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JAPAN
Jul 20, 2011

Fukushima cattle under shipment ban

The government banned beef cattle shipments from Fukushima Prefecture on Tuesday, more than a week after meat from the prefecture showed high levels of radioactive cesium, including some already sold and consumed.
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2011

Tepco plans for cold shutdown by January

The government and Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Tuesday they have successfully achieved consistent and stable cooling of the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 plant and will by mid-January reduce the amount of radioactive materials being released.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jul 19, 2011

Campaigns urge foreigners to pleeease visit Japan

The travel industry is doing its best to bring tourists back to Japan but is an Arashi promo video going to be able to do the job?
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2011

Constructing a Pax Asia-Pacifica

One of the main sources of tension in Asia nowadays are the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, where the Philippines, Vietnam, China and others have conflicting claims. In Chinese media reports, the heightened "unfriendliness" in the region has allegedly arisen from "bad rumors and speculations"...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jul 19, 2011

Japan's incompatible power grids

Dear Alice,As Japan sweats through this summer of inadequate power, many more people now know that there are different electrical supply systems in eastern and western Japan, and that the two systems are incompatible. This is such a crazy situation that I'd really be interested to know the history behind...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 19, 2011

Biker trio's Belgium-Japan jaunt over; hurdles cleared

The idea of a transcontinental motorcycle trip came up when Carl Tricke, a 41-year-old Belgian, was drinking beer with his biker friend and fellow countryman Johan Cole, 43, in Singapore in April last year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 19, 2011

Japan's Nigerians pay price for prosperity

The Nigerian Union in Japan is the central civic organization for immigrants from Africa's most populous nation. It has foundered twice in 21 years and its current incarnation is less than a year old. Its mixed history is a reflection of the social and economic turmoil Japan's Nigerian community has...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2011

Mumbai attack a new cause to take offense

Three serial blasts in 12 minutes tore through India's commercial capital Mumbai last Wednesday evening, leaving 21 dead and over 140 injured.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Ginza showcases wilting resolve

While we swelter in the heat and are asked to keep our homes and office air conditioners at 28 Celsius, I was very surprised to visit Tokyo's Ginza district and find many of the department stores and designer shops frigid and their doors wide open to the street.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Even the dream of a job eludes

These days it is becoming increasingly difficult to secure jobs because of the economy. I hear people fighting about getting jobs. I want to get a job for the future, but now I have no clear dream. I wanted to get a job using English, so I entered university and studied English. If I also like children,...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Expectations of special treatment

I was shocked upon reading Satoshi Sato's July 14 letter, " U.S. side of weapons exports," to realize that history is repeating itself.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Bold renewable energy initiative

Regarding the July 14 Kyodo article "Son starts national energy initiative": I, for one, welcome the brave and very timely action of Softbank Corp. President Masayoshi Son to promote the production of renewable energy on Japan's idle farmland.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Narrow view misses the picture

I agree with professor Takamitsu Sawa's assessment (July 12) that economists must not confine their knowledge to the areas of math and statistics. This is also a problem elsewhere.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Throw out the 'what if' scenarios

I'm sorry to say that the July 13 article "Fukushima plant site originally was a hill safe from tsunami" is mere speculation, a "what if" scenario and thus 100 percent irrelevant.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 17, 2011

It seems Japan has literally gone to the dogs

Japan has found an answer to loneliness, despair, fear, disgust and uncertainty. Hint: It's alive, stands on four legs and barks. Well, so much the better if the gloom weighing us down can be so easily dispelled. Or is it?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 17, 2011

Erasing the bloody wounds of war

IMAG(IN)ING THE WAR IN JAPAN: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Postwar Literature and Film, edited by David Stahl and Mark Williams. Brill, 2010, 375 pp., $179 (hardcover) This anthology is as incisive and demanding of consideration as any that I have read. The central question reframed again...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEK 3
Jul 17, 2011

Films focus on Japan's nuclear flashpoints

The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11 has revealed the danger posed by the storing of spent nuclear fuel in pools at the plant, because after the pools drained partly or wholly the fuel heated up and discharged radiation.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Shed all trappings to cool down

Regarding the July 10 Kyodo article "Heatstroke surge feared as people save power": I live in a house that feels like a sauna during the summer. But when the heat and humidity become unbearable — no air conditioner — I place myself in an empty bathtub and fill it slowly with cold water. A plastic...
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jul 17, 2011

Imperial work ethic; Electric Society's defiance; the 'Flat Tire Bandit'; the state of AIDS

100 YEARS AGOThursday, July 20, 1911
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2011

No 'one size fits all' for democracy

"Political man" is a complicated species. Cultural conditions and history differ widely. Humility in the interpretation and prediction of human nature is the wisest bet.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2011

Key players got nuclear ball rolling

How did earthquake-prone Japan, where two atomic bombs were dropped at the end of World War II creating a strong antinuclear weapons culture, come to embrace nuclear power just a few decades later?
BUSINESS
Jul 16, 2011

Quake insurance sales rise fivefold

Earthquake-insurance sales to homeowners grew more than five times in April from a year earlier, according to a report by the Non-Life Insurance Rating Organization of Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 15, 2011

Three films make Japanese premiere at Sokurov festival

Acclaimed Siberian director Alexander Sokurov, will be the subject of a two-week film festival between July 23 -Aug. 5. The Cannes Film Festival regular is one of Russia's greatest directorial exports, responsible for such celebrated films as "Mother and Son" (1997) and "Moloch" (1999). However, it was...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Jul 15, 2011

Will heartthrob Mukai shine as the shogun?

This year's NHK Sunday evening drama has already entered the history books for one, perhaps inauspicious, reason. On March 12, a day after the Great East Japan Earthquake, NHK announced that the following day's broadcast of "Go," as the show is titled, would be canceled to make way for news coverage....
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 15, 2011

My-Le: On track for great Vietnamese food

As soon as the rains lift and the temperatures rise, our thoughts turn to Vietnam. It's the food we crave: No other cuisine seems quite as appetizing once the sweltering summer sets in.
Reader Mail
Jul 14, 2011

Politico's resignation should hurt

Regarding the July 6 front-page article "Reconstruction minister quits after week": Nearly every Cabinet of the former ruling Liberal Democratic Party bore hallmarks similar to those of (Democratic Party of Japan) reconstruction minister Ryu Matsumoto, who resigned following his insensitive bluster (against...
Reader Mail
Jul 14, 2011

Overdue step for English teaching

Regarding the July 8 Kyodo article "Japanese English teachers leave for U.S. looking to broaden horizons": This half-year teacher training program is an encouraging, and ridiculously long overdue, development in the course of English-language education in Japan.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb