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EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2012

New budgetary guidelines

The Noda administration on Aug. 17 adopted guidelines for budgetary requests for fiscal 2013, with a funding priority for three areas — the environment, medical services, and agriculture and fisheries. These areas are the main pillars of the government's Japan revitalization strategy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2012

Free schools a haven for kids who can't fit in

Second of two parts Read part 1
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 12, 2012

Queen Elizabeth engineering prize seeks innovation for easing life's hardships

Nominations are currently open for Britain's first-ever international Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, which has been created to honor individuals for groundbreaking innovation that benefits humanity — and which rewards the winner handsomely with a staggering £1 million (¥123 million).
COMMENTARY
Aug 9, 2012

Populism is destroying globalism

Globalism is now faltering. The international community can neither exert its power to block the Syrian government forces from taking repressive actions nor take any effective steps to deter nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea. Security deterioration continues in Iraq while threats of terrorism...
COMMENTARY
Aug 9, 2012

Populism is destroying globalism

Globalism is now faltering. The international community can neither exert its power to block the Syrian government forces from taking repressive actions nor take any effective steps to deter nuclear developments in Iran and North Korea. Security deterioration continues in Iraq while threats of terrorism...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2012

Noda forges on as temperatures rise

Tokyo is in the dead of summer and if anything, things are only getting hotter in the political hub of Nagata-cho.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2012

Navigating a territorial dispute

Following Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 18 in Los Cabos, Mexico, prior to the Group of 20 summit, the Foreign Ministry announced that they agreed to "reactivate" talks on the long-standing territorial dispute over four islands off Hokkaido...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 5, 2012

Easy-money stream scheme risks a torrent of wrath

A watercourse runs between our Afan Trust woods and a national forest up here in the northern Nagano Prefecture hills — passing, for just a few hundred meters, through our property as well.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2012

Japanese rice from Down Under forges new hope from historical links

"I think I can create a farming environment that can give hope to Fukushima farmers."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2012

Why Japan should amend its war-renouncing Article 9

The pressure is mounting to either amend Article 9, the war-renouncing provision of Japan's Constitution, or to increasingly disregard it and so make it irrelevant. In April the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) published its proposal for amending the Constitution, and the dangers it posed for Article 9...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 31, 2012

Kindergartners get language boost with English immersion program

An American English teacher tells a class of 5-year-old Japanese children, each with a whiteboard and pen in hand: "Let's write down the sentence, 'I am hot.' "
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2012

Justice for all Minamata victims

An important date is approaching for people who are not officially recognized as victims of Minamata disease but have symptoms of the disease, Japan's worst industrial pollution-induced disease caused by methyl mercury contained in waste from Chisso Corp.'s factory in Minamata, Kumamoto Prefecture, and...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2012

Property mogul Mori bets $202 million on China

Billionaire Akira Mori, the owner of Japan's most profitable closely held developer, said he has formed a company to invest in China and advise Japanese companies on expanding there.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 15, 2012

Slugs, snails and astonishing tales

Late last month, I arrived at my friends' house in the historic southwest English town of Stroud a little too early, only to find both Ian and Caroline Redmond out. So, with time on my hands, I wandered into their lovely garden on the slope of a hill overlooking the town and began to "potter about."...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 24, 2012

Escaped-animal antics are good for ratings

One of the interesting factoids accompanying the escaped-penguin story that delighted the media for the last three months is that Japan has more penguins in captivity than any other country. Tokyo Sea Life Park, the facility from which the male Humboldt penguin in question made his break, has 135. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 22, 2012

Politics is inescapable at 'Arab Express' exhibition

The Arab Spring may not be all it's cracked up to be. There are clearly problems with a large swath of nations, formerly under various forms of authoritarian regimes, switching relatively quickly to "democracy," at least as it is understood in the West.
Jun 22, 2012

An East Asian community?

The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Japan, China and South Korea (ASEAN-plus-3) announced in December 2005 their determination to realize the East Asian Community.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 19, 2012

Dealing with isolation and exclusion in Japan

Q: As mental health professionals dealing chiefly with native English-speakers in Tokyo, do you often have to deal with people who feel isolated and excluded in Japan, e.g. long-termers who have failed to "fit in" here, as in they lack Japanese friends, despite knowing the language, culture and so on?...
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2012

Local governments worried

The drafting of a bill to transfer the functions of regional bureaus of three central government ministries to federations of local governments is being delayed due to resistance from the ministries concerned and some Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers. Associations of city, town and village mayors...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 10, 2012

It's not that easy to quit

"If you don't like it, quit."
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2012

Building a nation of green growth

The Noda Cabinet on May 29 endorsed the 2012 white book on the environment. It calls for promotion of electricity power generation through renewable energy sources in the Tohoku region. Given the effects of the March 11 disasters and the subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis, this is a reasonable approach....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2012

Raccoon dog evades palace guards

Imperial Palace guards continued efforts Friday to shoo away a "tanuki" raccoon dog that has been hiding in a gap in a stone wall at the palace moat.
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2012

Citizens are main stakeholders in rebuilding global governance

The Council on Foreign Relations, a leading U.S. foreign policy institute and publisher of Foreign Affairs magazine, this spring launched a network of the world's influential policy institutes. The initiative aims at creating a forum for serious discussion among policy researchers to address pressing...

Longform

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