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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...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 16, 2012

The photographic cartographer

Tomoki Imai remembers well the turning point in his life when he decided to become a professional photographer. Already an aspiring film director at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the Hiroshima-native was turned onto the raw and trigger-happy cityscape and portrait snapshots of self-styled photo "genius"...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 16, 2012

The photographic cartographer

Tomoki Imai remembers well the turning point in his life when he decided to become a professional photographer. Already an aspiring film director at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the Hiroshima-native was turned onto the raw and trigger-happy cityscape and portrait snapshots of self-styled photo "genius"...
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2012

A new phase in reconstruction

The Reconstruction Agency was established Feb. 10, 11 months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Pacific coastal areas of the Tohoku region. Political confusion has delayed the establishment of the agency that will serve as a command center for reconstruction from the disasters and...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 12, 2012

A future free from nuclear energy? Yakushima may be ready

I once took a ferry from Kagoshima on the southernmost tip of Kyushu to Amami Oshima, halfway to Okinawa. Just 60 km out from the massive Sakurajima volcano that dominates Kagoshima City, our ship passed a huge granite hunk of rock some 50,000 hectares, covered in forest.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2012

Futenma problem festers

Japan and the United States on Feb. 8 announced a joint statement to revise a 2006 agreement on realignment of the U.S. armed forces in Japan. The agreement linked (1) the transfer of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from the densely populated Ginowan in Okinawa Island to less populated Henoko on...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Feb 10, 2012

New to sake? Here's where to start

"Is it always this crowded?" I ask a happi-coat-clad clerk at the Meishu Center sake shop in Hamamatsucho, as she pours me three glasses of sake from hefty, 1.5-liter isshōbin bottles.
Reader Mail
Feb 9, 2012

'Couch-surfing' not for the fearful

What makes the Feb. 5 travel article "Yakushima free-stay takes some fearful turns" so special is that the place is so far from Tokyo that even The Japan Times sends a reporter here only when the trip is sponsored, and apparently has to rely on "freeters" to come up with something out of the ordinary....
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2012

Capital pain: pay, bonuses

The recent international jamboree at Davos provided ample opportunity for the "great and the good," as well as the not so great and not so good, to enjoy gourmet meals and doubtless lashings of champagne ultimately at the expense of tax-payers. The participants also had time to exchange views on current...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2012

Record lows recorded at 38 locations

The country experienced severe cold weather Friday and morning temperatures dropped to record lows at 38 locations nationwide, the Meteorological Agency said.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2012

TSE glitch no payday for platforms

Japan's alternative trading platforms missed out on a potential payday as regulators stopped them from fielding orders when a computer error caused the biggest trading disruption in six years Thursday at the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2012

The rootless woodblock prints of Kuniyoshi

There have been several exhibitions of the 19th-century ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi in recent years. In 2009, there was "Woodblock Prints of Eccentricity and Laughter" at the Fuchu Art Museum and last year we had "Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Unparalleled Ukiyo-e Artist" at the Ota Memorial...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 2, 2012

The rootless woodblock prints of Kuniyoshi

There have been several exhibitions of the 19th-century ukiyo-e (woodblock print) artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi in recent years. In 2009, there was "Woodblock Prints of Eccentricity and Laughter" at the Fuchu Art Museum and last year we had "Utagawa Kuniyoshi: Unparalleled Ukiyo-e Artist" at the Ota Memorial...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2012

Builder Tokyo Tatemono mulling expansion into Southeast Asia

Tokyo Tatemono Co., the third-best performing Japanese builder this year, is considering investments in Southeast Asia to counter slowing demand at home because of the aging population.
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?
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 31, 2012

Tsutaya's newest media center suits silver market to a T

To many Japanese, the name "Tsutaya" will bring to mind one very clear image: neon lights, blue-and-yellow signage, bestselling J-pop albums and late-night DVD rentals.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 29, 2012

Naha gardens within a garden

Amere 10-minute walk across busy Route 58 from the polyglot sidewalks, hotels and souvenir shops of Kokusai-dori, the faintly grubby, undulating Chinese boundary walls of a green enclosure announce the presence of a garden known as Fukushu-en.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 29, 2012

Frontale counting on Nakamura to fill leadership role

An 11th-place finish last season suggests Kawasaki Frontale's days as a J. League championship contender are over, but playmaker Kengo Nakamura is refusing to go quietly as the club prepares for another tilt at a first-ever title.
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.

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