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COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 6, 2012

A few of readers' favorite things; heated discussion on the burning issue of warmth

A selection of readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Feb. 7 Just Be Cause column, "These are a few of my favorite things about Japan":
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2012

Tokyo to drop fugu license ordinance amid decline in fatal diner poisonings

Fugu, a fish delicacy usually offered to discerning diners at expensive Japanese restaurants, may become available at cheaper eateries in Tokyo in October if the metropolitan government allows unlicensed chefs to process and sell the poisonous puffer fish.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 4, 2012

Myanmar and the search for democracy

Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's Struggle for Democracy, by Bertil Lintner. Silkworm Books: Chiang Mai, 2011, 196 pp. The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi, by Peter Popham. Rider: London, 2011, 446 pp. The abrupt shift in Burmese politics over the past few months has been extraordinary,...
COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2012

How to push reform forward

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has stated he would stake his political life on realizing integrated reform of the tax and social security systems. Japan's financial structure is worse than those of other advanced countries and even that of Greece, which was responsible for the euro crisis. Therefore it...
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2012

Japan issues wary welcome, awaits concrete action, warns of loopholes

North Korea's surprise promise to freeze its nuclear arms program is a positive development, but there is no guarantee it will live up to its word and the hermit state should take concrete action before resuming the six-party talks, the government and Japanese experts said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 2, 2012

Tommy February6 makes a heavenly return

The pop music industry — it's enough to turn anyone into a schizophrenic. And Tomoko Kawase is perhaps J-pop's most fragmented personality of all.
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2012

Put priority on peoples' health

Regarding Joseph Jaworski's Feb. 16 letter, "Let consumers rule on smoking": In countries like Australia, governments have acted to ban smoking in commercial facilities used by the public, such as licensed clubs, shopping centers and restaurants, primarily in the interest of workers' occupational health...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 26, 2012

Welcome to the world we've made but don't want to share with children

"Love ... casts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. ... It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Feb 26, 2012

Venturing into the zone on Showajima

In his "Meditation XVII," the English Metaphysical poet John Donne wrote in 1623 that "no man is an island, entire of itself." Well, yes — but some islands are entirely more manly than others.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

Fiennes gets savage in Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus'

An angry mob of protesters waving banners and wielding bats advances on a government building protected by black-clad riot police. Hooded hotheads break open the gates and all hell breaks loose.
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2012

Transcripts sketch out NRC's 3/11 confusion

Transcripts of phone conversations immediately after the March disasters, released Tuesday by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, reveal the early sense of urgency and confusion about the crisis unfolding at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2012

Amazing GRACE can measure world's ice loss

One of the main climate change concerns for Japan and other Asian countries with valuable and densely-populated low-lying coastal land is how much of their land may be threatened by rising sea levels and storm surges as the century advances.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2012

'Thank You' visitor campaign starts

The Japan Tourism Agency kicked off a campaign Tuesday to woo foreign visitors as a gesture of thanks for the global support that poured in after the March 11 disasters, agency Commissioner Hiroshi Mizohata said.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Feb 21, 2012

Plenty of room for passions to grow

Don't have enough space at home to pursue your hobby? That's no longer a viable excuse.
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2012

We can't choose not to breathe

I agree with everything Joseph Jaworski says in his Feb. 16 letter, "Let consumers rule on smoking," but I think he misses one very important point — the right of employees to work in a healthy environment. This was, at least ostensibly, why New York banned smoking in all workplaces in 2003.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 19, 2012

From Aboriginal land to Japan's nuclear reactors

Peter Watts, co-chair of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, was recently in Japan as one of some 100 speakers at the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World held in Yokohama on Jan. 14 and 15. During an interview with The Japan Times, Watts — who is a member of the Arabunna people, one...
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Feb 18, 2012

Fiscal ills not DPJ's doing but it's holding the bag

The tax and social security reform outline adopted by the Cabinet on Friday indicate the government has run out of options and must finally address welfare costs and public finances that have been spiralling out of control for years.
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2012

Religion an increasing source of strife in Africa

Sudan was bombing South Sudan again last week, only a couple of months after the two countries split apart. Sudan is mostly Muslim, and South Sudan is predominantly Christian, but the quarrel is about oil, not religion. And yet, it is really about religion too, since the two countries would never have...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2012

Reform means the world for Todai

When Japan's leading university announced in January that it intends to shift undergraduate enrollment from spring to autumn in line with colleges worldwide, the plan created waves far beyond the academic world.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 18, 2012

Nagoya aid for tsunami-hit city starts to pay off

A shiitake grower farmer in disaster-hit Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, is working to cultivate a sales channel in the Chubu region, while a Nagoya-based civil engineering company launches an office near the Tohoku city.
Reader Mail
Feb 16, 2012

Let consumers rule on smoking

Regarding Patricia Yarrow's Feb. 12 letter, "Shaky will to reduce smoking": Coffeehouses and restaurants are private property. It is up to the business owner to determine what kind of environment attracts the greatest number of customers. Even if nonsmokers are a majority in the population, they are...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan