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EDITORIALS
Jun 24, 2011

Restart of reactors is premature

Trade and industry minister Banri Kaieda on June 18 declared that the nation's operators of commercial nuclear power facilities had taken adequate measures to handle severe accidents and called for restarting the power plants.
BUSINESS
Jun 22, 2011

Nation needs nuclear power for main energy source: Kepco head

Japan needs nuclear power as its main energy source and shouldn't follow European examples in banning new reactors, according to Shosuke Mori, chairman of Kansai Electric Power Co., the nation's second-biggest utility.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 21, 2011

Time to give nuke watchdog teeth

A government report about the Fukushima No. 1 power plant crisis released June 7 mentions the need to review the way the nuclear power industry is regulated.
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2011

Justice Ministry plans to ditch refugee role

The parliamentary secretary of the Justice Ministry said Monday that the Democratic Party of Japan-led government will aim to establish a new organization to deal specifically with refugee issues and eliminate that function from the ministry.
COMMENTARY
Jun 20, 2011

Living with national universities

In fiscal 2004, the state-run national universities in Japan were given the status of "corporations." The initial six-year "medium term" after this shift to "national university corporations" ended in fiscal 2009. The current fiscal year is the second year of the second medium term.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 20, 2011

Let one character lead to enlightenment and civilization

Many of Japan's admired historic figures were adulated for being "warrior scholars," since they were equally adept at leading armies and composing poems. This ideal is referred to as 文武両道 (bunbu ryodō). Bun refers to writing and by extension the literary arts. Bu relates to martial or military...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2011

Opinion article at war with itself

In his June 14 article, "Japan gropes for leadership," Kazuo Ogoura writes in tautologies and paradoxes. He asserts that Japan has built a "safe and efficient society" by concentrating on safety and efficiency, yet he insists that this effort has left Japan, "vulnerable to natural and human disasters,"...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 19, 2011

Seibu Dome still a nice place to take in a game

Been out to a game at Seibu Dome recently?
EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2011

Fleeing natural disasters

Last year, 42 million people worldwide were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters, the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center reported two weeks ago. The worst year on record, 2010 saw problems worldwide, with 15 million forced to leave their homes in China and 11 million in Pakistan...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 19, 2011

All hail the Constitution's vacuous guarantee of freedom of thought

Fifty years ago this month, I faced an agonizing personal dilemma. As president of the student body at my Los Angeles high school, I was obliged to lead my fellow students, teachers and staff in reciting the "Pledge of Allegiance," the oath of loyalty to the United States of America, at our graduation...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 19, 2011

Conduct most becoming of Sado's Berlin triumph

In the past two weeks, three television programs, each on a different network, covered conductor Yutaka Sado's debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. Though Sado's one-off gig would normally mean little outside the rarefied world of classical music, TBS and NHK each decided it merited an in-depth special....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 17, 2011

Tokyo and Yokohama festival celebrates the art of brevity

Short films have traditionally been seen as a director's starting block toward making their first feature. Yet with the art of filmmaking becoming ever cheaper, many have been sidestepping the short-film format, instead heading straight for a low-budget feature film. Yet short films are an art form in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 17, 2011

Superfly takes a heavy trip

Hang on a minute, how did this happen? Somehow hippie-loving 1960s-throwback pop songstress Superfly has got, like, totally heavy, man. While her previous studio album, 2009's "Box Emotions," featured a couple of belters, new release "Mind Travel" does away with soppy ballads almost completely, favoring...
COMMENTARY
Jun 17, 2011

Triple disaster proves need for an industrial revolution

Some three months since the colossal earthquake and tsunami in eastern Japan, stricken areas are getting on track for recovery with local industrial production capacity having been restored to as much as 90 percent of pre-disaster levels.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 17, 2011

Quake-proof building makers prepare for bigger shock

As Japan's record earthquake struck at 2:46 p.m on March 11, Hidenori Tsukatani crawled under his desk and thought to himself: Now we will find out.
Reader Mail
Jun 16, 2011

Disappointing antinuke coverage

Regarding the June 12 front-page article "Three months marked since killer quake, tsunami": I was very disappointed by The Japan Times so-called coverage of the worldwide demonstrations against nuclear power held June 11.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 16, 2011

'Remembrance of the Future to Come'

Basel, Switzerland Closes June 29
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 16, 2011

JR puts on a show of faces for public causes

When French photographer-turned-street artist JR visited Tokyo in May, he commented, "I love the vibe here but I don't see enough art in the street." His latest project, "Inside Out," may lead the way to help change this.
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2011

Welfare reform and cost issue

The government's conference on reform of social welfare spending and taxes, chaired by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, proposed on June 2 raising the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent to 10 percent in phases by fiscal 2015 to secure stable funds for maintaining and strengthening social welfare....
Reader Mail
Jun 12, 2011

Respect comes with the territory

Whenever I read an article like the June 7 editorial, "Constraint on teachers' thought," I always think of the aftermath of the Pacific War, when Japan was reborn from a militaristic country to a nonmilitaristic one. That said, Japan should have made a new national flag and a national anthem while it...
MORE SPORTS
Jun 12, 2011

Ishikawa's goal still putting on green jacket at Masters

Ryo Ishikawa doesn't own a crystal ball. Nevertheless, the teenage golf star says he knows where his future is going to lead him.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 12, 2011

Heights of survival

When the March 11 tsunami hit the village of Yoshihama in Iwate Prefecture, the water overran a seawall, smashed through a coastal pine forest, poured over a large embankment and then surged up a long, low-lying valley. It was a scenario almost identical to that being played out at dozens of settlements...
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2011

Kesennuma Filipinos closer-knit than ever

Like many residents of this port city known for its rich bonito, saury and shark fin catches, Marivel Gunji had worked in the fisheries industry, in her case for more than a decade. When the earthquake hit March 11, she was at her factory slicing up fish that seemed to suddenly come back to life.

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’