Search - u_times

 
 
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Apr 15, 2011

Blazers pass on Swift after tryout this week

The Tokyo Apache's season is finished, but big man Robert Swift's goal of returning to the NBA lives on.
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Journalist captures humanity

Regarding Rob Gilhooly's March 27 article, "Survivors strive to start picking up the pieces": I wish I had been introduced to Gilhooly's work before the disaster in Japan. I have been very impressed by his photographs, but this is my first glimpse at his "journalist" side.
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Connect with alternative energy

Last Sunday there were anti-nuclear protests in Tokyo. They were no match for Tahrir Square, Cairo, for sure. Nothing shut down — just a bunch of people peacefully walking down the street, accompanied by a few beat cops. Some dressed up in wacky costumes, others carried NO NUKE signs, and others, young...
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Courage to make do with less

Regarding the March 28 Kyodo article "Nuclear policy called into question": Debates over the nuclear policy in Japan have always been centered on the interests of the current generations or, perhaps, a limited number of people engaged in promoting, constructing and operating nuclear power plants.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2011

Radiation surges above 4's fuel pool

Radiation has risen to high levels above the spent-fuel pool at reactor No. 4 and its temperature is rising, the nuclear safety agency said Wednesday, indicating the fuel rods have been further damaged and are emitting radioactive substances.
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Japanese can express anything

In their April 9 article, "With the world looking in, Japan needs to speak out," Kumi Sato and Michael J. Alfant write that the "inherent vagueness of Japanese creates many challenges in translation." While structural differences between Japanese and English certainly do make translation challenging,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
Apr 14, 2011

Bouncing back and reaching higher

A blast of fashion literature
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Step beyond the stoic reaction

During the past month, pundits in the domestic and foreign news media have praised the stoicism of the people who were affected by the Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and tsunami. This is certainly an attribute that I am proud of as a Japanese person. But how come this unprecedented disaster does not also...
Reader Mail
Apr 14, 2011

Foreigners have different stakes

I totally agree with R. Gurumurthy (“Bad habit of judging foreigners,” April 10 letter) since I was living in Hong Kong at the time of the SARS epidemic, and Japanese expatriates were the first ones to flee town and the last ones to come back. The difference was that people in Hong Kong welcomed...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2011

Crisis keeps foreign students away from classes

Incessant aftershocks and the fear of radiation leaking from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant are dissuading foreign students from starting their new academic year in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Apr 12, 2011

Disaster toll still incalculable

Although a month has passed since the magnitude 9 earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant on March 11, no one yet has a clear idea of when or how the radiation disaster will end.
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2011

Nation's unpreparedness ahead of disaster is blasted

A month after the earthquake and tsunami obliterated cities along the Tohoku coast, Japan is struggling to limp back to some semblance of normalcy while coming to grips with the unprecedented disaster.
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2011

High radiation well past no-go zone: Greenpeace

Radiology experts from Greenpeace urged the government to revise their evacuation protocol Monday after they found high levels of radiation around the greater Fukushima area and in the region's fresh produce.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 12, 2011

Kashiwa: What are you doing to save energy in these troubled times?

Simon Wood
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2011

End to crisis is years, fortune away

Once Japan's leaky nuclear complex stops spewing radiation and its reactors cool down, making the site safe and removing the ruined equipment is going to be a messy ordeal that could take decades and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Reader Mail
Apr 10, 2011

Bad habit of judging foreigners

There are many great things about the Japanese people, but the biggest problem is that they judge people by one perspective. With regard to their criticism of foreign residents — the so-called "fly-jin" — who left Tokyo after the Fukushima nuclear plant crisis began, I am sure that some Japanese...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 10, 2011

'Kan the Destroyer' needs his fire back

In spring 1997, the American news magazine Time published a special issue titled "The New Japan." The subtitle was "A rising generation of risk-takers and rule-breakers is stirring the country from its slumber."
Reader Mail
Apr 10, 2011

Politicians no match for the voters

The patience and stoicism demonstrated by ordinary Japanese people has been an enduring characteristic of recent times. These are qualities that have marked the extraordinary advances of this country in the second half of the last century and will feature largely in the recovery that will surely follow....
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2011

Market investors loath to weigh real challenges to U.S. economy

HONG KONG — Sometimes I find it hard to understand "Mr. Market" — if I may presume to call and poke fun at the combined wisdom of investors in stock and other markets. Immediately after announcement of a modest rise in U.S. employment numbers, the Dow Jones Industrial average rose, triggering a general...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Apr 10, 2011

Bannister in no man's land after move by Giants

Brian Bannister may not pitch a single regular-season inning for the Yomiuri Giants this year.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 9, 2011

You walked into this

We could all use a good laugh. The only question is what defines "good."
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2011

With the world looking in, Japan needs to speak out

Japan is known as having some the world's most developed earthquake- and tsunami-detection systems. However, the destruction caused on March 11 amply illustrated what can happen even when it is well prepared for crises.
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2011

Tepco pumps nitrogen into reactor 1

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it started injecting nitrogen early Thursday into reactor 1 at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant to purge the hydrogen inside and prevent an explosion, and the process went smoothly in the afternoon.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2011

'The Killer Inside Me'

If you like your film noir darker than a Texas outhouse on a new moon in June, and if you don't mind being shocked — and I mean really shocked — then here's your film: "The Killer Inside Me," director Michael Winterbottom's adaptation of the cult noir novel from 1952 by that most hard-boiled of authors,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 8, 2011

'Blue Valentine'

What happens in a marriage that goes awry seems — dare I say it — similar to what goes down at a stricken nuclear power plant. A thousand experts may be called in, engineers may work around the clock, but in the end, the damage will prove to be beyond repair. And in both cases, dissection and analysis...
Japan Times
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Apr 8, 2011

The U.S. role in advancing amateur sumo

In the second of two interviews with globally respected officials involved in the international sumo game, Sumo Scribblings recently threw a few questions over the Pacific to Andrew Freund, the face of the United States Sumo Federation. In many ways far bigger in the sport than his slim physique would...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years