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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2011

Asian powers scrambling for regional space

Asia is witnessing a jostling among its major powers — China, Japan and India — for regional strategic space, and a flurry of activity by these countries is focused toward the Southeast Asia region, once a stable region but now a potential area for conflict. China, which is already a permanent member...
COMMENTARY
Oct 24, 2011

Olympus case a black mark for Japan

The recent dismissal of the British chief executive of Olympus has once again drawn the attention of European media to peculiarities in corporate governance in Japan. Accounting practices and lack of transparency have aroused particular concern.
Reader Mail
Oct 23, 2011

Clearing up cost of plant closure

Your correspondent is in error on the matter of who will bear the cost of the early closure of the Sellafield MOX plant ("U.K. MOX plant closure to cost utilities billions," Oct. 19).
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 23, 2011

Hachinohe's markets serve up feasts in the streets

Two hundred and sixty-two years ago, the feudal domain of Hachinohe was besieged by wild boars. The Wild Boar Famine that resulted, writes environmental historian Brett Walker in his recent book "Toxic Archipelago," was the result of "the perfect ecological storm."
BUSINESS
Oct 21, 2011

ANA to use Dreamliner to tap overseas markets

All Nippon Airways Co. is targeting overseas customers as competition in the domestic market intensifies, the airline's president, Shinichiro Ito, said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 18, 2011

Insulation maker working to meet growing demand

Mag-Isover K.K., the Japanese unit of French building-material conglomerate Saint-Gobain, is ready to meet growing demand for insulation in the disaster-hit Tohoku region and elsewhere and expects the nation's energy-saving efforts to continue for years to come.
COMMENTARY
Oct 17, 2011

The ethics of compensation

On the evening of Sept. 10, I watched a NHK "Special" television program titled "The Ultimate Choice: Michael Sandel's global classroom." The theme of the 75-minute program was who should pick up the bill for reconstructing areas devastated by natural calamities like earthquakes and hurricanes, and especially...
Reader Mail
Oct 16, 2011

Local fix first for Tohoku fisheries

Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai's plans for growth in the Tohoku region of Japan, in the Oct. 13 article "A chance to do more than rebuild Tohoku," seem all very positive in theory but it would be regrettable if locally-based fishing cooperatives lost their powers to large international corporations.
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2011

Occupy where? Kasumigaseki?

The Occupy Wall Street protest that started in New York in September has spread rapidly throughout the United States and may continue to spread, perhaps even to Japan. The movement has interacted, in a virtual way at least, with the Arab Spring movement in the Middle East as well as with the "indignado"...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 16, 2011

In search of the Holy Grail of mushrooms

The ancients were none too complimentary about their fungi. "Few of them are good, and most produce a choking sensation," wrote Marcus Athenaeus of Naucratis 1,800 years ago in "Deipnosophistae" ("Philosophers at Dinner").
EDITORIALS
Oct 14, 2011

Step up interparty cooperation

Policy chiefs of the Democratic Party of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito on Oct. 7 held their first consultations on the third supplementary budget for fiscal 2011 to push full-scale reconstruction from the March 11 quake and tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear fiasco.
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2011

A friendlier environment for NPOs

The tax system and the law on nonprofit organizations have been recently revised to help NPOs in tax matters. These revisions are expected to lead NPOs to expand their activities not only in usual fields such as education, culture, sports, social welfare and community building but also in the efforts...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 13, 2011

A chance to do more than rebuild Tohoku

Miyagi Gov. Yoshihiro Murai stands before a gathering in Tokyo of 300 representatives of the nation's biggest companies and community organizations.
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2011

Thorium reactors for the future

Regarding the Oct. 5 Kyodo article "Japan panned for pushing nuke plant exports after accident": I despair of the black comedy of Tokyo Electric Power Co. pressure and my Japanese friends' understandable, if naive, knee-jerk reaction to it.
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Oct 7, 2011

Japanified burgers on the tourism menu

Japanese tourism boards put funky burgers on the menu.
Reader Mail
Oct 6, 2011

Plutonium perspective needed

Regarding the Oct. 1 Kyodo article "Plutonium traces found in Iitate (Fukushima Prefecture) soil": Traces of plutonium will be found at every location on Earth if the test is sensitive enough.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2011

LDP leadership reshuffled

Mr. Sadakazu Tanigaki, president of the Liberal Democratic Party, on Sept. 30 reshuffled some party executives as part of an effort to strengthen the No. 1 opposition party and to take power from the Democratic Party of Japan. But the path toward the party's rejuvenation is not likely to be easy.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2011

Return to contaminated areas?

The government on Sept. 30 lifted its evacuation advisory for residents in specified areas 20 to 30 km from Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. The decision covers the entire town of Hirono and parts of the cities of Minami Soma and Tamura, the town of Naraha, and...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 3, 2011

A short history of big gaffes by Japanese politicians

"Kokoro kara owabi mōshi-agemasu" (「心からお詫び申し上げます」 "I apologize from my heart"). The hearts of Japanese politicians must be bottomless indeed, for all the apologies that seem to ferment there. Their mouths, meanwhile, are on automatic pilot, sowing shitsugen (失言, gaffe,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2011

Citizen fund investments

More and more people are investing their money in citizens' funds. People can invest a small amount of money to help organizations that are tackling issues close to people, such as community building, nursing care support for the elderly and care of children after school classes are over.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2011

Japanese leaders will find a way

I feel compelled to comment on two letters published Sept. 25. First, Grant Piper ("Evacuation revelations shocking") uses the Sept. 19 article "Tokyo faced evacuation scenario: Kan" to lambast Japanese leadership, arguing that "alarmist and hysterical" foreign media coverage was warranted after all...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 2, 2011

Press miss the point at antinuke demo

Three weeks after Japan's biggest antinuclear demonstration, there is still some dispute over how many people actually attended. The organizers estimate 60,000 and the police say about 30,000. Except for the Yomiuri and Sankei newspapers, which accept the police figure, the mainstream vernacular media...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 1, 2011

Subtle aid for women facing abuse in disaster-hit areas

At a glance, it appears to be nothing more than a hand massage. In a corner of a shelter for survivors of the March disasters in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, members of the NPO Miyagi-Jonet are trying to provide some respite for stressed-out female survivors.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2011

Reactor temperatures said near cold shutdown

Tokyo Electric Power Co. reported Wednesday that the bottom of all three crippled reactors' pressure vessels at its Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant were now below 100 degrees — a collective first since the crisis erupted after the March 11 temblor-tsunami catastrophe.

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?