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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 11, 2014

NYC fans of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu share 'zest for life'

Two hours before the doors even opened, the line outside New York's Best Buy Theater snaked around several streets in the middle of Times Square. Fans lined up early for pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's second-ever New York concert, the finale to her recent North American tour.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2014

Skymark's new uniform riles cabin attendants

Skymark Airlines Inc.'s miniskirt uniform for cabin attendants has drawn fire from a group of cabin attendants who claim it will disturb operations and possibly induce sexual harassment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2014

Contradictions over Ukraine

Western criticisms of Russia's move into Ukraine's Crimea region reek of double standards. Much of what is Ukraine today would not have existed if not for the creation of the Soviet Union.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2014

Making a 'progressive' economy competitive

The neoliberal model has not performed well relative to the previous 30 years in terms of economic growth, financial stability and social justice. If a credible progressive alternative were to take shape, what should be the main outlines of such an alternative?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Mar 10, 2014

Stakes high as ailing U.S. Navy sailors take on Tepco over Fukushima fallout

If successful, this U.S. court case opens up the possibility of Fukushima-related claims from not just American military personnel and their dependents but potentially thousands of Japanese who experienced the fallout.
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Mar 9, 2014

Thousands cut off by snowfall

The record snowfall that hit eastern Japan over the Feb. 15-16 weekend continued to leave thousands of people stranded in remote towns in the Kanto, Tohoku and other regions on Feb. 17.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2014

New map shines light on Tokyo air raid horrors

In an attempt to preserve people's fading memories of the World War II air raids on Tokyo, scholars and citizens have drawn up what is considered the most comprehensive map so far of their efforts to escape from U.S. bombs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEDGE
Mar 9, 2014

Nursery school push hobbled by lack of workers

Many government-certified nursery schools are scheduled to open in April, but some are questioning whether some of them actually will open their doors on time.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 8, 2014

Media complicit in normalizing xenophobia

Since Japanese reporters are averse to characterizing domestic right-wing positions as being extreme, those positions come across as being normal, even sensible.
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2014

'Deaf' composer Samuragochi says he's sorry for deceiving

A month after the shocking revelation by his ghostwriter, the supposedly "deaf" composer Mamoru Samuragochi apologized Friday for deceiving people with his lies.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Mar 7, 2014

Nagoya students give up time for 3/11 survivors

This month marks the third anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2014

Trimming U.S. military spending

The headline-grabbing cuts in America's 2015 fiscal budget, unveiled by President Barack Obama this week, involve the downsizing of the U.S. military. The plans are controversial in light of recent events on the Crimean Peninsula and the so-called rebalance of U.S. forces to the Asia-Pacific region.
EDITORIALS
Mar 5, 2014

Much more than mere vandalism

Although most of more than 300 copies of 'Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl' and other Holocaust-related publications recently discovered vandalized in Tokyo and Yokohama libraries have been replaced, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department should leave no stone unturned in its effort to find those responsible for the acts.
Reader Mail
Mar 5, 2014

The crimes of an imperial power

It is clear from the front-page Feb. 25 article "Xi seeks WWII focus on German trip" that China has adopted a policy of drawing comparisons between German and Japanese contrition for World War II. This comparison is commonly made, but is characteristic of those with a less than complete understanding...
Reader Mail
Mar 5, 2014

Dog- and cat-lovers get the picture

Judit Kawaguchi's Feb. 28 article, "What we can learn from cats and dogs" (about her visit with Tokyo veterinarian Chikao Muratani), made me think of our great responsibility to co-exist with all life. The last paragraph — "Many dying cats and dogs wait for the people they love to return before they...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2014

China gives U.S. ambassador a racist send-off

What could've ignited the state-owned China News Service to bid farewell to the ethnically Chinese, outgoing U.S. ambassador with a pseudonymous news item referring to him as a 'yellow-skinned, white-hearted banana man'?
WORLD / Politics / ANALYSIS
Mar 3, 2014

West finds its hands tied over crisis in Ukraine

With Western powers coming to the conclusion that Ukraine has lost Crimea to Russia, the U.S. and its allies face few viable options and serious questions over future relations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LEARNING CURVE
Mar 2, 2014

Thinking outside the usual white box

Imagine being a meter tall and dashing around the donut-shaped roof of your school. Or picture studying math while taking in the rich smell of timber in one of a variety of wooden houses connected by a single three-story atrium, or attending a zero-carbon wooden school in the forest.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2014

Who will stop the slaughter?

Who will stand up in the world today for the millions of people whose lives are being savaged by evil men and women in states like Syria and North Korea?
LIFE / Language / COMMUNICATION CUES
Mar 2, 2014

Hay fever season hits Kanto region

Hay fever season has arrived in the Kanto region to the dismay of people who, every year, suffer sneezing, runny noses and itchy eyes from sugi cedar or hinoki cypress pollen.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 1, 2014

Why marry, or worry, when we can be alone together in ohitorisama Japan?

As people increasingly choose to live and do things alone, is Japan evolving into an 'ohitorisama' nation? Time will tell.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2014

China uses Ukraine unrest as argument for stability

China's Communist Party-controlled media appear to be using the unrest in Ukraine as a teaching moment to point out the pitfalls of clamoring for more rapid reforms in a large, multi-ethnic society — one like China's.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 28, 2014

Foreign nursing students get second chance

A private hospital group in Nagoya is supporting youths from Indonesia who went through three-year training stints in Japan to become licensed nurses but who had no choice but to return to their home country after failing to pass the state certification exam here.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 28, 2014

Record budget clears Lower House

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gets his draft budget for fiscal 2014, worth a record ¥95.88 trillion, through the Lower House, giving him more time to focus on the contentious issue of collective self-defense.
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2014

Just say the U.S. wasn't innocent

In his Feb. 23 letter, "Don't wait up for a U.S. apology," Paul Gaysford criticizes Jeff Kingston's Feb. 16 Counterpoint article, "Tokyo firebombings and unfinished U.S. business," for calling on the United States to apologize for its indiscriminate air raids during World War II, including the Tokyo...
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2014

To err is to trust in nuclear safety

Regarding the Feb. 23 Kyodo article, "Human error, not equipment, may have caused water leak: Tepco": It seems irrelevant to say that human error was [responsible for the roughly 100 tons of highly radioactive water released from a storage tank early last week at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear...
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2014

'Adviser' digging a hole for Abe

Regarding the Feb. 20 article "Abe aide pillories U.S. on YouTube": Longtime ally to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Seiichi Eto, was wrong to take the U.S. government, and U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, to task for not supporting the prime minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine in December. Given that America...
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2014

Cause of Chinese, Korean anger

I quite agree with Michael Hoffman's The Living Past article on Feb. 16, "Once upon a time, China anointed a 'King of Japan.' " Historically speaking, China believes it is the great master, Korea is a first disciple and Japan is a second disciple. Actually, before the Meiji Era (1868-1911), culture or...

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