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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Dec 21, 2011

2011: The year when Japan went global over social networking

Over the past year, major U.S. social-media services have made some serious inroads into Japan. Here are some recent developments.
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 2011

North Korea at a crossroads

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il on Saturday, reported by Pyongyang's special broadcast from noon Monday, could destabilize the isolated communist country as well as all of the Korean Peninsula. Events unfolding in the North Korean leadership must be watched carefully to prepare for possible...
COMMENTARY
Dec 19, 2011

Why are monotheisms so sexually obsessed?

One should not mock the sexual obsessions of Islamic fundamentalists; it's like shooting fish in a barrel.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 19, 2011

Lawmaker attitudes, Tohoku both in dire need of transformation

The extraordinary Diet session closed Dec. 9 after the Upper House endorsed the opposition-submitted censure motion against Defense Minister Yasuo Ichikawa and consumer affairs chief Kenji Yamaoka. Was anything else accomplished? The legislature passed the third extra budget of the year for disaster...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 18, 2011

Education for all from '60s Tokyo tale

J-BOYS: Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965, by Shogo Oketani. Stone Bridge Press, 2011, 211 pp., $9.95 (paperback) Like an affliction that allows you to function in an apparently normal manner but seditiously disables the sufferer, the dark legacy of war, never far from the minds of the adults in the story,...
Japan Times
SOCCER / World cup
Dec 18, 2011

Santos ready for duel against mighty Barca

Santos manager Muricy Ramalho has vowed to stand up to Barcelona and fight fire with fire in the Club World Cup final on Sunday night.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 18, 2011

Cultures mingle amid Atami's hot springs

She was on a train from Tokyo to Atami in the summer of 1959 when the English travel writer Ethel Mannin "saw what I had read about and been told about but felt unable to accept until I had seen it for myself."
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2011

Nursing home dilemma

The health and welfare ministry is pushing a plan to increase the number of "single-unit rooms" in nursing home facilities for the elderly. Such rooms are placed around a common space so that elderly people can maintain relationships with others while enjoying privacy in their rooms. The ministry also...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2011

Merkozy's euro suicide pact

British Euro-skeptics and many Conservatives were triumphant that Prime Minister David Cameron cast his veto in defense of the City of London at the European summit recently; to British liberals, it was a night of shame that the United Kingdom was so easily isolated; to Europe generally it was a chance...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2011

Australians recall POW ordeals

Former Australian prisoner of war Alfred Ellwood can vividly recall being interrogated and at times tortured by the Imperial Japanese Army's notorious military police after he was captured in East Timor, an experience that scarred him most of his life.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 16, 2011

Snowman fest gives families a cool time

Snow in Osaka is rare this time of year, but the organizers of the Umeda Snowman Festival aren't going to let that stop them from trying to create a winter wonderland.
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2011

Bills passed, and passed over

During a 51-day extraordinary session, which ended Dec. 9, the Diet passed the third fiscal 2011 supplementary budget and a bill for raising the income tax for 25 years, both aimed at funding reconstruction from the March 11 disasters and the Fukushima nuclear fiasco. The Liberal Democratic Party and...
COMMENTARY
Dec 14, 2011

China should heed Deng's warning

Last week, President Hu Jintao urged the Chinese Navy to accelerate its transformation and "make extended preparations for warfare." While perhaps unexceptional, the words caught the attention of the foreign media and that of China's neighbors, which generally do not have much of a navy to speak of....
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 13, 2011

Politicians' pay: Even more than you think

Each Diet member costs taxpayers more than u00a560 million a year.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 13, 2011

Real cause of nuclear crisis

Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the operator of the stricken Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Station, has been insisting that the culprit that caused the nuclear crisis was the huge tsunami that hit the plant after the March 11 earthquake. But evidence is mounting that the meltdown at the nuclear power...
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 13, 2011

What will be Japan's next big cultural export?

Cezar ConstantinRestaurateur, 34 (Romanian)Tourism. Japan is very special, very different to anywhere else in the world. The culture and history are very well-preserved, and many of the traditions are still alive here.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Dec 13, 2011

What will be Japan's next big cultural export?

Cezar ConstantinRestaurateur, 34 (Romanian)Tourism. Japan is very special, very different to anywhere else in the world. The culture and history are very well-preserved, and many of the traditions are still alive here.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Dec 13, 2011

Stepping in the right fashion-forward directions

Opening ceremony for Kenzo Kenzo is one of Japan's most long-standing fashion houses, so it is understandable that it has undergone quite a few changes in its 41-year history — especially since Kenzo Takada himself retired in 1999.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 11, 2011

Chilling out in a warm Kume Island way

The first thing a good beach does is immediately make you want to take your watch off. But what makes a really great beach is when you do that — and then kick off your shoes as well. That's exactly what I did when I arrived at Eef Beach on Kume Island, Okinawa.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 11, 2011

'Chushingura' in a wide-show style; Watanabe/Minami's TV drama debut; CM of the week: Saikyo Jump

Dec. 14 is a special day in Japan. On that date in 1702, the 47 retainers of the Lord of Ako exacted revenge on Kira Kozuke-no-suke, the Edo official who caused their lord's death a year earlier. This story is known popularly as "Chushingura" and has been adapted hundreds of times in various forms.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 9, 2011

Ticket giveaway: 'Devil's Double'

The Japan Times has 15 pairs of tickets to give away free to readers for an exclusive prerelease screening of "Devil's Double" on Jan. 6 at a central Tokyo location.
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2011

70 years since Pearl Harbor attack

Seventy years have passed since Dec. 8, 1941 (Japan time), when more than 300 Japanese bombers, torpedo bombers and fighters from an aircraft carrier task force attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. The attack exploded, sank or severely damaged five U.S. battleships, among other seacraft, and killed some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 8, 2011

Active Child, How To Dress Well find their voices

"It will leave you feeling inspired and loved."

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan