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JAPAN
Sep 15, 2011

LDP slams Noda over ministers' miscues

Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers grilled Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda in the Diet on Wednesday over recent verbal gaffes by his Cabinet ministers as well as his party's flip-flops on various key policies, and urged him to dissolve the Lower House and call a snap election.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 14, 2011

Fukushima man opts to be guinea pig

Nobuyoshi Ito is skeptical of the reported effects of radiation from the leaking Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. So skeptical, in fact, that he decided to put himself on the front line of radiation research.
EDITORIALS
Sep 14, 2011

Big picture on evidence tampering

Ms. Atsuko Muraki, a former health and welfare ministry official, was acquitted in September 2010 of a charge of forging an official document concerning postage discounts for an organization for the disabled. Mr. Tsunehiko Maeda, a prosecutor of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tourists ignoring dolphin culls

Regarding Susanna Duft's Sept. 8 letter, "Boon for a new tourism drive": Duft seems to believe in the misguided logic that ending the annual dolphin slaughter in Japan will encourage much-needed tourism, which has been decimated by the March 11 Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and tsunami.
EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 2011

The truly lost decade since 9/11

It has been a decade since 19 Islamic terrorists hijacked airplanes and flew them into U.S. landmarks. That savage attack marked the beginning of a new era in modern history. The decade has been marked by war, and the deepening of cleavages inside and between almost every country on the planet.
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tokyo doesn't get enough respect

According to the Global Livability Survey's ranking of 140 cities worldwide — the subject of the Sept. 1 AFP-JIJI article "Melbourne replaces Vancouver as the world's 'most-livable city'" — Tokyo came in 18th while Osaka was 12th! This annual survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit tends to rank...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 6, 2011

Kang family takes fight for justice to Tokyo

Sung Won, the father of Hoon "Scott" Kang, the Korean-American tourist who died in mysterious circumstances in Shinjuku last year, arrived in Tokyo this week to continue his fight to seek justice for his son.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Sep 6, 2011

'Sexlessness' wrecks marriages, threatens nation's future

In its cover story last month, The Economist newsmagazine looked at the issue of "Asia's lonely hearts: Why Asian women are rejecting marriage and what that means." It offered many reasons — including economics, education level, changes in family structures and gender roles, divorce difficulties, and...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2011

Japan in a European club?

Hitherto unknown and self-styled "loach" Yoshihiko Noda must learn to swim in an ocean of problems as Japan's new prime minister of the year. He has more than a plateful of domestic issues, but he should also realize, as his predecessors forgot, that Japan needs to re-engage the world if it is to find...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 4, 2011

As 9/11 nears, morality dictates we recall victims of America, too

In the lead-up this week to the 10th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, it is important to keep in mind this: Dates take on a mythical significance that may mask reality.
COMMENTARY
Sep 3, 2011

Doctors among victims in Arab uprisings

Doctors and medical personnel have become additional victims of the uprising taking place in several Arab countries. Attacks on doctors violate the principle of medical neutrality that ensures that doctors and medical personnel should be free to treat those in need — regardless of politics, race or...
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2011

Noda's key first task: filling Edano's shoes

Prime Minister-elect Yoshihiko Noda is looking to form an administrative team that satisfies loyalists of disgraced Democratic Party of Japan kingpin Ichiro Ozawa and his own allies, and one main task will be picking a right-hand man to fill the shoes of Yukio Edano, the departing chief Cabinet secretary....
EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2011

Leading a nation in crisis

Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers on Monday chose Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda as the party's new chief. On Tuesday, the Diet elected him as Japan's new prime minister, succeeding Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Aug 30, 2011

Markets relieved by Noda but obstacles remain

Market watchers and political experts welcomed the victory of Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda, an advocate of a tax hike and a fiscal hawk, in the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential race Monday but the new DPJ leader, who was expected to be appointed prime minister Tuesday, faces an uphill battle...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2011

Texas governor pushes EU-style federalism

You wouldn't think that the governor of Texas, the most conservative of the viable candidates in the Republican presidential field, would want to make the United States more like Europe. Unless, of course, you have read Rick Perry's book.
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Where did Agent Orange stop?

Regarding Jon Mitchell's Aug. 24 article "Okinawa vet blames cancer on defoliant": The Japan Times journalists working on this very controversial story should be considered eligible for a Pulitzer Prize. I don't know of any newspaper in the United States that is reporting on this story. There are probably...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

U.S. response will cause chaos

Regarding Barry Eichengreen's opinion article, "What can take the dollar's place?": The naivete of the American consumer and the greed of international corporations allowed the accumulation of dollars in Japan and China, which were used to further the economic needs of those outside the United States...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 28, 2011

Is youth's 'creeping passivity' happening by design?

Last February, I wrote an Our Planet Earth column titled "Don't give up on Japan's kids," noting there that despite all the hand-wringing that goes on about this nation's young people, my own experience with university students gives me cause for considerable optimism.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2011

Contenders' backgrounds

Seiji Maehara Seiji Maehara represents Kyoto's No. 2 electoral district, a cultural cornucopia where in some ways he could be considered an outsider.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 27, 2011

Aichi training medical interpreters for foreigners

The Aichi Prefectural Government is running a project to train medical interpreters in English, Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish to help improve communication between foreign patients and doctors.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2011

Ban on beef shipments lifted

The government on Thursday lifted the last bans on shipments of beef cattle — from Iwate, Fukushima and Tochigi prefectures — suspended due to leaks of radioactive material from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

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