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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 7, 2012

Animal Welfare Law left neutered

The friction between competing political parties no longer fortifies the effectiveness of lawmaking. If anything it confounds the process. The opposition Liberal Democratic Party has openly vowed to be legislatively uncooperative until the ruling Democratic Party of Japan calls an election, so in order...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 25, 2012

Cesium contamination in food appears to be on wane

It's been 18 months since the Fukushima nuclear disaster contaminated much of the prefecture and beyond, and reports are still coming in about radiation in food exceeding the government limit.
COMMENTARY
Sep 21, 2012

What grooms a physician to oversee torture?

It was an unusual event in July at the Libertad (Freedom) prison in Uruguay. Miguel Angel Estrella, an Argentine pianist, was giving a concert in the same prison where he had been imprisoned and tortured 32 years earlier.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 16, 2012

Japan's depressing increase in psychoactive drug use

In July, the British pharmaceutical behemoth GlaxoSmithKline reached a $3 billion settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over the company's illegal marketing of several drugs in the United States. One of these, the antidepressant Paxil, was pushed by GSK salespersons for treating children, even...
COMMENTARY
Sep 5, 2012

Obama earns mediocre marks on economy

President Barack Obama's economic report card is at best mediocre. I'd give him a C+, while acknowledging that presidents usually don't much influence the economy. It's too big and subject to too many complex forces, from new technologies to global conditions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Aug 21, 2012

Tepco liable for contract workers' safety in Fukushima

'Usually I spend New Year's Eve eating New Year's soba and go with my whole family to listen to the watch-night bell. But this year, I will spend Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 working. I will see the first sunrise of the year looking out over the sea driving along the highway toward the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2012

Why do American junk food giants feel the urge to force-feed us tidbit sermons on social issues?

Since when does serving up junk food give someone a license to preach?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2012

U.S. religious liberty feeling the weight of so many faiths

In the United States, Muslim women trying to maintain modesty should get female-only hours at the public pool, right?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2012

Five myths about Obama's economic stimulus

President Barack Obama's February 2009 stimulus bill, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was a political disaster. It helped fuel the Republican revival of 2010 and now stars in Mitt Romney's ads. The president even stopped uttering the word "stimulus."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2012

California dreamin' on such a debt-filled day

While central governments' fiscal problems plague many economies, a parallel crisis is enveloping many subnational governments around the world.
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2012

Pension fund problems to remain

In the wake of the incident in which AIJ Investment Advisors Co. lost most of ¥145.8 billion in pension assets through bad investments, a panel of the health and welfare ministry on June 29 came up with a proposal on how to solve the problems related to the type of corporate pension fund known as kosei...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 8, 2012

Attitudes hardening toward the welfare state

Last March, the number of individuals receiving seikatsu hogo (financial assistance from the government) exceeded 2.1 million people, the first time the record had been surpassed since 1951. Payouts this year are likely to exceed ¥3.7 trillion.
COMMENTARY
Jun 27, 2012

A woman of courage in war-ravaged Somalia

Somalia can be considered one of the most troublesome countries in the world, one frequently called a "failed state," ravaged by violence and instability.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 22, 2012

Grouses need coach after Shimoji steps down

After nearly finishing with their first winning season in franchise history, the Toyama Grouses will not have Kazuaki Shimoji at the helm in 2012-13. Serious health issues appear to be the primary factor, league insiders told The Japan Times.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 14, 2012

Rampant use and abuse of religious freedom

What are the proper limits of religious freedom? Marianne Thieme, leader of the Party for the Animals in the Netherlands, offers this answer: "Religious freedom stops where human or animal suffering begins."
COMMENTARY
May 21, 2012

Who will support aging Japan?

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore more than a decade ago adopted the growth strategy of making the medical industry the core of the nation's industrial development.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 13, 2012

Though spooked by new threats, Japanese accept mass killers

Before March last year, if you'd asked a child in Japan about nuclear radiation you would probably have been told about Godzilla, the monster powered by mutations caused by radiation, or Tetsuwan Atomu, aka the nuclear-powered robot Astro Boy. Not any more.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 12, 2012

Cancer survivors tell of workplace prejudice

Seven years ago, Naomi Sakurai was diagnosed with breast cancer and told she had only a 60 percent chance of surviving another five years.
COMMENTARY
May 4, 2012

A catastrophic social budget

During the past two years, Vladimir Putin repeatedly stressed his special attention to and personal patronage of the efforts to keep up and somehow improve the pitiful situation concerning the overall social position and living standards of retired and disabled people, such as those receiving pensions...
COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2012

The international path toward self-destruction

The latest report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows that, after allowing for some data uncertainties, world military spending in 2011 as essentially unchanged from that in 2012. This breaks a 13-year-long run of continuous military spending increases. It might be a...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past