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COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 13, 2012

The power reform charade

On July 13, "Basic Policies for Reforming the Electric Power System" was released by a panel of experts organized by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). It was subtitled "Aiming for an Power System Open to All Citizens."
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 12, 2012

Queen Elizabeth engineering prize seeks innovation for easing life's hardships

Nominations are currently open for Britain's first-ever international Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which has been created to honor individuals for groundbreaking innovation that benefits humanity — and which rewards the winner handsomely with a staggering £1 million (¥123 million).
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2012

Hiroshima honors A-bomb dead; protesters chant

Inside Hiroshima's Peace Park, tens of thousands of survivors, relatives, government officials and diplomats observed the 67th anniversary Monday of the city's atomic bombing, while just outside others marked the occasion by loudly protesting the decision to reactivate two nuclear reactors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 5, 2012

David Atkinson: Ancient Japan captures money man's interest

David Atkinson was still in his 20s when he rose to fame as a Japan-based banking analyst with the U.S. investment bank Salomon Brothers, prior to him moving to Goldman Sachs.
EDITORIALS
Aug 4, 2012

Police lessons from 3/11

The National Police Agency on July 24 released a fiscal 2012 white book that contained a section titled "Large-scale disasters and the police" at its outset. The section details what actions the police took when the earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku coastal region on March 11, 2011, and the...
EDITORIALS
Aug 2, 2012

Makeshift electoral reform

A bill to reapportion Upper House seats is likely to be enacted soon because the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the leading opposition Liberal Democratic Party have agreed to support it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2012

Contemporary Japanese artists strive to create works uninfluenced by the West

"Real Japanesque: The Unique World of Japanese Contemporary Art" at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, is in many ways a trying exhibition. Its concept claims that Japanese artists born after the 1970s are attempting to create something entirely new and that they are distancing themselves from imitating...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2012

Strength in numbers for protesters, but just how many are there?

Ever since last summer, when antinuclear demonstrations materialized in response to the Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown, there's been an ongoing argument about just how many people show up for these protests. Conventional wisdom says the organizers exaggerate the numbers while the major media underestimate...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 22, 2012

Power spots and prehistory in beautiful Aomori Prefecture

The government of Aomori Prefecture which straddles the whole of the northern end of Japan's main island of Honshu — and is best known as the nation's apple capital — broke new ground in its tourism promotion campaign late last year, when it announced it would start selling the prefecture as the...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2012

The spirit behind Japanese cohesion

Building Democracy in Japan, by Mary Alice Haddad. Cambridge University Press, 2012, 270 pp., $20.34 (paperback) Mary Haddad seeks to refute those non-Japanese scholars who are dismissive of Japanese democracy because it doesn't measure up to western standards. She argues that they overlook and marginalize...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 17, 2012

Should Tepco customers foot bill for nuclear fiasco?

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is desperately trying to raise prices to cover the drastic rise in thermal fuel costs caused by its triple-meltdown disaster at the poorly protected Fukushima No. 1 power plant.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 15, 2012

Aging Village shows the way with switch to solar

Eighty kilometers from Oi, Fukui Prefecture, is the village of Sanno, Hyogo Prefecture — 11 households, population 42, average age 60 plus.
Reader Mail
Jul 1, 2012

Accuracy not always 'acceptable'

In his June 21 letter, "Accurate radiation information needed," Scott Hards argues that if accurate information had been made freely available after the Fukushima nuclear plant accidents, a significant amount of stress and disruption of people's lives could have been avoided. Unfortunately, it isn't...
Reader Mail
Jul 1, 2012

Lots of reports, too little action

Regarding the June 26 AP article "Oi restart rush blasted as new crisis": I am sick of all the talk about Japanese nuclear energy policy measures, but I cannot help opposing the government's and the utility companies' attitudes. It may be true that, without nuclear power stations, electricity outages...
EDITORIALS
Jun 29, 2012

Tepco's self-justifying report

Tokyo Electric Power Co. on June 20 released its final report on the disaster at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. Tepco stated that the main cause of the accidents was the enormous scale of the tsunami that hit the plant, saying that it was beyond its expectations.
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2012

Nuclear laws have serious flaws

The Diet on June 20 enacted a law to establish a nuclear regulatory commission. If the new body is established, it will end the current system, in which the authorities promoting nuclear power generation and the authorities regulating it are virtually integrated in the form of the trade and industry's...
Reader Mail
Jun 21, 2012

Back on the doomsday cycle

The biggest cartel in Japan, if not the world, has long involved the government and the utility companies. Is it any wonder, then, that Prime Minister Noda has taken the unilateral action of giving the go-ahead to restarting Japan's nuclear power industry, despite the common-sense reality that nuclear...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 21, 2012

The photographs that leave a paper trail

In today's complex world, in which we are routinely overburdened with data, intuition and a visceral response to imagery is increasingly trumping rational discourse, according to Thomas Demand. But this is something the German artist, whose work is the subject of a major solo show at the Museum of Contemporary...
Jun 20, 2012

Japan's tale of two stockpiles

Mount Fuji stands as a powerful eco-symbol in Japan, invoked frequently to describe elements of Japanese nature and culture. According to Japanese writers and others, Mount Fuji's towering summit-cone and elegantly balanced slopes convey the remote majesty of nature, the essence of purity, a trove of...
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2012

Regrettable 'go' on reactors

The government on Saturday finally gave the go-ahead to Kansai Electric Power Co.'s plan to restart the Nos. 3 and 4 reactors at its Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture. The decision ignores the crucial lesson from the accident at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant:...

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?