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JAPAN / Politics
May 23, 2013

Pyongyang aid hinged to abductees; report hints Noda was told of survivors

Tokyo will never provide economic aid to North Korea unless Pyongyang safely returns all the Japanese nationals its agents abducted to North Korea, the Cabinet minister in charge of the issue said in a written statement Wednesday released after a report surfaced suggesting some victims may still be alive....
Reader Mail
May 23, 2013

Perfect material for bullying

Regarding Kaori Shoji's May 13 article, "It ain't easy being a bilingual girl": I agree that bilingual Japanese face obstacles today as they did 30 years ago.
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2013

Why China's developmental state says no to liberalism

Modern history is the story of how liberal democracy, originating in Britain and America, spread around the world. This may sound like an absurd fantasy. In actuality, this Whiggish narrative of progress underpins most newspaper editorials, political commentary and speeches in the West, and frames larger...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 22, 2013

Stranger than fiction: Ryukyu fires Toyama after setting wins record

The Ryukyu Golden Kings failed to reach the Final Four for the first time since 2007-08, their inaugural season in the bj-league. That result proved to be unacceptable to team management.
EDITORIALS
May 22, 2013

Recovery only benefiting a few

The Cabinet Office on May 16 announced that Japan's real gross domestic product (GDP) in the January-March period increased 0.9 percent, or an annualized 3.5 percent, from the previous quarter.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 22, 2013

Why Abenomics hurts women

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's acknowledgement of the unleashed potential of women should herald a new beginning for female empowerment in Japan. Yet his proposals to encourage more women to remain in the workforce actually may do more to hurt their prospects by merely reinforcing existing prejudices toward...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
May 21, 2013

Visa violators stage sit-in to stay

Visa violators kick off a five-day protest at the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau to protest plans to deport overstayers en masse on planes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
May 21, 2013

Precedent backs (nearly) equal pay for equal work

In 2012, Japan had 51.73 million workers, of which 33.3 million were regular employees, or seishain, according to the latest survey by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Contingent, or nonpermanent, workers (including part-timers, haken dispatch and shokutaku semiregular employees) numbered 18.43 million, over 35.5 percent of the workforce.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
May 21, 2013

Postal symbol

Dear Alice,
BUSINESS / Markets
May 21, 2013

'Abenomics' lifts biotech ventures

Japanese biotech ventures promising to make jet fuel from algae and to produce synthetic cartilage are soaring in Tokyo trading as cash pumped into the economy by the central bank cascades into speculative investments.
BUSINESS / Companies
May 21, 2013

Goldman Sachs to invest big in renewable energy

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Monday that it plans to invest as much as ¥50 billion in renewable energy projects in Japan in the next five years, tapping demand for electricity produced from solar and wind-power generators.
EDITORIALS
May 20, 2013

Tsuruga reactor's active fault

The identification of a geological fracture zone beneath a Tsuruga nuclear plant reactor as an active fault may force the decommissioning of the reactor in Fukui Prefecture.
CULTURE / Books
May 19, 2013

Ranpo's novella of a desecrated grave continues to send shivers

There has long been a taste in Japan for the bizarre and abnormal. The experimental Taisho Era was no exception. A desire for sensory experience existed even in cinema. During a funeral scene, for example, an attendant might light sticks of incense in the theater, drawing the audience into the ritual....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3
May 19, 2013

The other costs of concrete

Where does concrete come from? The material has become such a pervasive symbol of human alienation from nature that it's tempting to assume it's just another brutish product of the 18th-century Industrial Revolution.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 19, 2013

Taking it easy on stroll-size Omi-jima

Mr. Hirohisa had made it clear when I called him from the nearest mainland city to the island — Nagato in western Honshu's Yamaguchi Prefecture — that there would be no supper provided that night; nor would he be able to pick me up from the station as expected.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
May 18, 2013

Foreign-born professional strives to reconnect Japanese with koto music

Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 17, 2013

Overstayers need speed, lawyer says

Since debuting in October as Japan's first law office catering to foreign nationals, Tokyo Public Law Office Mita Branch — Foreigners and International Service in Minato Ward has been deluged with appointments.
JAPAN
May 17, 2013

11 women in Diet decry Hashimoto

A bipartisan group of female lawmakers Thursday called for Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) coleader Toru Hashimoto to retract and apologize for his abrasive comments justifying the sexual enslavement of females during the war and suggesting that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa...
JAPAN / Politics
May 16, 2013

Hashimoto sticks to guns on sex slaves

Osaka politician Toru Hashimoto refuses to retract his remarks justifying the use of 'comfort woman' during the war and the need for legal brothels in Okinawa for U.S. service members.
JAPAN / Politics
May 16, 2013

Seoul envoy: Mayor is odd man out

The South Korean ambassador to Japan slams Toru Hashimoto for his remarks justifying Japan's wartime sex slave system, saying the Osaka mayor lacks historical knowledge and regard for the rights of women.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2013

Thaemlitz's mix tackles antidancing law

It's fitting that I should be meeting Terre Thaemlitz on May 1, International Workers' Day — she wryly refers to herself as a "feminist Marxist" before we begin our interview in proper.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2013

UKIP rides wave of discontent

Britain as well as Japan must contend with xenophobic anti-establishment parties and politicians who want to take their nations back to imaginary periods of isolation.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes