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EDITORIALS
Jan 31, 2012

Japan's pension problem

In its manifesto for the 2009 Lower House election, the Democratic Party of Japan proposed introducing a minimum monthly pension of ¥70,000 or more. In their recent outline for tax and social welfare reforms, the government and the party only stated that they will submit a proposal for a minimum pension...
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2012

A countdown in Nigeria

Awave of bombings in Nigeria has highlighted the fissures that threaten to fracture Africa's most populous nation. The violence has been launched by an Islamic militia, but it has inflamed already widespread economic and political discontent. President Goodluck Jonathan has called for a security crackdown,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2012

A snapshot of freedom of expression in America

Shawn Nee, 35, works in television but hopes to publish a book of photographs. Shane Quentin, 31, repairs bicycles but enjoys photographing industrial scenes at night. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department probably wishes both would find other hobbies. Herewith a story of today's inevitable friction...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 24, 2012

Can financial incentives put a brake on senior driving?

With financial incentives, local governments gently persuade seniors to give up their drivers licenses.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 24, 2012

Troupe takes Japanese folk tales abroad

A Tokyo-based actors' group working to spread Japanese folk culture abroad is now helping the Japanese-Brazilian community preserve the culture of their ancestors.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2012

Spring erosion of Seoul's ruling party forecast

The ascension to power of the pudgy 29-year-old Kim Jong Un in North Korea has grabbed headlines around the world, but the most important story involving Korean young people and politics is taking place in the South.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2012

All parties should debate tax hike

Democratic Party of Japan Secretary General Azuma Koshiishi on Thursday requested that opposition parties take part in consultations with the DPJ over a planned increase of the consumption tax and reform of the social welfare system. But the opposition parties have declined.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2012

FamilyMart to add 600 Southeast Asia stores

FamilyMart Co. plans to open 600 stores in Indonesia and the Philippines, tapping demand from young people as an aging population saps growth at home.
COMMENTARY
Jan 17, 2012

Democracy and growth: Russia's great challenge

At this particular historic moment, the urgency of the economic assimilation of new natural and human resources worldwide is somehow obscured by the global crisis and by the necessity of reforming the global financial system.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2012

Danger! Nuclear waste! Keep out — forever!

The earliest known cave paintings date from about 30,000 years ago, and the earliest bone tools found so far predate those paintings by another 40,000 years. Go back 100,000 years, and Homo sapiens — us lot — are only just emerging, though the fossil record suggests our ancestors back then had larger...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 14, 2012

Globe-trekker devotes self to kids needing special attention

German Birgit Zorb-Serizawa has lived and worked on four continents in her career in special education, and she has spent many years providing opportunities and support for international families in Japan with special-needs children.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2012

Itami airport site to be Tokyo backup?

Imagine the following scenario: After decades of warnings from seismologists, a massive earthquake strikes Tokyo in 2022 and levels wide swaths of the city, killing tens of thousands of people and leaving hundreds of thousands more missing or injured.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 12, 2012

The "G" is silent, but the night won't be

Let's get one thing out of the way: The first "G" in Gbenga Adelekan's name is silent. Great. The Nigerian-born musician is getting ready to show Japanese fans two sides of his musical persona when he storms Tokyo next week.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2012

U.S. overlooks the true tolls of its wars

As the United States officially ended the war in Iraq last month, President Barack Obama spoke eloquently at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, lauding troops for "your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another," and offering words of grief for the nearly 4,500...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2012

Fuyuko Matsui finds vitality in decay

"Japanese culture has become too clean. Our five senses are too blunt," says artist Fuyuko Matsui in a recent interview at the Yokohama Museum of Art. "I think Japan needs some fear to stimulate the sense of pain."
CULTURE / Art
Jan 12, 2012

Fuyuko Matsui finds vitality in decay

"Japanese culture has become too clean. Our five senses are too blunt," says artist Fuyuko Matsui in a recent interview at the Yokohama Museum of Art. "I think Japan needs some fear to stimulate the sense of pain."
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 10, 2012

Student count, knowledge sliding

Education experts have for years been lamenting the academic decline of young Japanese.
COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2012

Collision of political, economic logic condemns India to rudderless rule and chronic corruption

India's economy grows mainly in the night, some say, when the government is asleep. If every economic prospect pleases, India's politics can be vile.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jan 9, 2012

The Kanji of the Year for 2011: human ties that bind

Every November, in its Kanji of the Year poll, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation invites the public to vote for the character that best symbolizes the year drawing to a close. It then announces the winner in mid December.
LIFE
Jan 8, 2012

Fukushima lays bare Japanese media's ties to top

Is the ongoing crisis surrounding the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant being accurately reported in the Japanese media?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 8, 2012

Akira 'Harry' Mimura: A life uniquely focused on both sides of the Pacific

"Iwas put in charge of this unbearably painful filming job. Even if you consider a war between two countries to be unavoidable, why, you wonder, must innocent civilians be forced to go through such suffering?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 8, 2012

Oops! Pregnant celebs dancing down the aisle

J-pop diva Kumi Koda recently announced her engagement to Kenji03 of the rock band Back-On, and revealed that the pair had met earlier in the year when they collaborated on a song. She didn't mention that Kenji03 had previously dated Koda's sister, TV baka (silly) personality Misono, but that qualifying...
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2012

Russia's mental adjustment

Through the centuries, every people — big or small — has been working out its own approaches to various sides of life that, summed up, predestine its mentality and national character.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 5, 2012

Bo Ningen bend it like the Brits on new EP, 'Henkan'

How might typical Japanese music fans look if they stopped worrying about social norms? Take a look at British-based psychedelic-rock band Bo Ningen and you may find the answer.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Japan Pulse
Jan 4, 2012

2011 trends: Social media in Japan comes of age

Without a doubt, social media in Japan brought people together in 2011. The question remains: Where does everyone like to congregate?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 3, 2012

Japanese must tap their 'inner Israeli'

Aimless, Japan has been struggling to find a suitable vision, or model, for its future. Should it strive to be like Finland, small but prosperous? Should it de-emphasize economic growth and focus on sustainability and lifestyle? Should it look to the go-go '80s for inspiration? Or should it withdraw...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 3, 2012

Kim to 'flyjin,' a top 10 for 2011

Here's JBC's fourth annual roundup of the top 10 human rights events that affected Japan's non-Japanese (NJ) residents last year. Ranked in ascending order of impact:
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 1, 2012

Media awards: Tokyo powers down as idols power up

Media Figure of the Year: Tepco A fact of modern life that the Occupy Wall Street movement brought home to the average person is that corporations are nominally "persons," meaning they have been granted the same "rights" as individuals, at least in the United States. In Japan, such legal definitions...

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