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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2011

Reveal fallout data: ex-nuke chief

A former acting head of the Atomic Energy Commission called Thursday for the government to tell the public how radioactive emissions have spread from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in the past and to predict future radiation exposure risks according to distance for the most critical scenarios....
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2011

Foreign media pumped up fears

The international media should hang their collective heads in shame at the way they've reported the unfolding tragedy in Japan. It's an old cliche, but now that I live on the other side of the fence, it seems all the more clear: The media are willing to whip up more panic and put more people in danger...
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2011

Kan widens ban on contaminated food

Prime Minister Naoto Kan instructed Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato on Wednesday to tell local people not to eat certain leafy vegetables, including spinach, cabbage and broccoli harvested from Fukushima Prefecture, after finding radioactive materials well beyond the legal limit.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 24, 2011

Koganecho transformed: from sleaze to teas

On a cherry-blossom blessed curve of Yokohama's Ooka River lies Koganecho — the town of gold. For the past 60 years, however, this alluring name has felt like a bad joke to local residents.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2011

Preparation for nuke crisis woeful

FUKUSHIMA — When the massive earthquake and tsunami rocked the northeast March 11, residents who had been prepared by years of drills knew exactly what to do: They scrambled for cover until the shaking stopped, then ran for higher ground to avoid the giant waves.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 24, 2011

Japan's unlikely hero: the humble rice ball

One of the quiet heroes to emerge in this time of grave crisis in Japan is the humble little white ball of rice called onigiri or omusubi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 24, 2011

Kitamura shows Japanese women how to be 'Top Girls'

"The play was written nearly 30 years ago, but I feel the situation for women has hardly changed at all. In fact, it hasn't fundamentally changed for 100 years, even though Japanese women got the vote around 65 years ago," said theater producer Akiko Kitamura when asked why she chose to stage the well-known...
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2011

Nuclear meltdowns and Japanese culture

Japanese engineers have a much deserved reputation for efficiency. How else could they have created a car industry that could defeat the U.S industry on its home ground? But the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant suggests a partial rethink is needed. When it comes to nuclear affairs, maybe...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 23, 2011

Images from disaster in Tohoku lend visual wallop to narrative

NEW YORK — Sometimes it's a fast-moving ooze: A street becomes a stream, grows into a river and then a raging mountain of moving debris. Sometimes, it's a wet curtain of water crashing over a shoreline, tossing trees, ships and cars casually aside as a child would a stack of Lego.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 23, 2011

Wilt's feats dwarf Love's 'record'

NEW YORK — What were the odds of Kevin Love's double-double streak ending at 54 with a resounding thud against an escort service like the pedal-to-the-metal Warriors?
CULTURE / Music
Mar 23, 2011

Japan to the fore at SXSW despite disaster at home

AUSTIN, Texas — Minutes after arriving in downtown Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Conference and Festival, I ran into a Japanese friend from Tokyo. While we were catching up, an American woman passing by overheard him mention Japan and instantly stopped to shake his hand. "I'm...
LIFE / Digital
Mar 23, 2011

Volunteers translate quake data into visuals

Over the past week we've seen a stark contrast in how the Fukushima nuclear disaster has been reported. "Panic" read the New York Daily News. "Get out of Tokyo Now" said The Sun. One expects that of tabloids, yet more credible media also described an "exodus" from Tokyo, neglecting to mention that it...
COMMUNITY
Mar 22, 2011

Judge not, lest you be judged

At this point, a week and a half after the earthquake and tsunami, and with the government and thousands of volunteers rapidly restoring power and water and municipal services to the affected area, Japan — and the world — is anxiously awaiting the resolution of the nuclear crisis in Fukushima.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2011

Egyptians share a demand with Californians

SINGAPORE — While Egypt has had too little democracy and is moving toward more, California has had too much democracy and is moving toward less. The common mean point they should arrive at is democracy that delivers good government — not mushy "governance."
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2011

Building a happy society means junking GDP myth

The mass media in Japan have played up the news of China's gross domestic product exceeding, in U.S. dollar terms, Japan's to become the second largest economy in the world after the United States.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2011

Foreign media take flak for fanning fears

OSAKA — Some foreign media coverage of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has been so extreme it has fanned fears of a deadly radiation cloud descending on Tokyo and turning residents into walking zombies, before drifting across the oceans to menace the United States and Ireland....
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2011

Experts: Too early to bury reactors

Why not just bury them?
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2011

Japanese lessons on reducing disaster risk

MANILA — The March 11 earthquake-tsunami is the worst natural disaster to hit Japan in modern times. Nobody who has watched the events of recent days can fail to be moved by the unprecedented scope of the tragedy and its toll on human lives and property — a toll that continues to climb.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 20, 2011

Solace for some in the nuclear science

The few, seemingly miraculous, stories of survival are passed on from person to person, and some are given as much media coverage as the horrific devastation. The rescue of a 60-year-old man from the roof of his house, washed 15 km out to sea; the survival of a 4-month-old girl who was swept away from...
BASKETBALL
Mar 20, 2011

Evessa, Lakestars lift fans' spirits

The Osaka Evessa returned to the court on Saturday and did what comes natural to them: win.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Mar 20, 2011

Actions of Apache, Broncos unacceptable

It's understandable that the Sendai 89ers, whose home region was devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, won't continue play this season. But the Tokyo Apache and Saitama Broncos, Sendai's Eastern Conference rivals in the bj-league, appear to have not thought things through or come up with...
BUSINESS
Mar 19, 2011

Yen declines as G7 starts intervention

The yen fell from historic highs Friday after the Group of Seven major industrialized nations promised coordinated intervention in currency markets to support catastrophe-stunned Japan's recovery.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2011

Innkeeper offers to house 400 disaster-zone refugees

A Bangladeshi resident of Japan who owns several hotels and restaurants offered Friday to house about 400 people displaced by the massive earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 19, 2011

When the big one hit

When the big one hit — at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 — I was trying to be funny.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2011

Disaster clobbers a helper

The massive earthquake and tsunami that rocked and ravaged large parts of northern Japan have caused near apocalyptic devastation to the land and the environment. The 9.0-magnitude shock, the largest ever recorded in the earthquake-prone country, was brutally magnified by massive tsunami waves that washed...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Mar 18, 2011

Regular-season play begins again for bj-league

Nearly a week after the devastating destruction in Tohoku due to the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami that killed several thousand people, followed by the Fukushima nuclear plant's ongoing radiation crisis, the bj-league has decided to resume competition this weekend to lift people's spirits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 18, 2011

Museums close to cope with earthquake damage and fallout

The tragedy of Friday's massive earthquake and following tsunami in northeast Japan has shaken the nation. And as Japan attempts to assess the damage and send relief, the country's art world is attempting to recover and show support.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 18, 2011

'Somewhere'

Those who say that "Somewhere" is too slow and goes nowhere are probably missing the point. Sofia Coppola — the filmmaker behind this droll Hollywood fairy tale — loves the static state: She's a rare American woman who gives the impression of never having rushed anywhere her entire life. Behind her...

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