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EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2009

Do more to prevent suicides

The number of suicides in 2009 has already topped 30,000 for the 12th straight year (since 1998). According to the National Police Agency, the suicide figure through the end of November reached 30,181, or 445 more than for the same period last year. This translates into about 90 suicides a day on average....
COMMENTARY
Dec 28, 2009

Star artists reveal the essence of a nation's bureaucratic ways

LOS ANGELES — In America, trying to understand what makes other complex countries and cultures tick is usually done in the university classroom, through travel abroad or by following the mass news media. But there's another option that sometimes produces gold: Peering into other cultures through the...
EDITORIALS
Dec 27, 2009

DPJ administration's first budget

After some drama and confusion, including a screening unit's slashing of budgetary requests before public eyes and tough demands by Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa, the Hatoyama administration has compiled the fiscal 2010 budget, its first budget since its inauguration in mid-September....
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2009

Land mine status quo disheartening

Who would be the eager attackers if all land mines were to vanish overnight? That's the question I had on reading Jody Williams' Dec. 5 article (from the Los Angeles Times), "Obama continues shameful land mine policy." Civilians continue to be maimed and killed by them, while China, India, Pakistan,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Dec 27, 2009

Benoit hopes Kyoto can still make run at playoff spot this season

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with personalities in the bj-league. The league's fifth season began in October. Head coach David Benoit of the expansion Kyoto Hannaryz is the subject of this week's profile.
Reader Mail
Dec 27, 2009

Act intelligently to make friends

I would like to comment on Shawna Ueyama's Dec. 22 Zeit Gist article, "Too innocent for prejudice?" I have lived in the United States for more than a decade — in various cities because of my husband's job — and have found that no matter where we go, my 8-year-old boy and I are discriminated against...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Dec 27, 2009

Fun and funky Fukagawa

After so many yearend parties and as the weather grows wintry in Tokyo, it might seem like madness to go for a walk, but a stroll east of the Sumida River, in Fukagawa, is an ideal way to clear the head. The area offers expansive parks of lingering colored leaves, magnificent art shows and, in some back...
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2009

Quick work, lacks vision to end debt woes

Analysts had mixed opinions for the 2010 annual budget plan the Cabinet approved Friday, saying the Democratic Party of Japan-led government worked quick but failed to show how it will alleviate the nations' mounting debts.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2009

Japanese hospitals take interest in 'medical tourists'

While many Japanese companies have gone global over the years, making companies like Toyota, Sony and Canon household names in every corner of the world, the Japanese health care industry is focused largely on the domestic market and has long been shielded from pressure for change.
COMMENTARY
Dec 25, 2009

Ever-widening pay gaps

LONDON — According to recent reports, chief executives of top British companies are now paid 81 times more than the average British worker. The pay gap has nearly doubled in the past decade. There is no justification for this trend.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 25, 2009

Mexico Music Festival 2010

Yuriko Kuronuma, a renowned Japanese violinist based in Mexico, never gives up.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 25, 2009

Temples, shrines offer New Year traditions

If you want to enjoy the traditional way of spending New Year's holidays in Japan, your best option would be to visit a temple or shrine.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 25, 2009

The decade's most influential

Last week, The Japan Times picked Hikaru Utada as the most influential artist of the past decade. This week, our writers ask various figures in Japan's music scene who they thought were the most influential artists of the noughties. We asked them to choose one Japanese artist and one non-Japanese artist,...
LIFE / Digital / Japan Pulse
Dec 24, 2009

Trends in Japan 2009: virtual love

In 2009, a lot of hype surrounded human's attachment to virtual and 2-D characters. Was it just hot air, or a sign of things to come?
Reader Mail
Dec 24, 2009

Flawed 'power structure thinking'

In his Dec. 20 article, "Wake up a friend about China at Christmas," Tom Plate recommends that readers give their friends a book about the Middle Kingdom for the holidays, specifically one with the scary title "When China Rules the World." Everyone, East and West, seems to agree that China is the emerging...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2009

Using financial aid to curb suicides

KURIHARA, Miyagi Pref. — Four years ago, suicides in this city in the Tohoku region were running at nearly double the national rate, and as the global financial meltdown hit Japan they might have been expected to go even higher.
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 2009

People and climate change

The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has failed to reach a deal on the reduction targets of industrialized and emerging nations for greenhouse-gas emissions, although it set a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the coming years and developed nations made a financial...
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 20, 2009

Group teaching Afghan women literacy, IT skills

Fourth in a series
Reader Mail
Dec 20, 2009

In-depth, intelligent change of pace

Regarding Eriko Arita's Dec. 6 article, "Finding satisfaction in being ourselves" (about psychiatrist Rika Kayama): This was the third article I have read on The Japan Times' Web site. It was in-depth, intelligent and bore no resemblance to the insipid, sugarcoated quarter-page interviews on similar...
Reader Mail
Dec 20, 2009

Shameful failure in self-defense

The U.S. bases on Okinawa are white elephants — extravagant and dangerous ones at that — as far as the Japanese people are concerned. It has been 20 years since the Soviet empire, the erstwhile archenemy of America, collapsed and the half-century-long Cold War ended.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Dec 20, 2009

Governor's new cricket field, Yoshiwara liberation, first returnees from North Korea

100 YEARS AGO Friday, Dec. 3, 1909
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 20, 2009

Zimbalist says Matsui's key impact for Angels will be on the field

Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka all helped open up markets and bring new streams of revenue to their respective teams when they made their major league debuts.
Reader Mail
Dec 20, 2009

J. League watches over members

The Dec. 12 editorial "A yellow card for J. League" seems oblivious to underlying facts. The decision by the Yomiuri conglomerate to finally cut its ties to Verdy has been coming for at least a decade, and it was just a question of when the other shoe would drop. The timing may be related to economic...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Dec 20, 2009

Real Escape Game brings its creator's wonderment to life

Code-like messages on the walls grabbed my attention first: "g=circle, square, triangle"; "42, 23, 16 . . . " Then I saw the padlocked safe and the six candy dispensers — the latter for sustenance, I guessed, in case we intrepid 18 gamesters locked in this mysterious room should malinger in accomplishing...

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