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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2012

Nuclear power profiteers seem keen to risk getting blood on their hands

Areport this year by the Independent Investigation Committee on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, a group set up in September 2011 by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, condemned what it called Japan's "absolute safety myth." The Japanese government, in collusion with the media and the regional electric-power...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2012

Sierra Leone: finding forgiveness in unlikely places

Last month a court in The Hague found former Liberian president Charles Taylor guilty of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in fueling a 10-year, bloody conflict in Sierra Leone. The verdict capped a trial that itself had dragged on for years and had been punctuated by moments...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 24, 2012

Wi-Fi, Facebook and all that jazz

Fumito Fukuchi, owner and proprietor of Kissa Sakaiki jazz cafe in Tokyo's central Yotsuya neighborhood, grins as he puts the finishing touches to an online schedule.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
May 22, 2012

The elephant in the foreigner's room now has a name: microaggression

Some positive and negative readers' reactions to Debito Arudou's provocative and widely read May 1 Just Be Cause column, "Yes, I can use chopsticks: the everyday 'microaggressions' that grind us down":
JAPAN
May 20, 2012

Kansai leaders vow 15% cut in summer electricity use

Kansai government leaders agreed Saturday to cut electricity use in the region by at least 15 percent between July and September under the assumption that the Oi No. 3 and No. 4 nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture won't be restarted in time to meet peak summer demand.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 20, 2012

'Alien' actress at home with a robot

Even today in the performing arts in Japan, gaijin (lit. "aliens"), as foreigners are called, are still often presented like something to be gawped at in a Victorian freak show.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / WEEK 3
May 20, 2012

Artist creates Yokohama bodhisattvas

Eleven bodhisattvas stand in formation, their heads crowned and their almond-shaped eyes and faces dusted with gold.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 19, 2012

Comedians find creative outlet for simmering anger

For Okinawa comedian Masamitsu Kohatsu, Aug. 13 is synonymous with the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
May 17, 2012

Kansai power crunch just political rivalry?

The confrontation between the central government and Kansai area leaders over the restart of two nuclear reactors in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, has more to do with the growing power struggle between Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto and Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda than with safety or objective attempts to determine...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 17, 2012

Otomo's genga will make you remember

Without "Akira" there would be no "Cool Japan."
Japan Times
Figure Skating / ICE TIME
May 16, 2012

Suzuki aiming higher following best season of career

Coming off the best season of her long career, one might think world bronze medalist Akiko Suzuki could be content to retire from competition and turn to show skating.
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2012

Tax hike plan merits more scrutiny

The Diet has started deliberations on bills to raise the consumption tax rate and reform the social welfare system. Two bills deal with pension-related issues such as beefing up benefits for low-income people and improving pension coverage for irregular workers. Another two bills are related to Prime...
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
May 15, 2012

Supreme Court knocks down discipline of mentally ill employee

Can a company discipline an employee for taking absence without leave if that worker could be suffering from mental illness? Just a few weeks ago, on April 27, the Supreme Court ruled against Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd. in a case that posed precisely this question. The verdict illustrates the courts'...
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2012

Are humans getting better at beating violence?

With daily headlines focusing on war, terrorism and the abuses of repressive governments, and religious leaders frequently bemoaning declining standards of public and private behavior, it is easy to get the impression that we are witnessing a moral collapse.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 13, 2012

Born of disaster, modern architecture is itself now an ongoing disaster

In the French writer-director Jacques Tati's superb 1967 film "Play Time," people are like prisoners condemned to roam about in and amid the glass cages of high-rise office blocks. They are lost, both to the world and themselves. In the world of Tati, who died in 1982 aged 75, all cities look alike;...
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2012

Married women as abuse victims

A recent Cabinet Office survey has found that 32.9 percent of married women have experienced domestic abuse. This percentage has remained unchanged from the two previous surveys in 2005 and 2008, indicating that little help has been provided for the ongoing tragedy in one-third of Japanese households....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 11, 2012

Filmmaker says don't worry, be happy

"Wow, the weather turned bad quickly, huh?"
JAPAN
May 8, 2012

Low autopsy rate seen abetting murderers

Kanae Kijima, recently sentenced to hang for killing three boyfriends, may have been arrested before the second and third murders if police had conducted an autopsy on the first victim, Takao Terada, who was found dead in his Tokyo home in 2009.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 8, 2012

The best of Views from the Street

A pick of some of best —and the rest — of the vox pops over the years, in chronological order:
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: FASHION
May 8, 2012

Issey Miyake's innovations beat the Brits to win the Design Museum of London fashion award

Colloquially called "The Oscars of Design," the Design Museum of London Design Awards are prestigious accolades given in six categories to the most innovative and inspiring designs of the year — and this year's top honors in the fashion category went to Japan's own Issey Miyake and his team of boundary-pushing...
Reader Mail
May 6, 2012

Snorkelers should call ahead

Japan is a country famous for being over-regulated, but the new rule that I faced this Golden Week is too hilarious. Readers might not know it, but in Okinawa, famous for its clear seawater, it is now forbidden to go snorkeling on your own with a snorkel.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 6, 2012

A postcard from Kauai's 'South Pacific' paradise

Those who know me know I tend to pick up and go quite easily, as the travel bug has never loosened its hold. This time, I've made the ultimate getaway to paradise to escape my regular routine of work and college. I'm talking about Kauai, Hawaii.
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
May 6, 2012

Small fry spawn big dreams

The Shinano, at 374 km the country's longest river, empties into the Sea of Japan at Niigata City. Salmon still migrate back from the open ocean to this river of their birth to breed and die, but a few decades ago they would arrive to spawn not only in the main river but also in its many tributaries,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 5, 2012

Japan a fond spot in solitary Kiwi's running quest

In this age of reality TV, cheap exhibitionism and superhuman feats, is there still space for the common man? Justyn "Jup" Brown's reply is a resounding yes.
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2012

Costs of being too responsive to the public will

The Washington of conventional wisdom and the real Washington are two entirely different places.

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