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JAPAN
Jun 28, 2011

Kan revamps Cabinet posts

Prime Minister Naoto Kan on Monday gave some of his Cabinet ministers new jobs and hired a member of the top opposition party to be his parliamentary secretary for internal affairs — moves that were viewed as an effort to extend his grip on power despite stated plans to step down.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Jun 28, 2011

Buffaloes hope to erase memory of '10 slide

Since its inception in 2005, interleague play has often been a shot in the arm for Pacific League teams. Slow starts and patches of rough play have routinely been smoothed over after a few rounds of knocking around Central League squads.
EDITORIALS
Jun 27, 2011

Go-ahead for reconstruction

The Upper House on June 20 enacted a basic law for reconstruction of Tohoku-Pacific coastal areas devastated by the March 11 quake and tsunami. Besides the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito and other opposition parties supported the bill, while the Japan Communist...
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2011

An idea for a containment dome

The No. 4 reactor of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant contains large quantities of radioactive material that presents a hazard due to the threat of aftershocks like the one (6.7 magnitude) recorded Thursday morning off the Tohoku-Pacific coast.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 26, 2011

Swallows heap more misery on last-place BayStars

It took the Tokyo Yakult Swallows a little while to get going in their first game after the interleague break.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 26, 2011

Morishita: treats in place of the trees

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. According to Akinori Saito, a historian in Tokyo's Koto Ward Office, the area known as Morishita (lit. "forest below") was most likely named for woods that surrounded the yashiki (residence) of a feudal lord named Saemon Sakai (1564-1619), a retainer...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 26, 2011

Readers offer 3/11 insights, valuable resources

As Japan has struggled with the physical and emotional challenges of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, and the ongoing nuclear crisis that resulted, I have written three Our Planet Earth columns related to those events: one on Japan's response (March 27); one on alternative...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 26, 2011

Inside Aokigahara, Japan's 'Suicide Forest'

I am walking through Aokigahara Jukai forest, the light rapidly fading on a mid-winter afternoon, when I am stopped dead in my tracks by a blood-curdling scream. The natural reaction would be to run, but the forest floor is a maze of roots and slippery rocks and, truth be told, I am lost in this vast...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 25, 2011

Whitesell delivers winning HR in 10th

Yuichi Matsumoto may have kept the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in the game, but Josh Whitesell won it for them.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 25, 2011

Darvish leads All-Star voting

Kyodo Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters ace Yu Darvish and his three teammates were leading their respective positions Friday at the halfway point of fan voting for the three-game Japanese All-Star series in late July.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2011

Chopper group keeps up disaster-zone airlifts

After the March 11 quake and tsunami ravaged ports, railways, roads and bridges all along the Tohoku coast, leaving thousands of people stranded in isolated areas without water or electricity, the only way vital supplies could reach them at first was by flying them in.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2011

Reconstruction agency bill passed

A basic law for reconstructing the Tohoku region, including plans to form a new agency dedicated to this task, cleared the Diet Monday, more than three months after the megaquake and tsunami calamity.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2011

Art aid sent as therapy for disaster-zone kids

Fifth-grader Emiliano Renteria was sitting quietly in class on March 11 when his elementary school in Miyagi Prefecture began to shake violently.
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2011

Draft for reconstruction

On June 11, just three months after a massive quake of magnitude 9.1 and a mega-tsunami devastated the Tohoku-Pacific coastal areas, the Reconstruction Design Council, a government panel responsible for drawing up a blueprint for reconstruction of the areas, made public a draft of its first proposal,...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

Backing a methodical phaseout

Michael Hoffman's columns are always a great read, but his June 6 article, "What will Japan learn from the Fukushima meltdowns," is clearly one of his weaker ones.
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

When those who should can't

Regarding the June 16 article reprinted from Sentaku magazine, "Yakuza eye cleanup profits": Can Japan's gangsters get the job (of cleaning up parts of the devastated Tohoku-Pacific region) done? So far, the government has been unable to do much or even agree on how the job should be done.
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

No shame in doing like Germany

Two of the Axis powers of World War II have declared their intention of shutting down all their nuclear power plants. I wish to congratulate Germany and Italy for their decisions. Unfortunately the remaining country of the old tripartite war alliance hesitates to do the same.
EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2011

Speaking out on nuclear power

Japan's most renowned living writer, Mr. Haruki Murakami, received the Premi Internacional Catalunya prize in Barcelona on June 9 from the Catalan Government, and took the occasion to criticize Japan's nuclear policies.

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