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JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Apr 27, 2012

Jury out on if inquest system lived up to role

The prolonged trial of former Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa marked the first time a Diet member has been tried after being subjected to mandatory indictment by a panel of ordinary citizens who received authorization to review a case prosecutors gave up on.
EDITORIALS
Apr 27, 2012

Mr. Ozawa's bittersweet court victory

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday acquitted former Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa of charges he violated the Political Funds Control Law. But the ruling shows that it is a bittersweet victory for Ozawa. He needs to pay careful attention to his behavior as a politician, and make every...
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2012

'Disaster' foreseen if BOJ declines to keep easing

Any failure by the Bank of Japan to expand its asset-purchase program at Friday's board meeting will sow confusion over its policy, a former policymaker said.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2012

Flagging will for gun control

April 16 marked five years since the massacre at Virginia Tech, where a mentally ill student, Seung Hui Cho, used two handguns he had bought legally to kill 32 people and wound 25 others.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 24, 2012

Tokyo gets double dose of gay pride for 2012

For the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, gay pride parades are not only a great means to raise awareness of LGBT issues and spread the message of diversity and acceptance, but also a much-needed excuse to gather supporters together and party down. At such events in hundreds of cities...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2012

Capitalistic consensus moved Brazil investors

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's visit to Washington earlier this month offers an occasion to consider how some once-poor countries have broken out of poverty, as Brazil has. Development institutions like the World Bank have advocated improving business law as an important way to do so. Are they...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 22, 2012

Chernobyl expert takes a look at Tohoku's trees

Somewhere between downtown Utsunomiya in Tochigi Prefecture, and the village of Ogisu an hour's drive to the northeast, Dr. Tatsuhiro Ohkubo pulls over to buy a box of sakura mochi.
LIFE
Apr 22, 2012

Fascinating facts along the way

One of the original long-distance paved U.S. Highways, Route 66 always had about it an aura of romance born of wide-open horizons and travel on it that spanned not just a country, but a continent.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Apr 20, 2012

For Iwate's Malloy, Hurricane Katrina provided valuable life lessons

Natural disasters can alter one's outlook on life in a positive way, and give an individual a greater sense of purpose or focus in everything he/she does.
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2012

Overseas studies to get funding push

The education ministry plans to fund about 40 universities that launch programs to encourage more Japanese to study overseas, with the aim of nurturing globally minded human resources.
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2012

Government discussing timetable for selling its shares in Japan Tobacco

The government is discussing a timetable for selling its shares in Japan Tobacco Inc. to help pay for earthquake rebuilding and limit expansion of the world's biggest public debt, according to two Finance Ministry officials.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Apr 18, 2012

Why good Wi-Fi is so hard to find in Japan

Friends visiting Japan often ask me why there are no, or very few, Wi-Fi hotspots available at hotels and cafes in Tokyo. They mention that in their countries, many places offer free Wi-Fi for guests — often it is completely open, or you simply need to ask the staff for the password.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 15, 2012

U.S. forces keep the world in their sights

Complex issues often become much easier to understand when they are approached with the benefit of a broader perspective.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 15, 2012

Wild Watch turns 30 this month

As April 2nd's 30th anniversary of my first Wild Watch column in The Japan Times neared, I was in India — teeming Delhi to be precise, with its cacophony of people, honking traffic and barking dogs, though a tailorbird would stop and call outside my window, where a palm squirrel never tired of chattering....
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2012

Reimpose weapons export ban

The Noda administration in December 2011 drastically relaxed Japan's long-standing weapons export ban. On the strength of this step, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on April 10 agreed with visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron to push joint development of weapons.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 12, 2012

Songha prepares for a Wilde John the Baptist

A year ago, Songha Cho changed his professional name to plain and simple Songha — explaining that there is no appropriate kanji for Cho, though there is for Songha. That problem, the third-generation Korean-Japanese said, is just one of many complications faced in daily life here by people with Korean...
COMMENTARY
Apr 11, 2012

What Mitt Romney needs in a vice president

Barack Obama's intellectual sociopathy — his often breezy and sometimes loutish indifference to truth — should no longer startle. It should, however, influence Mitt Romney's choice of a running mate.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Apr 10, 2012

Book is behind bullying of mixed-race children

Dear Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hirofumi Hirano,
SOCCER / J. League
Apr 8, 2012

Cerezo storm past Ardija after break

Cerezo Osaka hit Omiya Ardija with a one-two punch from their Olympic arsenal as Hiroshi Kiyotake and Kim Bo Kyung both found the target in a 3-0 win on Saturday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 8, 2012

Moving and shaking on Sakurajima

It looked like the kind of comfortably oily rag that makes a mechanic's job easier — the sort you find scrunched up in the corner of a garage soaked with tales of its long career, how it protected all manner of tools from rust, greased jamming gears ... and helped fix Mrs. Jones' "unfixable" carburettor...
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2012

Orangutans in danger

The word "orangutan" comes from the Malay and Indonesian words meaning "person of the forest." Unfortunately, soon there may be no forest and no "person," either. The encroachment of palm oil companies into orangutans' natural habitat and the illicit trade in baby orangutans have all but wiped out the...
BUSINESS / ASEAN-JAPAN SYMPOSIUM
Apr 7, 2012

ASEAN members see mixed future; ties with Japan entering new phase

Southeast Asia has emerged from the 2008-2009 global financial crisis with a robust economic expansion that, along with China and India, makes up a new growth center of the world economy. Still, major countries in the region foresee a mixed picture in the years ahead.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2012

Dark days for the Jewish community in Europe

Rabbi Shneur Kesselman estimates that he has been the victim of 100 or so anti-Semitic confrontations since he arrived in the southern Swedish city of Malmö in 2004. The latest was just last week when some young immigrants in a car spotted him on his way home after the evening service at the synagogue....
EDITORIALS
Apr 3, 2012

Reorganizing Japan's exchanges

The Noda Cabinet in early March submitted to the Diet a bill to help establish a unified exchange that will integrate stock, commodity and other exchanges. But even if the Diet passes the bill to revise the financial instruments exchanges law, the envisaged system will not guarantee automatic integration...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 1, 2012

Naohiko Jinno: Master of public finance brings life to numbers

Born the grandson of a once-prosperous textile manufacturer in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, Naohiko Jinno says that when he was growing up he was told by his mother, over and over again, that money was not important.
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2012

Money to study abroad

To combat the decline in Japanese students studying abroad, the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry is finally taking action. Special five-year grants of ¥100 million to ¥200 million will be offered to 40 universities for study abroad programs. These grants are a welcome step...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?