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JAPAN
May 31, 2011

Raise sales tax in stages, advisers tell Kan reform council

The consumption tax should be raised in stages to prevent adverse fluctuations in the economy, a report compiled by government advisers said Monday.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 31, 2011

LEDs make it cheaper to blind family and friends

How much can you really save if you switch your light bulbs to LEDs?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 31, 2011

Family slams stalled probe into Kabuki-cho death

Nine months after their only son, Hoon "Scott" Kang, a Korean-American tourist, died from severe head injuries sustained in the stairwell of a building in Kabuki-cho, his family and friends are still no closer to understanding how he died.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 31, 2011

Disaster volunteers find plenty to do in Fukushima

Evgeny Latypov, a 26-year-old student at Temple University Japan, passionately wanted to help out in Fukushima Prefecture, where three disasters — an earthquake, tsunami and a nuclear power plant crisis- have made life miserable for its residents.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 30, 2011

Procedural phrasing: often a pain, but always polite

Japanese is chock full of procedural phrases that sound incredibly awkward when translated too literally into English. While many of these may seem unnecessary, they are critical to speaking more natural, fluent Japanese. Even the most basic phrases in Japanese are sometimes far more "play-by-play" than...
Reader Mail
May 29, 2011

Expect powering up to be harder

The eventual restoration of Japan's pre-March 11 electric power-generating capacity — I don't know, one, two or five years from now — might not mean the end of the current energy shortage that Japan is experiencing. Do people think that once capacity is restored, they can flip switches and return...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2011

Postdisaster reading

Unsurprisingly, Japanese readers are seeking books about the March 11 disaster and about how to overcome it spiritually. In bookstores now can be found many works of reportage — for example, volumes in which major newspapers have reproduced their pages devoted to the disaster.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 29, 2011

Kan government struggles to raise reconstruction funds

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), the British economist who advocated government intervention to regulate financial health, has lately been cited in the Japanese press in reference to the current administration's plan to raise the consumption tax (CT). When he held the post of finance minister for five...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 29, 2011

The hot, sticky summer of our discontent

Last summer went on record as Japan's hottest ever, as the daytime mercury seemed stubbornly stuck in the 33 to 36 degrees Celsius range while at nighttime it usually refused to budge to below the 25 C mark.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 29, 2011

Japanese genius shines eclectic in its extravagant simplicities of style

"Live your era, surmount your era!" With these words, written in 1935, the young woodblock artist Yoshio Fujimaki gave out a cry for genius. Certainly his words apply to the genius of Bob Dylan (whose 70th birthday was celebrated on these pages last week), since both he, Fujimaki and others of genius...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
May 29, 2011

G-8 differ in reactions to Fukushima

While the Group of Eight wrapped up their two-day summit in Deauville, France, by agreeing on the need to better define international standards for nuclear safety, its member nations differ in their reactions to the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 29, 2011

Electrifying one-act lives

The late Meiji Era (1868-1912) to early Showa Era (1926-1989) saw the creation of a body of short, one-act dramas akin in their electrifying impact to the 1960s in Japan, with its upsurge in theatrical experimentation. This book begins with a telling quote from the playwright and director Osanai Kaoru,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
May 29, 2011

A garden pictogram lives on

Japanese gardens are often associated with temples, feudal estates or castles. Genkyu-en in Shiga Prefecture is certainly no exception, sited as it is adjoining a detached palace in the grounds of Hikone Castle, one of only a handful of the nation's feudal fortresses to have survived in its original...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
May 28, 2011

Funds elude drug rehab effort in Turkey

A former staffer of Mie-DARC, a drug addiction rehabilitation center in Mie Prefecture, has been providing similar support for addicts in Turkey.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2011

Quake fuels first inflation in 28 months

Inflation hit for the first time in 28 months in April as higher energy and food prices and temporary shortages after the March 11 temblor hiked costs.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
May 26, 2011

Will the 'morning-after pill' make gynecologists obsolete?

The morning-after pill is finally available to Japanese women.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2011

Virtues will stand reconstruction

I believe that Michael Hoffman's May 22 article, "Extreme nationalism may emerge from the rubble of the quake," reiterates, in its own way, the unique character of Japan. For me, the aftermath of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami seemed to remind the world of this country's character, which has always...
Reader Mail
May 26, 2011

Shifting blame to U.S. pressure

As the potentially worst nuclear accident ever continues to unfold at Fukushima, it has become quite common to read obfuscations and falsehoods from nervous and embarrassed Japanese officials. The May 19 Kyodo article from Geneva, "Japan offers WHO apology for nuclear crisis," takes the cake.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2011

International support for victims

I still grieve when viewing TV video of the disaster-struck Tohoku-Pacific areas. I know that too many people still live in evacuation centers and that some may suffer from radioactive contamination. Yet the victims seem to show a strong spirit.
JAPAN
May 26, 2011

One tough job: selling Fukushima

Hands down, the workers at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant trying to cool off the reactors have one of the toughest jobs in Japan.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2011

Export fall spells first April trade deficit since 1980

Japan's trade balance fell into the red in April with a deficit of ¥463.7 billion, a big shift from the ¥189.4 billion surplus the month before, as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on exporters' production plants in the northeast, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 24, 2011

Steel output plunged 6.3% in April

Steel output in Japan, the world's second-largest producer, fell 6.3 percent in April from a year earlier after the nation's twin disasters damaged plants and cut demand from customers including carmakers.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
May 24, 2011

Lotte's Kim suffering from power outage

The curious case of Kim Tae Kyun's power outage began on Sept. 18, 2010. That night in Sendai, the Chiba Lotte Marines slugger homered off Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles ace Hisashi Iwakuma in the sixth inning of a 4-3 Lotte loss.
Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

'Edo Period' energy outlook

Regarding Eriko Arita's May 14 article, "": I find the comments of Tetsunari Iida (executive director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies) very interesting, but I have the following questions:
EDITORIALS
May 22, 2011

A less nuclear future

On May 14, sources at Tokyo Electric Power Co. released information that would change the course of future energy policy in Japan. They said that on the night of March 11, high-level radiation of 300 millisieverts per hour was detected inside a containment building in the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power...
Reader Mail
May 22, 2011

Village mayor with foresight

Regarding the May 18 AP article "How one village defied the tsunami": How is it that the tiny fishing village of Fudai in Iwate Prefecture could anticipate the threat of a major earthquake/tsunami? How did this tiny fishing village have the resolve and foresight to build a sea wall and floodgates at...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight