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EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2011

Welfare recipients hit new high

The health and welfare ministry announced on Nov. 9 that the number of people on welfare receiving livelihood assistance known as seikatsu hogo (literally livelihood protection) reached 2,050,495 nationwide as of July 2011, topping the monthly average record of 2,046,646 marked in fiscal 1951, when Japan...
EDITORIALS
Nov 27, 2011

Inspiration from Bhutan

The king and queen of Bhutan were in Japan from Nov. 15 to 20, and they made quite an impression on the Japanese people. Among the heads of state and their wives who have visited Japan in recent years, they probably have left the most amiable impression. Their traditional Bhutanese clothes, looking somewhat...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2011

Keeping the eurozone intact

As the economist Mario Monti's new government takes office in Italy, much is at stake — for the country, for Europe and for the global economy.
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2011

Aum crimes remain misted

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the Tokyo High Court's death sentence to former Aum Shinrikyo member Seiichi Endo for his involvement in two indiscriminate sarin gas attacks carried out by the Aum cult — one in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, on June 27, 1994, and the other in five trains on three...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 23, 2011

Time to stop worshipping stirrers of stone soup

Last month I was in Kiev, speaking at a conference focused on entrepreneurs. I wanted to give a talk that would be of general interest but also concrete. So I started with one of my favorite parables.
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Nov 22, 2011

Sniffling and shivering into a setsuden winter

With the winter winds come the usual sniffles and sneezes, but this year's power conservation campaign could makes matters worse.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 22, 2011

POWs, young expats struggle to reconcile Japan of then, now

"It cost three cigarettes if you wanted someone to break your arm for you. So you could have a few days off." The shaky voice of an American POW from a World War II Japanese internment camp.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Nov 21, 2011

Primer for decontamination

The potentially lucrative business of decontaminating areas of radioactive substances released from Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station may well go to companies handpicked by a government organization that has long played a leading role in promoting the construction of nuclear...
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2011

Kano hints rethink in testing rice for cesium

The ban on shipping rice from a district in the city of Fukushima due to high levels of radioactive cesium shows the need to amend the two-phase test currently performed to check the grain for radiation, farm minister Michihiko Kano indicated Friday.
BUSINESS
Nov 19, 2011

Resona to up female chiefs

Resona Holdings Inc. aims to help narrow the country's gender gap by adding female managers and appointing a woman as an executive for the first time.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2011

Cesium fallout widespread

Radioactive cesium from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant probably reached as far as Hokkaido, Shikoku and the Chugoku region in the west, according to a recent simulation by an international research team based on data after March 20, a week after the hydrogen explosions.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 18, 2011

Gainsbourg's muse to stop by Japan on her way to North America

Jane Birkin is a British-born singer and actress based in France, however one of her most famous roles was as the muse for French artist Serge Gainsbourg (1928-91). Birkin will be paying tribute to Gainsbourg in song next week when she comes to Tokyo for a concert.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Nov 18, 2011

Westin Miyako maple boxed lunches

The leaves have been turning color as fall deepens in the ancient capital of Kyoto, renowned for its many prime spots to view the autumn foliage. With many people from around Japan and beyond heading there to enjoy the colorful scene, The Westin Miyako Kyoto is offering a special boxed lunch, called...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2011

Time to ban world's deadliest recreational drug

U.S. President Barack Obama's doctor confirmed last month that the president no longer smokes. At the urging of his wife, Michelle Obama, the president first resolved to stop smoking in 2006, and has used nicotine replacement therapy to help him. If it took Obama, a man strong-willed enough to aspire...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 15, 2011

Musical couple's commitment helps husband beat addiction

American Mike Rogers and his wife, Yuka, of Kanagawa Prefecture, met at an HMV store in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, in 1992.
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2011

Embarking on difficult talks

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda on Friday announced that Japan will take part in talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, a multilateral scheme for abolishing tariffs in principle and for liberalizing a wide range of economic activities, including investment and services. He will convey his decision...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 13, 2011

Will trickle-down class discrimination rob Britain of what's so great?

Britain may be broken, but London is hot. A recent trip to the city exhilarated me.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 13, 2011

Creating a future for Japan's aging society

Japan is an elderly country. Twenty-three percent of its population is 65 or over. By 2050, nearly 40 percent will be. Nothing like these demographics has ever been seen before, here or anywhere. This is well-known and much discussed, usually in terms of the grim implications for an enfeebled economy...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2011

'Contagion' / 'Moneyball'

Cinema imagines the apocalypse on a regular basis, touching on everything from Mayan calendar-related polar shifts to the ever-popular walking dead. Few films, however, dare to deal with scenarios that could actually happen; that's what makes Steven Soderbergh's "Contagion," which looks at a deadly global...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 11, 2011

'Love & Other Drugs'

Sometimes in my dreams it's the 1990s all over again, and my feelings about it are always ambivalent. If the dream is good, I get to dance to Nirvana with a club logo stamped on my wrist. If it's bad, I have to take the train to get to the nearest Starbucks and I don't even have a cellphone, just a pager....
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2011

This time, how about a debate of substance?

The GOP presidential candidates, their sinews stiffened and their blood summoned up, may rightly dread Wednesday's version of what are inexplicably called debates. The candidates have some explaining to do, particularly regarding two subjects that deserve more searching examination than is possible in...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2011

Olympus admits hiding losses since 1990s

Olympus Corp. President Shuichi Takayama said Tuesday the company concealed huge losses on securities investments since the 1990s and used recent acquisitions of Gyrus Group PLC and three Japanese companies to cover the off-the-book losses.

Longform

Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers