Search - opinion

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jul 12, 2011

Tokyo international students: Did you stay in Tokyo or go after the March 11 disasters?

Jordan Neiblum, 21Graphic design student (American)I was in the U.S. when the disaster happened. I had already been accepted at a university in Tokyo. I was nervous about coming here but it has always been a dream. — one which I couldn't give up.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jul 11, 2011

Realists and idealists on the cost of adopting renewable energy

If the Renewable Energy Act passes, what will it mean to your electricity bill?
EDITORIALS
Jul 10, 2011

Judicial system reform

Aspecial panel of the Justice Ministry's Legislative Council on June 29 started discussions on judicial system reform for criminal cases. The panel was set up in response to the discovery of evidence-tampering by a member of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad....
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2011

Citizens' radiation fears beyond crisis zone mount

Reiko Nakamura, a 37-year-old mother of three children, said she has been checking radiation levels outside her house in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, every day since she bought a dosimeter in May.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 8, 2011

Asia's gay film scene opens Tokyo up to brave new experiences

Now in its fourth year, the Asian Queer Film Festival is an eye-opener for anyone who has thought that "queers" have a bad time in their quest for love and freedom in Asia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 8, 2011

'Bal'

As Hollywood films become ever more breathless — with special effects sidelining nearly all plot and character development, and digital-editing abuse leading to few shots that last beyond a second — art cinema has moved just as extremely in the opposite direction, with slow, meticulous pacing; long,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jul 6, 2011

Video games now have the same U.S. protection as books and films

Video games feature violence. Not all of them, of course, but violence is prevalent — just as it is in movies and on television. Now, thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on June 27, violent video games are protected under the same freedom of speech that Hollywood enjoys.
Reader Mail
Jul 3, 2011

Group counseling for children

Regarding Richard Rogers' June 30 letter, "Why put down counseling?": I share Rogers' opinion. For 10 years, I have organized a volunteer group that offers group counseling at two orphanages in Chiba Prefecture for children who are grieving over the loss of their family.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 3, 2011

Antinuke stance within establishment slowly gathers steam

In May, Wakamono Manifest Sakutei Iinkai, a policy research group dedicated to issues relevant to people under 40, posted results of a survey in which members were asked who they wanted to lead Japan. There was no consensus, but the individual who received the most votes was Liberal Democratic Party...
BUSINESS
Jul 1, 2011

Defiant Tepco rallies utilities around future of nuke power

Tokyo Electric Power Co. led utilities in rallying around a nuclear future, defying growing public opposition to atomic energy amid the Fukushima No. 1 plant accident.
EDITORIALS
Jun 29, 2011

Forum for better local government

In the current session, the Diet has enacted a law to give legal backing to a forum in which the Cabinet members concerned and local government leaders exchange opinions on policy matters.
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2011

Victory against terror in Indonesia

It was third time unlucky for Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir. An Indonesia court on June 16 found Mr. Bashir guilty of terrorism charges and sentenced him to 15 years in prison. While the 72 year old maintains his innocence, his conviction is an important step in the fight against extremist Islam...
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

Experts urge great caution over radiation risks

In order to address public concerns over post 3/11 food safety, the government should be more forthcoming in the monitoring and disclosure of data regarding radiation contamination of soil, Akira Sugenoya, mayor of Matsumoto City, Nagano Prefecture, told this reporter recently.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 24, 2011

Director Ishii brings style to family drama

Japanese directors with any kind of ambition usually end up making a family drama, which is to Japanese cinema what the Western used to be to Hollywood: the core national genre.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 21, 2011

Permanent residents, mind the 'gap years' in your pension payments

In response to our previous pension articles, "Japan pension answers often case-specific" (April 19) and "Pension 'gap years' and missed payments" (May 10), we've received several reader inquiries and comments regarding kara kikan, or "gap years."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Jun 21, 2011

Poet draws on senses to give words life

American poet Arthur Binard is alert to the world around him. His interests range from trees and insects to bicycles, kotatsu (heater tables) and nuclear energy.
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2011

Living with national universities

In fiscal 2004, the state-run national universities in Japan were given the status of "corporations." The initial six-year "medium term" after this shift to "national university corporations" ended in fiscal 2009. The current fiscal year is the second year of the second medium term.
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

Opinion article at war with itself

In his June 14 article, "Japan gropes for leadership," Kazuo Ogoura writes in tautologies and paradoxes. He asserts that Japan has built a "safe and efficient society" by concentrating on safety and efficiency, yet he insists that this effort has left Japan, "vulnerable to natural and human disasters,"...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2011

Just how new is Egypt's 'new' foreign policy?

In the months since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, his successors have signaled a shift in foreign policy by reaching out to former adversaries. Egypt's government has welcomed Iranian diplomats and embraced the Palestinian group Hamas.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jun 15, 2011

NSK gets a glimpse of a (potentially) bright future

In May the English soccer team Manchester United won their 19th English league championship to date — and the world watched on TV, the Internet and via a wealth of other media sources.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 15, 2011

Team approach difference for Dallas

Moments before Game 6 began, it became self-evident the NBA Finals would soon conclude in a "Dead Heat." No performer with any pride would dare try to follow Marc Anthony's unparalleled interpretation of the national anthem.
Reader Mail
Jun 12, 2011

Benefits of singing the anthem

Regarding the June 7 editorial, "": As a student, I sang the national anthem "Kimigayo" and felt that I was a Japanese. I cannot agree with former Tokyo-area high school teacher Yuji Saruya's opinion and I wonder if he has contemplated the importance of the national anthem.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 12, 2011

Barber's cutting comment denies others' humanity — and hers, too

It's depressing, I must confess.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 12, 2011

Heights of survival

When the March 11 tsunami hit the village of Yoshihama in Iwate Prefecture, the water overran a seawall, smashed through a coastal pine forest, poured over a large embankment and then surged up a long, low-lying valley. It was a scenario almost identical to that being played out at dozens of settlements...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2011

Thailand Inc. versus Thaksin

Thailand is preparing to go to the polls on July 3 in an election that is supposed to mark the restoration of full democracy to the country, one of the liveliest, best-endowed and most promising countries in Asia. But the way the campaign is going, the chances are that Thailand will face another coup...
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2011

Constraint on teachers' thought

The Second Petit Bench of the Supreme Court on May 30 ruled in a 4-0 decision that a school principal's order telling teachers to stand and sing the "Kimigayo" national anthem in front of the "Hinomaru" national flag at a graduation ceremony is constitutional.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 6, 2011

What will Japan learn from the Fukushima meltdowns?

Can Japan afford nuclear power? Can Japan afford to dispense with nuclear power? If the answer to both questions is no — as, in the wake of the Fukushima reactor meltdowns, it appears it may be — we are at a fukurokōji (袋小路, impasse). What to do?
CULTURE / Books
Jun 5, 2011

Can we all just get along?

THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC REGIONALISM, by Kevin G. Cai. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 196 pp., $80 (hardcover) CHINA, JAPAN AND REGIONAL LEADERSHIP IN EAST ASIA, by Christopher M. Dent. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010, 311 pp., $50 (paper)
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 29, 2011

The hot, sticky summer of our discontent

Last summer went on record as Japan's hottest ever, as the daytime mercury seemed stubbornly stuck in the 33 to 36 degrees Celsius range while at nighttime it usually refused to budge to below the 25 C mark.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan