search

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2007

Costly family plots giving way to common, no-upkeep crypts

Misako Kubo and Sachiko Sakurai are the best of friends. The two seniors sing side-by-side in a chorus group, go out for lunch and dinner together, and even pray for each other.
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2007

Is U.S. qualified to throw stones?

Why does the U.S. House of Representatives have to take up the "comfort women" issue now? Of course, the United States is a champion of basic human rights; it watches for any violation around the world. But shouldn't the U.S. make sure that its hands are 100 percent clean? Has it fully exercised its...
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2007

Motivation to become bilingual

The March 13 editorial, "Japan's ambivalent English," came down too hard on students trying to learn English. At least, that's my observation. During the 28 years that I taught English at the same high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- the nation's second-largest -- Japanese and other...
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2007

A weak case for 'coercion'

The writer of the March 7 letter "Just what is Abe trying to say?" should listen more carefully to what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. He did not say that no wrong was ever done to women in wartime brothels operated for soldiers in Japanese-occupied lands; he said there was no coercion against women...
BUSINESS
Mar 21, 2007

Daiei proposes Aeon Mall president to be its new chairman

Struggling Daiei Inc. said Tuesday it will invite Yoshiharu Kawato from the Aeon supermarket chain to be its chairman as part of the business and capital alliance between the two retailers.
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2007

Japan's past already well known

If evidence ever existed that thousands of women were forced to work as sex slaves for the Japanese military in World War II, it may very well have been consumed in one of the countless bonfires used by Japanese military and civilian authorities to destroy incriminating evidence following Japan's defeat....
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2007

Bush must do far more to win over Latin Americans

LOS ANGELES -- After ignoring Latin America for years, President George W. Bush is desperately trying to improve hemispheric relations. But his just-completed trip to Latin America came too late. Years of neglect could not possibly be erased by a trip long in photo opportunities and short in substance....
Reader Mail
Mar 21, 2007

Variability in English instruction

A thousand or so complaints from students disgruntled over Nova's refund policy hardly sounds alarming to me, especially if one considers that Nova reportedly has around a half-million students. But Nova's comparison of its refund policy to a major train operator's cancellation refund policy hardly...
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2007

No common history view with China

Historians from China and Japan have given up cowriting a single history of Sino-Japanese relations in a joint study project sponsored by the two governments because of the apparent huge gaps in their views and time constraints, Japanese participants said Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / INNOCENT VICTIMS
Mar 21, 2007

Child-guidance centers lacking: experts

Child abuse in Japan may be expanding faster than social workers can keep pace, but there's another side to the story as well: Many people outside the government child-welfare system are working hard to push those figures down. Meet two of those people, lawyer Fumiaki Isogae and foster mother Kazuko...
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2007

Close expenditure loophole

If a lawmaker locates his or her political funds management body in an official Diet office, rent and utilities are free. Now it has come to light that two lawmakers' funding bodies reported unusually high utility expenditures. Earlier, it was found that the political funds reports of education minister...
EDITORIALS
Mar 21, 2007

Educators need support, not orders

A report presented by the Central Council for Education to education minister Bunmei Ibuki on revisions to three education-related laws favors increased government control over education. Regrettably, under pressure from the education ministry, the council spent only about a month on discussions that...
JAPAN / INNOCENT VICTIMS
Mar 21, 2007

Foster-care group aims to change the way Japan treats its children

When Kazuko Sakamoto found herself unable to conceive a child, she and her husband figured there was more than one way to start a family.
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2007

Crusading to cut carbon emissions

LONDON -- The obvious route is not always the best one. Throughout Europe the governments and political parties, as well as the central European Union Commission in Brussels, are all vying with each other to prove who is the greenest. The simplest way of doing this is to produce ever more ambitious plans...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Mar 21, 2007

Viewing nature in the best possible way

Ibegan writing natural history notes back in 1968; the immature handwriting in my first dogeared notebook is a reminder that then I was just a lad of 13. I was growing up in semi-rural Worcestershire in central England, and that was the year when, asked by my parents what I would like for my birthday,...
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2007

Six-member SDF Nepal peace duty team to get LDP nod

. UNMIN was established Jan. 23 by the U.N. Security Council after the Nepalese government and the Maoist rebels of the Communist Party of Nepal declared an end to their conflict by signing the Comprehensive Peace Agreement last November.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2007

Murakami no inside trader, Horie testifies

Convicted Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie on Tuesday found himself again before the Tokyo District Court, this time testifying in defense of financier Yoshiaki Murakami against charges of insider trading.
BUSINESS
Mar 21, 2007

JAL unions call off 24-hour strike

Japan Airlines Co. labor unions called off their planned 24-hour strike Tuesday after reaching a compromise with management over pay and other labor conditions, airline officials said.

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