an exasperated outburst, just before he left the presidency of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet complained that, "as a policymaker during the crisis, I found the available [economic and financial] models of limited help. I would go further: In the face of the crisis, we felt abandoned...
BUSINESS
Sep 7, 2012

Sharp puts up properties in bid to secure fresh bank loans

Struggling Sharp Corp. said Thursday it has put up some of its properties, including its Osaka headquarters and flagship Kameyama plant in Mie Prefecture, as collateral for ¥150 billion in fresh bank loans, confirming earlier news reports.
COMMENTARY
Sep 6, 2012

Nationalists making waves in Japan-China ties

Forty years ago this month, Japan and China established diplomatic relations. However, the two countries are clearly in no mood to celebrate because of a heated territorial dispute over tiny uninhabited islands called the Senkakus by Japan and the Diaoyus by China. They are under Japanese control but...
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2012

Preparing for Nankai megaquake

The Cabinet Office's Central Disaster Prevention Council said Wednesday that a megaquake of magnitude-9 in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coasts and its ensuing tsunami could kill up to 323,000 people in 30 prefectures including Tokyo, with about 70 percent of the deaths tsunami-related. Malfunctioning...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 2, 2012

Will the Takeshima dispute break the Korean wave?

"There's something sad, when a political problem goes so far as to spill over to the entertainment industry," rues journalist Kaoru Kikuchi in Sunday Mainichi (Sep. 9).
BASKETBALL
Sep 1, 2012

Chiba Jets sign pair of veteran forwards

If the current rate of signings keeps up, don't be surprised if a Cameroon basketball fan club is soon established in Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2012

Changes afoot as Beijing seeks new economic models to sustain growth

China needs to shift to a new growth model as its cost advantages begin to erode and overseas demand staggers, while cooperation with Japan in future-growth sectors will benefit both countries, Chinese officials and scholars said during a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / FOOD MATTERS
Aug 31, 2012

Farmers markets on the rise in Tokyo

In a city the size of Tokyo, it's all too easy to be unaware of where your food comes from. Most of what we eat is shipped in from far away, not just the extremities of the country but from all around the world. Japan's overall food self-sufficiency rate is bad enough — a mere 38.3 percent as of 2010....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2012

Reverse imports on the rise thanks to strong yen

Japan Inc. has found a new export market: Japan.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2012

Censure motion against Noda OK'd

With the Sept. 8 end of the current Diet session nearing, political players in Nagata-cho engaged in a heated tit-for-tat battle Wednesday as the opposition-controlled Upper House passed a censure motion against Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to try to push him into dissolving the Lower House.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2012

Nankai quake projected toll radically raised

As many as 323,000 people in 30 prefectures could be killed by a major earthquake and ensuing monster tsunami that scientists say could hit in the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast, the Cabinet Office's Central Disaster Prevention Council said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2012

End of currency swap deal to test bilateral ties

The exchange of jabs between Japan and South Korea over the territorial dispute in the Sea of Japan will reach a key turning point in October when a temporary bilateral currency swap arrangement comes to an end.
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2012

Tensions rise in Northeast Asia

Japan and South Korea, allies of the United States since World War II, are supposed to be part of an Asia-Pacific counterbalance to China's growing power and its expansive maritime and island claims in East Asia's seas. Instead, an upwelling of nationalism as the region marked the Aug. 15 anniversary...
BASKETBALL
Aug 29, 2012

MVP Burrell to join French League

Power forward Justin Burrell, the 2011-12 bj-league MVP, has finalized a one-year contract to play for Champagne Chalons Reims Basket, a second-division club in France.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers