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Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Nov 3, 2011

Undressing the myth behind Goya

On first appraisal, it might seem that the organizers have brought the wrong Maja to Japan for the exhibition "Goya: Lights and Shadows" at Tokyo's National Museum of Western Art.
EDITORIALS
Nov 1, 2011

Strengthening primary industries

The government headquarters for resuscitation of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries headed by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and including all Cabinet members on Oct. 25 adopted a basic action plan to strengthen Japan's primary industries. It worked out the action plan with a view to the possibility...
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2011

Noda takes flak in Diet over extra budget, free trade

Opposition lawmakers lashed out at Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Monday over what they said is the administration's unclear stance on whether to join free-trade talks, criticized components of the third extra budget for the Tohoku region reconstruction and called on him to dissolve the Lower House...
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2011

Japan needs a 'fresh start' to resolve lingering issues

Post-March 11 Japan faces the challenge of not just rebuilding from the damage of the massive earthquake and tsunami, but also tackling the nation's structural economic and political problems that have largely been left unresolved over the past two decades.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 28, 2011

'Fair Game'

The Japan release of "Fair Game" comes nearly 12 months after the U.S. opening and a week after the death of Libyan despot Muammar Gaddafi. For a story all about U.S. involvement in Iraq and that other infamous depot, Saddam Hussein, the timing could be right on the money. Still, a sense of discomfort...
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2011

Reconsider Futenma relocation

Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa told U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Tokyo on Oct. 25 that the Japanese government will take an official procedural step by the end of this year to push the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from Okinawa Island's densely populated Ginowan city...
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2011

A call for improved national crisis management policy

More than seven months have already passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. Industrial production in the affected areas has bounced back to pre-disaster levels, but the recovery of agriculture and fishery is lagging and nearly 70,000 people remain in evacuation facilities. On top of that,...
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2011

Time for more decisive action

A 51-day-long extraordinary Diet session started Oct. 20 — the second extraordinary Diet session under Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. In the first session, Mr. Noda, who had been in power only for a short period of time, adopted the tactic of "driving safe," avoiding going deep into details in discussions...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 23, 2011

Minister attacked for challenging the 'family system'

Yoko Komiyama is the first woman to ever occupy the post of Japan's minister of health, welfare and labor. As a mother, she may have more insight than her male colleagues into issues her ministry addresses, and from the start of her appointment in August she has stirred up controversy, mainly with her...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 22, 2011

Telling time with animals

There are many ways to tell time: the sundial, the 12-hour clock and the 24-hour clock. But there is a much more interesting way to tell time too, one the Japanese used in ancient times: by animal.
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...
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

Budgeting for reconstruction

The government ministries and agencies have made budget requests for fiscal 2012 that total a record ¥99 trillion, exceeding the fiscal 2011 initial budget of ¥96.746 trillion. Because the government has used up surplus funds to compile the third supplementary budget for fiscal 2011 for the reconstruction...
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2011

Scrutinize dam evaluation method

In its manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election, the Democratic Party of Japan called for stopping the construction of the Yanba dam project in Gunma Prefecture as a symbol of wasteful public-works projects.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Oct 12, 2011

New toys for retro gamers and wannabe rockers

Nostalgic gaming fans old enough to remember "Space Invaders" no doubt look back on it as one of the most memorable video games of years gone by. Japan's Taito Corporation created the arcade game back in 1978, and it has been a classic ever since.
EDITORIALS
Oct 7, 2011

Midair refueling of U.S. aircraft

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Oct. 3 that the Self-Defense Forces has exchanged a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. armed forces that enables SDF tanker airplanes to provide aerial refueling to U.S. military aircraft during a joint military drill. His statement came after a source...
Reader Mail
Oct 6, 2011

Close the air station ... tomorrow

On Sept. 7 the Noda Cabinet's new Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba made an inaugural telephone call to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in which he assured her that Japan would stick to the accord reached last year to relocate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to Henoko in northern Okinawa....
BUSINESS
Oct 6, 2011

More Europe bond buys may be in offing, Fujimura says

Japan may increase its purchases of bonds to finance Europe's debt crisis rescue fund, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Oct 1, 2011

Tepco faces 'zombie' future as claims mount

Tokyo Electric Power Co., which faces damages of at least ¥4.5 trillion for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, may be consigned to a future as a "zombie company" requiring constant government funding.
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2011

Eight prefectures eyed for radioactive dumps

The Environment Ministry has revealed a controversial plan to build temporary storage facilities for soil contaminated with radiation from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant in eight prefectures in the Tohoku and Kanto regions.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Sep 29, 2011

Metabolism: When the future was still ahead

The word "fukkō" ("reconstruction") — is once again in the air. Ubiquitous during the postwar period, it enjoyed an earlier vogue a generation before as Tokyo was rebuilt after the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. But while the word may be the same, its meaning and spirit changes from era to era. A...
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2011

Radioactive soil can fill 23 Tokyo Domes

Radioactive soil and vegetation that must be removed in Fukushima and four adjacent prefectures could reach up to 28.79 million cu. meters, equal to filling the Tokyo Dome 23 times, according to a recent Environment Ministry estimate.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past