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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 16, 2009

Fated winds turn path to cyclone-hit Myanmar

When Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar just over a year ago on May 2, Naomi Kato was in Japan, wishing she wasn't. As life ended for some 140,000 people and changed drastically for countless others, the Yokohama native found herself on the brink of a far-less tumultuous change, in between jobs and about to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 3, 2009

Manabu Miyazaki: Outsider looking in

Born the son of a yakuza boss in Kyoto, Manabu Miyazaki is now a best-selling author. His life may read like fiction, but he raises social, political and media facts in a manner that's as frank as it is hard-hitting
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2009

Shape of Sri Lanka's future

LONDON — One of the world's longest running insurgencies might be coming to an end with the Sri Lankan government close to overrunning the last remaining holdouts of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) forces. The Sri Lankan military says that only 500 fighters remain in a narrow patch...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 26, 2009

Ignorance of 'sustainability' is not an option

Judging from the last month's headlines, it's clear we are collectively still not getting it — despite how much we know about the environment. In fact, it seems the more we know, the less we learn.
Reader Mail
Mar 26, 2009

End harassment of foreigners

Regarding the March 17 "Views from the Street" question "What changes would you like to see to Japan's immigration policies?": Families should not be separated. There should be alternative punishments to deportation. Immigration laws should encourage Japanese married to foreigners to stay together; immigration...
EDITORIALS
Mar 20, 2009

A new Iron Curtain in Europe?

The global economic crisis threatens to divide Europe anew. While all of Europe is being battered by the slowdown, Eastern Europe is even more vulnerable and exposed than its Western neighbors. Yet, the two sets of economies are deeply connected. A plunge in the east will wash — not ripple — across...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2009

French-led amity project for noneuro Europe

KIEV — Since World War II ended, France has consistently risen to the challenge of restructuring Europe in times of crisis. In doing so, France became the catalyst not only for building European unity, but also for creating the prosperity that marked Europe's postwar decades — a prosperity now under...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 10, 2009

Antiwar groups, Almond and Michi Aoyama

Nuts! Where's Almond? Julie was with friends on a bus passing through Roppongi and saw from the window that the famed Almond coffee shop on the crossing was no more.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Mar 3, 2009

Of toadies, vultures and zombie debates

If there's one thing execrable in the marketplace of ideas, it's "zombie debates" — discussions long dead, exhumed by Dr. Frankensteins posing as serious debaters.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 25, 2009

The character of a culture resides in its language

Defining people by their ethnicity while virtually ignoring their cultural background has always been both dumb and dangerous, but there is a growing appreciation among business leaders, diplomats and politicians of the importance of understanding other cultures.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2008

Osaka governor only has eyes for China

OSAKA — A year ago, when Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto announced his candidacy, he made saving the prefecture from bankruptcy his priority.
COMMENTARY
Sep 30, 2008

Education key to prevent 'honor killings'

The act of killing is not so surprising when senseless brutality, especially against women, engulfs a community. Thousands of women are murdered every year by their families in the name of "honor." This heinous crime cuts across continents, with most killings going unreported. When they are reported,...
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2008

Lessons from Libya

Ignored amid the feverish speculation over Japan's next prime minister and the rumored illness of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was a development of real significance: the visit of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Libya. Her stopover marks the highest-ranking U.S. visit there in over half...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 9, 2008

Tackling the 'Zainichi' experience

Sitting across from best-selling New York author Min Jin Lee in a Tokyo expat cafe, I can't help thinking that the heroine of her debut novel "Free Food For Millionaires" is the one sipping ice tea and talking sex. Like Lee, protagonist Casey Han is unusually tall, refined in speech, and deeply interested...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2008

Payback time for Russia

You have to admire the chutzpah of the neocons for their castigation of Russia for attacking another country and emulating, in the Caucasus, NATO's behavior in the Balkans. Who does Vladimir Putin think he is — U.S. President George W. Bush?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2008

Truth, friendship and accountability in CFT

On July 15 in Bali the leaders of Indonesia and East Timor met and received the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) and issued a joint statement accepting the findings and recommendations. It was a display of harmony and friendship that reveals the main shortcoming of the CTF...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 2, 2008

Minister backs cause for justice

Most people turning 60 begin to think about slowing down or fertilizing the greener pasturelands of retirement.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 15, 2008

Human rights — strictly personal, strictly Japanese?

Go figure. Just a few weeks after I wrote about how Japanese courts try to avoid doing anything dramatic, on June 4 the Supreme Court ruled that a section of the Nationality Law was unconstitutional. Such rulings being so rare, I steeled myself for a big helping of highfalutin' Japanese legalese and...
COMMENTARY
Jul 1, 2008

Iraqi refugees desperate for a haven nation

NEW YORK — Several recent reports on the situation in Iraq draw attention to the desperate plight of nearly 5 million Iraqi refugees. If the situation is not better addressed, hundreds of thousands of lives, including women and children, will be jeopardized. The world cannot continue to turn deaf ears...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 25, 2008

Japanese Facebook takes Model T approach

Late last month, as part of a rare work-vacation trip to Asia, Mark Zuckerberg made a quick stop in Tokyo to announce the launch of Facebook Japan.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 22, 2008

The many different ways Japan spells 'nationalism'

A HISTORY OF NATIONALISM IN MODERN JAPAN: Placing the People, by Kevin M. Doak. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 292 pp., $93 (cloth) There is no shortage of writing about nationalism in modern Japanese history. Nonetheless, the object of investigation has not always been clear, and until recently the term "nationalism"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / RETRACING ROUTES
Jun 20, 2008

Immigrants weave tale of triumph

When the Kasato Maru arrived in Brazil with the first Japanese immigrants at Santos port near Sao Paulo on June 18, 1908, a shipload of Okinawans and other Japanese disembarked and headed out to find work on the coffee plantations, seeking a better life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 12, 2008

Actor Nomura brings noh to new audiences

If you've ever napped through a noh performance, you're not alone. But this 600-year-old Japanese theatrical genre is being updated to make it more of a 21st-century entertainment than a Japanophile's endurance test.
JAPAN / TICAD IV
May 31, 2008

Africa awaits real action in TICAD wake

YOKOHAMA — The three-day Tokyo International Conference on African Development closed Friday with participants issuing a declaration committing Japan and multinational organizations to promote sustainable growth on the continent and fight poverty and climate change.
JAPAN
May 23, 2008

Fukuda pledges full support for planned ASEAN unified market

Echoing his late father's message more than three decades ago, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday that Japan will seek closer ties with Southeast Asian countries by supporting the planned creation of a single integrated market in the region.
JAPAN
May 10, 2008

Tokyo ramps up greenery effort

Tokyo is gaining greening speed.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2008

Heart of darkness

The Akita District Court last Wednesday sentenced a 35-year-old woman to life imprisonment for murdering her 9-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old neighborhood boy in Fujisato, a town with a population of just over 4,000, in Akita Prefecture. The crimes appear to point to problems that may have arisen...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji