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JAPAN
Jul 14, 2010

Ex-immigration boss: detentions too long

Illegal residents should not be held in detention for more than one year because any longer causes too much stress, a former chief of the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau said, noting extended incarceration led to two hunger strikes at detention centers this year, one of which followed suicides.
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2010

LDP basks in first solid performance in years

It was payback time for the Liberal Democratic Party.
EDITORIALS
Jul 11, 2010

Tough call on sumo for NHK

The Japan Sumo Association, which has been rocked by the gambling scandal, was dealt more blows last week. On Tuesday, NHK decided not to provide live television coverage of the 15-day Nagoya Grand Sumo Tournament. On Wednesday, police raided Onomatsu and other sumo stables for evidence of suspected...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 11, 2010

For Japan's own good, it's high time to get into that holiday thing

It may surprise you, but one of the trickiest words to translate from Japanese into English is isogashii. Every dictionary will tell you that its closest equivalent is "busy," and you'd be hard pressed to find a native Japanese speaker who disagreed with this.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 11, 2010

Viewing dolphins as Taiji could show them

We're not the only mammals to notice the oil tanker entering the Gulf of Amvrakikos.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 10, 2010

Why I like Japanese soccer fans

The rainy season is my favorite time of the year. I just love to walk out the door and see the flowers in my garden wearing those big huge grins. But that's not the only reason I like the rainy season — it's a great excuse to stay inside and watch sports. The fact that the World Cup always falls during...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 10, 2010

Architect wants to end nail-hammer cycle

Miwa Mori, president of Key Architects, thinks a lot about nails, both as part of her profession and as her philosophy about life.
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2010

In Nagano, campaign platitudes don't resonate amid dire economy

NAGANO — Walking the streets of Nagano, it is difficult to ignore the obvious halts in development.
JAPAN / OKINAWA'S HOSTAGE ECONOMY
Jul 7, 2010

Special burden, special economic benefit

NAGO, Okinawa Pref. — On Aug. 4, 2005, then Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine was told by Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya that the United States had agreed to return all of the major military bases south of Kadena, central Okinawa Island, to Japan on condition that the Futenma air base be relocated...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2010

Can good come from BP's oil spill?

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Perhaps it is a pipe dream, but it is just possible that the ongoing BP oil-spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico will finally catalyze support for an American environmental policy with teeth. Yes, the culprits should be punished, both to maintain citizens' belief that justice...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 6, 2010

Despite 'wagyu's' history, foot-and-mouth hit hard

Although sushi may be the dish of choice for many Japanese, consumption of beef has greatly expanded in the country since it opened its doors to Western culture following the Meiji Restoration.
EDITORIALS
Jul 5, 2010

Funding social welfare

Social welfare such as pensions, medical and nursing care as well as support measures for families rearing children is an important issue. A fiscal 2009 Cabinet Office survey shows that the largest portion of those polled — 69 percent — want the government's priority to be on establishing a pension...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 4, 2010

Only connect: Japan struggles to bond

When the novelist Chiyo Uno died in 1996 at age 98, she was as extravagantly eulogized for her love life as for her literary work. Four marriages, four divorces, several high-profile love affairs, one attempted love suicide — now that was living! Society disapproved? That should have been her biggest...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jul 4, 2010

A meeting of minds

In 1958, just before my 18th birthday, I went along on an Inuit hunt for seals in the Canadian Arctic. That was the first time I tasted that rich, dark red — almost black — meat, and it was like nothing else I had eaten before. I loved it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 2, 2010

'Harold & Maude'/'Brewster Mccloud'

Does anyone remember Bud Cort? My guess is that Johnny Depp does; more than a few of his early, quirkier performances — like the wide-eyed naifs of "Arizona Dream" or "Benny & Joon" — owe a great debt to Cort's work in the 1970s. Wes Anderson does: he cast him in "The Life Aquatic" as a nod to Cort's...
EDITORIALS
Jun 28, 2010

Loans for the indebted

Toward the end of 2006 the Diet enacted the Money- Lending Business Law to help solve the problems of consumers who have multiple debts. Since then, the government has taken steps to impose restrictions on the methods of collecting loans and to raise the barrier for entry into the consumer loan business....
JAPAN / PARTY LINE
Jun 26, 2010

New Komeito's leader lays into 'wavering' DPJ, rules out coalition

New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi denounced the ruling Democratic Party of Japan for wavering in its policies and not keeping its promises with the public, and said his party has no plan to enter into a coalition with the DPJ.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2010

Appreciating the renminbi

HONG KONG — Global stock and foreign exchange markets were fast out of the blocks to lead the applause for China's decision to free the exchange rate of the renminbi. Clearly licking their lips at the prospect of greater foreign access to China's fabled market of 1.3 billion consumers, stock markets...

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