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COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 31, 2012

A winter's tale: cold homes, poor lives in wealthy Japan

Question: What am I doing outside my home at 6 a.m. with a gas can, a pump, and stalactites under my nose?
EDITORIALS
Jan 31, 2012

A worrisome trade deficit

Japan's trade balance went into the red in 2011 — the first since 1980 when soaring oil prices caused a trade deficit. But the current account balance is still in the black thanks to income generated by Japan's overseas net assets amounting to some ¥250 trillion. This money is reinvested overseas...
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2012

Hefty yen helps cut energy costs: Koo

Japan should limit intervention aimed at weakening the yen because a strong currency will pare the cost of fuel imports as the nation's nuclear capacity dwindles, said Richard Koo, chief economist at Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2012

Economic crisis exacting tolls on public health

The deteriorating global economic outlook is increasing worries among health experts on the effects that the economic crises will have on people's health.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 30, 2012

Royal challenge awaits Noda

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda appears strongly committed to revising the Imperial Household Law to let female members of the Imperial family remain in the royal family even if they marry commoners. The Imperial family is the oldest royal family in the world and Chapter 1 of the Japanese Constitution...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jan 30, 2012

Japanese coaches soaking up NFL experience during Pro Bowl week

Though the NFL players and coaches at the Pro Bowl are in relaxed mode with their season wrapped up, a pair of Japanese coaches are as serious as can be, trying to absorb every moment of this valuable opportunity.
Reader Mail
Jan 29, 2012

Symptoms of classroom collapse

Amen to Willie Taylor's Jan. 26 letter, "Can't defend a broken system." What of stressed out teachers who dread entering a classroom? It's sort of like the First World War soldier in the British trenches going "over the top" to face the enemy! A modern teacher has to be something of a lion tamer, a drill...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 29, 2012

Disaster adds tension to year-in-the-life TV

Fuji TV's Sunday afternoon documentary series "The Non-Fiction" usually covers individuals over long periods of time. "The Old Man and Radiation," aired in two parts on Jan. 15 and 22, was about Toshihiko Kawamoto, an 80-year-old former carpenter who moved from Tokyo to the wilds of Fukushima Prefecture...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 29, 2012

In disparity-ridden Japan, don't mind the gaps — just get out of them

This is a nation of gaps.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 29, 2012

Unconventional thinking is the way forward for Japan

Yubari, Hokkaido, claims several distinctions, few of them enviable. It is Japan's only bankrupt city, and also its most elderly. Forty-one percent of its sagging population of 13,000 (down from 117,000 50 years ago) is aged 65 or over. That's of nationwide significance because within 40 years, Japan,...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jan 29, 2012

Tsunami lessons for Tohoku from Tamil Nadu

On Dec. 26, 2004, a massive tsunami blasted across the Indian Ocean, cutting a swath of destruction through communities in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India that claimed a staggering 230,000 lives.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2012

Smoking deaths

The health ministry is drawing up a plan to halve the smoking rate in Japan from 23.4 percent in 2009 to 10 percent. Unfortunately, the plan is tucked into a long-range health promotion plan from 2013 to 2022.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2012

A victory for women

Voters in Otsu, Shiga elected Japan's youngest-ever female mayor last week. Congratulations go out to Ms. Naomi Koshi, who is only 36, almost half the age of the outgoing mayor, Mr. Makoto Mekata, 70. Mr. Mekata held the post for two terms supported by the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito. Ms. Koshi...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2012

Veteran of two wars — in two different armies

Minoru Ohye, 86, is a rare veteran: He served in both the Imperial Japanese Army, fighting the Soviet Red Army during World War II, and in the U.S. military during the Korean War.
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2012

Balancing security and science

Scientists working on ways to detect and prevent the spread of the avian flu virus have suspended their work out of concern that it could either be used for bioterrorism or that it might escape the lab; either development could create a global pandemic and cost thousands, perhaps millions, of lives....
BUSINESS
Jan 28, 2012

Nintendo losses could triple as 3DS sales sink

Nintendo Co. has more than tripled its full-year loss forecast as the success of Apple Inc.'s popular devices has eroded demand for the company's 3DS handheld player.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 27, 2012

New National Theatre, Tokyo, opens season with Puccini classic

The New National Theatre, Tokyo, (NNTT) is opening its 2012 opera season with a classic by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini.
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2012

Conciliating the Armenians

I go to France quite often, but after this article is published, I may be liable to arrest if I set foot in the country. The French parliament has just passed a bill, proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, that will make it a crime to question whether the Armenian massacres in eastern Turkey...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 27, 2012

'Arakawa Anda za Burijji (Arakawa Under the Bridge)'

Manga artists have one great advantage over live-action film directors: They can fantasize and satirize and otherwise have fun with their characters without worrying how flesh-and-blood actors will interpret them. As American comic artist R. Crumb once told his readers, "It's only lines on paper, folks!!"...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 27, 2012

Vets have Shiga making strong bid for trip to Final Four

The Shiga Lakestars sit three games behind the first-place Ryukyu Golden Kings in the Western Conference standings, and the 17-9 club has demonstrated it has a legitimate shot at reaching the Final Four for the first time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2012

Seiho launches Day Tripper label with 'Mercury'

Seiho Hayakawa started making music the way a lot of curious kids growing up in the digital age did — by fiddling with his cell-phone ringer. But he eventually plunged headfirst into the world of jazz as a high school student, with a trumpet at his side.
Reader Mail
Jan 26, 2012

Can't defend a broken system

I nearly performed a spit-take reading Dipak Basu's Jan. 19 letter, "Unfair criticisms of education," in which he stated that "The Japanese education system creates the most disciplined and most civilized teenagers in the world."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Jan 26, 2012

Shibuya style with an Akihabara twist?

Shibuya-kei was one of the defining features of the music and fashion scenes of the 1990s, and it helped spawn the idea of "Cool Japan."

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years