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COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2011

What has become of Japan?

Recently, I had a most bizarre experience. I was walking down a street when a total stranger approached me and asked, "What will become of Japan?" And this happened not once but three times. Under a normal circumstance, those three people would have simply passed by wondering in which newspaper or TV...
COMMENTARY
Mar 1, 2011

Wrong choice in Kosovo

A recent Council of Europe report says that during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, militia leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) tortured and killed hundreds of Serbs and political rivals in secret Albanian hideouts, removed their organs for sale and dumped their bodies in local rivers....
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 28, 2011

Judicial allergy to appeals

More than 1,800 criminal cases reached Japan's Supreme Court on appeal in fiscal 2009. But 98.01 percent of them were thrown out without a hearing. The situation is not much different with civil cases. This trend has chipped away at the very foundation of the nation's three-tier judiciary system, in...
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2011

Is it the destiny of Muslims and Jews to fight?

NEW YORK — Negative stereotypes and prejudices have been a constant source of friction and misunderstanding between Muslims and Jews. Can a level of understanding be reached between them that would make peaceful relations possible? I believe so. An almost forgotten episode during World War II could...
Reader Mail
Feb 27, 2011

Pawns of leading-edge 'research'

The front-page Feb. 22 article "Work starts at Shinjuku Unit 731" prompted me to make a few comments as a student of the Chinese language who visited the Biological Warfare Unit 731 site in the Pingfang district of Harbin, China. (The Shinjuku site in Tokyo is said to have been research headquarters...
Reader Mail
Feb 27, 2011

DPJ can do without some people

Regarding the Feb. 23 article "DPJ suspends Ozawa; Kan hints at election": As Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Hiroshi Kawauchi is one of my local representatives in the Diet, I read with some interest Kawauchi's condemnation of the suspension of former party chief Ichiro Ozawa's membership in the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 26, 2011

Car-sharing catching on in Tokai

Car-sharing services that rent vehicles to registered users by the hour have been growing in popularity, mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area. But three major companies, Orix Auto Co., Park 24 Co. and Meitetsu Kyosho Ltd., are now expanding such services in the Tokai region.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 26, 2011

Committed to 'making it work' as foreign wife

Forty-five years spent living in the Kobe area as the American wife of a Japanese businessman must change a person. Yet Winnie Inui, 68, still welcomes visitors to her suburban home in Ashiya, Hyodo Prefecture, with a blanket of felicitous concern ("Enough tea, dear?") and a flair for storytelling that...
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 24, 2011

Come all ye hoarders and swappers

Need some shoes .. or get rid of some shoes? Have we got some sites for you.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2011

English teachers will need support

I read with concern the Feb. 18 article "Teachers worried about new English classes," which highlighted some elementary schoolteachers' lack of confidence in teaching English as a required subject to fifth- and sixth-graders beginning in April and their perception that doing so will be a burden.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2011

Egypt's economic future

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — For Egypt, the question of the day is whether the country will build an open, democratic political system or relapse into some form — new or old — of autocracy. But an equally important question — above all for Egyptians, but also for other developing countries (and for development...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 22, 2011

Monster in Blackman case still an enigma

Richard Lloyd Parry spoke about his new book, "People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman," with Jeff Kingston. The following draws on this interview and his book.
COMMUNITY / ZEIT GIST: UPDATE
Feb 22, 2011

Navy removes captain over sex abuse furor

The United States Navy has taken action against staff involved in the case of former Lt. Cmdr. Anthony L. Velasquez, a doctor accused of sexually abusing a number of women while based in Japan and Kuwait between 2007 and 2009.
Reader Mail
Feb 20, 2011

Whale hunt suspended at long last

Regarding the Feb. 17 article "Activists win; whale hunt halts in Antarctic": This is excellent news! Finally the Fisheries Agency is seeing sense by suspending the Antarctic Ocean hunt (because of obstruction by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessels), after hunters killed just 30 of the target...
Reader Mail
Feb 20, 2011

Unrequited love for pet owners

In his Feb. 13 eulogy (Counterpoint article) to the sad fate of abandoned pets and his review of author Noriko Imanishi's book on the topic — "Japan's cull of once-loved pets cries out for German-style controls" — Roger Pulvers quotes Imanishi as saying, "It's a given that a society in which animals...
Reader Mail
Feb 20, 2011

Do the right thing with Ozawa

Regarding the Feb. 15 article "DPJ execs move step closer to suspending Ozawa": It is quite ridiculous that the Democratic Party of Japan leadership was only just getting around to considering the suspension of Ichiro Ozawa's party membership. Ozawa has effectively created a party within a party with...
Reader Mail
Feb 20, 2011

Futenma is not the only problem

The relocation of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is not the only base issue that Okinawans are agonizing over. The village of Takae, northern Okinawa, faces a problem of its own. In return for an unused portion of the U.S. Marine Corps Northern Training Area, Tokyo agreed with Washington to construct...
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Feb 19, 2011

And the next taberu rayu will be . . .

Taberu rayu became the king of condiments in 2010. Will new contenders topple it from its throne?
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 19, 2011

Annals of cheap: Only Free Paper

Print publishers find success in the formula of 'make it free, and they will come.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Feb 19, 2011

Home of pachinko opens arms to China

A Chinese signboard for a pachinko parlor in Nagoya reads: "Pachinko is a popular form of Japanese entertainment that originated in Nagoya. Only ¥100 will get you 100 balls to enjoy pachinko with."
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 18, 2011

Plan for 36-team league rejected by JBA board

It's back to the drawing board for the Japan Basketball Association.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

No substitute for authentic English

Regarding the Feb. 10 Kyodo article "Former JETs defend program": Japan must get away from the teaching-by-osmosis style that the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program seems to be part of. Other countries around the world are demanding a thorough English education, and so should Japan. Having a university...
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

Cabal got in way over their heads

It is impossible not to remark on the unmitigated gall of former British Chancellor of the Exchequer and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to suggest, in his Feb. 8 article, "The growth bargain in Asian consumption," how to put the financial world to rights. It is in the nature of politicians that they...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2011

Activists win; whale hunt halts in Antarctic

The Japanese whaling fleet has suspended its Antarctic Ocean hunt because of obstruction by Sea Shepherd Conservation Society vessels, a Fisheries Agency official said Wednesday.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 16, 2011

Battle over cooking-website users is a recipe for all out war

Although things have been changing in recent years — as more Japanese women continue to work after marriage — in Japan it is still usually women who are expected to prepare meals for the family. And whether it be making bento (lunch boxes) for their husbands or children, or preparing the evening...
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Feb 15, 2011

Can mah-jongg and pachinko parlors clean up their acts?

The clean air campaign targets some of the smokers' last places of refuge — mah-jongg and pachinko parlors.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 15, 2011

Waiting for Kan to crash

A question that has grown increasingly popular among politicians in Tokyo's Nagata-cho is: How long is Naoto Kan going to survive as prime minister?
Reader Mail
Feb 13, 2011

Keynesian theory has had its day

Regarding Kevin Rafferty's Feb. 9 article, " 'Shoganai' won't save Japan": It is obvious that Keynesian theory did not work for Japan and that the United States is now hooked on the same theory. Why does it matter? Because of the concern over sovereign debt and the problems with debt in various U.S....
Reader Mail
Feb 13, 2011

Few signs of woe in Okayama

After reading Gregory Clark's Feb. 1 article, "A contrarian view of how 'austerity' bleeds Japan," I can't help thinking that much of the recent journalism about Japan has presented an overwhelmingly negative picture of the situation within the country. With an economy struggling and soon to be overtaken...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?