Search - 2012

 
 
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 15, 2013

Classical community unites to celebrate bicentennials of Verdi and Wagner

This year marks the bicentennials of the births of two great composers: Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and Richard Wagner (1813-83), both giants of the classical music world who brought opera to the peak of its artistic expression in the 19th century.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 15, 2013

Yume Uru Futari (Dreams for Sale)

Miwa Nishikawa's "Yume Uru Futari," a blackly comic, unsparingly sharp drama about a couple who scam lonely single women with fake marriage offers to fund the building of their new izakaya pub — and how their deception comes back to bite them in unexpected ways — has just been released on DVD with...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 14, 2013

Term of up to 10 years urged for minor in Furlong killing

Prosecutors demand five to 10 years imprisonment for an American on trial for allegedly killing an Irish exchange student in Tokyo last May.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2013

Universities to boost classes in English

To accelerate the internationalization of their institutions, Kyoto University and Kyushu University look to drastically boost the number of classes taught in English and educators who are foreign nationals.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 14, 2013

Abe push to weaken currency erodes Japanese tourist spending in South

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's push to weaken the yen is echoing through the duty-free shops and tourist sites of South Korea, where Japanese visitors spent about $4.5 billion last year.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2013

Japan urged to send out global SOS over No. 1 plant

Two years after the March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, the herculean task of decommissioning the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant is the subject of growing international involvement.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2013

China using Senkakus dispute to test Japan, U.S.

Beijing faces an awkward propaganda problem in the South China Sea, as its sovereignty claims are not against an original imperial or colonial power.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2013

NPO brought Tohoku's foreigners together

A teacher congratulates a Philippine student for acing a Japanese-language test at a local community hall. Her instructor, Kanae Sato, is from Taiwan, and like most of the residents of Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, both saw their homes destroyed by tsunami two years ago.
Japan Times
JAPAN / TOHOKU TRAPPED IN TIME
Mar 11, 2013

Residents failed by fitful rebuilding

Two years after thousands of Fukushima residents fled to escape the radiation from the No. 1 power plant meltdowns, many are gradually returning as more areas are deemed safe.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2013

To cut nuclear attack risks, take warheads off high alert

Taking nuclear warheads off high alert would strengthen deterrence by reducing the chance of armed rivals attacking each other after a rise in tension.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2013

Ending the violence against women and girls

Two teenage girls, from Vietnam and Uganda, have traveled to U.N headquarters to find out what the world is doing to end violence against women.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2013

Venezuela left with good potential

Hugo Chavez changed the political psychology of Venezuela, which now has the potential to be a Saudi Arabia with democracy. That is not a bad thing.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Mar 10, 2013

Will this be the basho in which Kisenosato claims his first yusho?

When the basho opens today, few rikishi will be as ill-prepared as the two yokozuna: Hakuho and Harumafuji.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 10, 2013

Will robots end up creating jobs or end them?

At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a management robot is learning to run a factory and give orders to artificial coworkers, and a BakeBot robot is reading recipes, whipping together butter, sugar and flour and putting the cookie mix in the oven. At the University of California at Berkeley, a robot...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 10, 2013

Two years on, Fukushima evacuees seek justice and a normal life

Living in a tiny temporary house isn't all bad.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 10, 2013

Giving the children of Fukushima a place to play is not easy

The Fukushima Aiikuen orphanage sits on 7 hectares of wooded hills — that's about the area of 15 or 16 soccer pitches — on the outskirts of the city of Fukushima. There's an outdoor sports field, a campsite and plenty of lawns for the 91 children living there to play on. In the two years since the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2013

Providing lessons on nuclear policy

FALLOUT FROM FUKUSHIMA, by Richard Broinowski. Scribe Publications, 2012, 273 pp., A$27.95 (paperback)
EDITORIALS
Mar 10, 2013

Courts send the Diet a message

The Tokyo High Court on March 6 ruled that the apportionment for the Dec. 16 Lower House election was unconstitutional because of the extent of the disparity in single-seat constituency vote values between depopulated rural areas and populated urban ones.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’