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CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 11, 2011

Insurance investigator crime drama; ping-pong prodigy; CM of the week: Yamasa

Insurance policies are classic plot devices in crime stories and at the center of the new seven-part drama series, "Last Money" (NHK-G, Tues., 10 p.m.). Hideaki Ito plays a corporate insurance investigator named Mukojima, whose job is to check life-insurance claims and ensure they're legitimate.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2011

'Terrorists' got redefined after 9/11

Ten years after al-Qaida attacked the United States on Sept. 11, Japan has strengthened efforts to combat domestic and international terrorism through new legislation, policy directives and tougher immigration procedures.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 10, 2011

The power of spiders in rural Japan

Although I have lived in Japan's countryside for well over a decade, I have only recently come to understand the power of spiders.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 10, 2011

A guide to fortunetellers

Japan is a fortunetelling nation and so, to start, here is Truman Capote's famous line about fortunetellers . . .
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 9, 2011

Festival/Tokyo rewrites its script after quake

Chiaki Soma, the program director at Festival/Tokyo (F/T), needed to figure out how to proceed with the country's biggest theater festival following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11. She closed her office for 10 days and asked the staff to carefully consider the meaning of the festival in...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

What is Tepco talking about?

Regarding the Sept. 1 Kyodo article "Tepco plans to flood reactors, extract fuel": I find it simply amazing that the press continues to report the absurd pronouncements of Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials with a straight face. They have lied repeatedly about what they knew had happened. These lies...
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 2011

Acquittal of bank executives

The Tokyo High Court in a retrial on Aug. 30 acquitted three former executives of the defunct Nippon Credit Bank of undervaluing bad loans and submitting false financial statements for fiscal 1997. The ruling followed a similar ruling in July by the Supreme Court, which acquitted three former executive...
EDITORIALS
Sep 8, 2011

Local resident autonomy

The Local Government System Research Council, an advisory body for the prime minister, on Aug. 24 started discussions for the first time in two years. In the past, the council devoted its energy to increasing the power of local governments, and generally attention was focused on administrative actions...
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Sep 8, 2011

Weekend volunteering just got easier

Been up north to lend a hand? There's still plenty left to do in Tohoku.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 7, 2011

Refusal to talk threatens Suzuki-VW tieup

A tiff that started over Volkswagen AG's description of Suzuki Motor Corp. in its annual report has escalated into a spat threatening to unravel the two automakers' planned alliance before the partnership ever gets going.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 6, 2011

Kang family takes fight for justice to Tokyo

Sung Won, the father of Hoon "Scott" Kang, the Korean-American tourist who died in mysterious circumstances in Shinjuku last year, arrived in Tokyo this week to continue his fight to seek justice for his son.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

Japan in a European club?

Hitherto unknown and self-styled "loach" Yoshihiko Noda must learn to swim in an ocean of problems as Japan's new prime minister of the year. He has more than a plateful of domestic issues, but he should also realize, as his predecessors forgot, that Japan needs to re-engage the world if it is to find...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

'Top Gun' blazed a trail for war propaganda

Americans are souring on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military budget is under siege as Congress looks for spending to cut. And the army is reporting record suicide rates among soldiers.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Sep 5, 2011

University of Hawaii hopes to form bond with Japan

Hosting a regular-season college football game abroad would certainly have an impact, but the University of Hawaii is seeking more than just that.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 4, 2011

Alfons Deeken: Priest-philosopher makes death his life's work

On Friday, July 22, as the stifling heat and humidity of summer relented for just a fleeting few days, hundreds of people filled a hall at Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, to listen to a lecture by philosophy scholar Alfons Deeken.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 4, 2011

Actress's inheritance saga plays out like melodrama

Sometimes the components of a news story fit together so perfectly that you can't help but wonder how much of it was engineered by the press. Actress Hisako Manda, a former beauty queen who found success in recent years as a cover girl for magazines catering to women in their 50s, is currently at the...
Reader Mail
Sep 1, 2011

Tea party endorses democracy

Professor Yoshi Tsurumi's Aug. 26 article, "The DPJ face of Obama perplexes Japanese voters," contains several assertions that are not factually correct. First of all, the American tea party is not "anti-government and anti-democratic." The tea party consists of Democrats, Independents and Republicans...
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2011

Panel confirms fix was in at nuclear public meetings

An independent investigation panel has confirmed that the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency asked utilities in at least three cases to mobilize their employees for government-sponsored symposiums on nuclear power and express supportive or neutral opinions.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2011

Noda pro-U.S. but past remarks may haunt Asia ties

While Japan-U.S. relations will remain the cornerstone of the nation's diplomacy under the leadership of Yoshihiko Noda, the Democratic Party of Japan's newly elected president and the nation's next prime minister, his past comments on war criminals could strain ties in Asia, analysts said Monday.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 28, 2011

Is youth's 'creeping passivity' happening by design?

Last February, I wrote an Our Planet Earth column titled "Don't give up on Japan's kids," noting there that despite all the hand-wringing that goes on about this nation's young people, my own experience with university students gives me cause for considerable optimism.
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2011

America's databook is far too valuable to kill

If you want to know something about America, there are few better places to start than the "Statistical Abstract of the United States." Published annually by the Census Bureau, the Stat Abstract assembles about 1,400 tables describing our national condition. What share of children are immunized against...
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2011

All eyes on potential Maehara election bid

With the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential election set to pick Prime Minister Naoto Kan's successor possibly in a week, a key focus has been whether former Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara will throw his hat into the ring.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 23, 2011

Peace Boat-Rolls Royce talks lay bare ethical minefield

Convinced the recovery in Tohoku will result in the birth of widespread corporate philanthropy in Japan, in the same way the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake prompted the proliferation of volunteerism, Peace Boat director Tatsuya Yoshioka spent a day in June shepherding a busload of businesspeople on a...

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