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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 13, 2011

All employees in Japan are entitled to paid leave, period

Reader A is employed by an agency and has been dispatched to a food processing company. The agency explained to A that she was not entitled to paid leave. However, other people directly employed by the food processing company enjoy 10 to 15 days paid holiday, and A has recently learned that those dispatched...
Reader Mail
Dec 11, 2011

End tax breaks for homemakers

Kudos to The Japan Times for covering a big problem with Japan's tax system today — preferential treatment based on lifestyle (Dec. 6 article "Tax, pension breaks called favoritism for homemakers").
Reader Mail
Dec 1, 2011

Don't count on a reformation

I have been following the Olympus scandal with interest as it contains parallels to experiences I had in Japan's courts over corporate malfeasance. The Nov. 26 article "Woodford: Board must be purged" suggests that Michael C. Woodford, the former CEO of Olympus, is concerned because the Olympus scandal...
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2011

Same ol' drumming for profits

Regarding Gwynne Dyer's Nov. 16 article, "The West starts beating its war drums once again": When has the West ever stopped beating its war drums?
Reader Mail
Nov 20, 2011

Poor editing hurts credibility

Regarding the brief JIJI article published Nov. 12, "CO2 could relieve urbanites' stress in low doses": This is an unforgivably sloppy piece of headline writing and editing that makes me question the integrity of The Japan Times.
Reader Mail
Nov 13, 2011

Other materials besides cesium

While Kazuaki Nagata's Nov. 9 article, "Radiation cleanup plan falls short", was appreciated, I must point out one misstatement in the article. Nagata asserts that "The main radioactive materials that spewed from the Fukushima No. 1 plant are cesium-134 and -137."
COMMENTARY
Nov 11, 2011

Two days that shook the CIS

On Oct. 18-19, eight of 11 members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — gathering in St. Petersburg for its annual session — accepted a proposal from Russian Prime Minister and returning President Vladimir Putin to establish a free trade zone, thus taking a decisive step toward a Eurasian...
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2011

Mouthpiece of the policy agency

The Nov. 3 editorial "Schooling for cyclists" appears to be a myopic regurgitation of bureaucratic rhetoric — in this case, National Police Agency talking points.
Reader Mail
Nov 6, 2011

Challenge of population growth

How appropriate it felt to read United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's clarion call for action in the Oct. 31 front-page article, "Global population's 7 billion mark could be a year off the symbolic date."
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 31, 2011

Controversy is no stranger to Nobel Peace Prize

Earlier this month, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its decision to award its annual Peace Prize to three African women — two Liberians and one Yemeni — Time magazine published online, on the same day, a list of the top 10 among "the most controversial moments in the 110-year history...
Reader Mail
Oct 30, 2011

Real dangers of cycling

Regarding the Oct. 26 article "Reckless cyclists face crackdown," in Chigasaki and Samukawa, I cycle 10 km to work every morning. The dangers I face have nothing to do with fixed-gear bikes, and I have never seen anyone riding one without brakes.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 23, 2011

Minister attacked for challenging the 'family system'

Yoko Komiyama is the first woman to ever occupy the post of Japan's minister of health, welfare and labor. As a mother, she may have more insight than her male colleagues into issues her ministry addresses, and from the start of her appointment in August she has stirred up controversy, mainly with her...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 18, 2011

How to avoid the trouble of paying double on return to Oz

Gina, an Australian citizen and permanent resident of Japan, is considering heading back to her homeland:
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Oct 18, 2011

Sexless marriages, ineffective police

Some readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Sept. 6 Just Be Cause column, " 'Sexlessness' wrecks marriages, threatens nation's future":
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 18, 2011

Agent Orange revelations raise Futenma stakes

On Sept. 26, Nago City Council became the first municipality on Okinawa to adopt an official resolution calling for the governments of Japan and the United States to conduct an investigation into the spraying and storage of Agent Orange on the island.
COMMENTARY
Oct 10, 2011

Lord, let me quit cigars, but not yet

Despite increasing bans on tobacco use, smoking cigars will continue to have universal appeal. As the trade embargo on Cuban cigars in the U.S. is still in place, it is good to remember one of the greatest fans of Cuban cigars: the late U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2011

Beware the nuclear apologists

Regarding the Oct. 4 article "U.K. expert says limits on radiation 'unreasonable": It is disconcerting to read physics professor Wade Allison claim that radiation levels at Fukushima and in foodstuffs are no cause for concern. Medical experts dispute this, among them Tokyo University's Radioisotope Center...
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2011

China's selective respect for treaties

Beijing continues to declare that its rise will be peaceful, but other countries are watching its actions to judge whether it will behave like a responsible power.
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2011

Bomb dispute has long history

You just got to love the Sept. 26 article "Two 'systematic' acts of brutality and coverup," by The Japan Times' apologist Hiroaki Sato.
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Evacuation revelations shocking

Revelations of tentative plans to evacuate millions of metropolitan Tokyo residents after the March 11 disaster, in the Sept. 19 article "Tokyo faced evacuation scenario: Kan," were absolutely shocking. If it came to that, how could it be done, and where could we go?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 25, 2011

Welfare system not faring well

Ten years ago, in her book "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled her own experience as a subsistence-level American wage-earner during a period of relative economic vigor. She found a whole class of workers who lived — and would always live — from paycheck to paycheck. In the afterword...
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2011

Stronger defense for region

Although the original version of this article was written for a Japanese daily, I initially had American readers in my mind as the main target of my argument.
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2011

More mellow pitch on wines

Regarding the Sept. 9 Weekend Scene article, "Going crazy for vintage wines": Amid the global economic problems for the average person and the sad effects of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents, I am sorry to see an article about very high-priced wines that are out of the reach of...
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...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Skimming over a barbaric hunt

The Sept. 2 Kyodo article "Typhoon delays Taiji dolphin hunt" misses the main point. It should have said: "While coastal whaling involving catcher boats usually starts May 1, drive hunting — a traditional whaling method born in Taiji in which cetaceans are herded into a shallow bay where they are brutally...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2011

Nice piece on the indies scene

Thanks for Ian Martin's Aug. 25 column, "Avoid the sins of playing live in the grimy clubs of Japan." This is a decent article, although some points don't apply so much to professional indie bands doing gigs at proper venues. Some things that work for bands in other countries don't necessarily work for...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 4, 2011

Actress's inheritance saga plays out like melodrama

Sometimes the components of a news story fit together so perfectly that you can't help but wonder how much of it was engineered by the press. Actress Hisako Manda, a former beauty queen who found success in recent years as a cover girl for magazines catering to women in their 50s, is currently at the...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 4, 2011

These may be interesting times, yet we yearn to return to normality

"May you live in interesting times," goes the familiar curse — or as the Chinese say in a similar vein, "It's better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos."
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2011

Libya's next fight: the West

At a press conference in Tripoli on Aug. 26, a statement read aloud by top Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj was reassuring. Just a few months ago, disorganized and leaderless rebel fighters seemed to have little chance at ousting Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadhafi and his unruly sons.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?