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EDITORIALS
Apr 3, 2012

Support foreign health professionals

Thirty-five Indonesians and one Filipino have passed Japan's fiscal 2011 national qualification test to become certified care workers. The Indonesians came to Japan in 2008 and the Filipino in 2009 under Japan's economic partnership agreements (EPAs) with their countries. Despite all being professionally...
Reader Mail
Apr 1, 2012

The failure to tend to animals

Regarding the March 28 front-page Kyodo article "Noda draws on Fukushima lesson": I would like to add to the series of flashy remarks made by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda.
Reader Mail
Apr 1, 2012

Sentiment that does not console

I am surprised at the The Japan Times for printing Megumi Watanabe's March 29 letter, "Hope for 3/11 survivors."
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012

An email memoir on a life in Japan

Life and Nihonjin: Dispatches From Japan, by Alex Kahney. Portland Books, 2011, Japan, 290 pp., $16.00 (paperback) Japan's habit of technological innovation alongside tradition has surfaced in recent literary fads such as the "Densha no Otoko" (Train Man) phenomenon. What started as an urgent plea for...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012

Japan's 'spiritual recrudescence'

SOLDIER OF GOD: MacArthur's Attempt to Christianize Japan, by Ray A. Moore. Merwin Asia, 2011, 167 pp., $35.00 (paperback) India, the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, the largest the world has ever known, was won mainly by attrition, though some of the later additions to it, like Burma, were...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 1, 2012

Fiction that binds: Japan's hope after disaster

Kizuna: Fiction for Japan, edited by Brent Millis. CreateSpace, 2011, 228 pp., $15.99 (e-book) It's no coincidence that the Chinese character chosen to represent the most expressive sentiment of the year in Japan, one that signifies hope after disaster and misery, was kizuna, meaning a bond of fraternity....
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Apr 1, 2012

Evessa's Washington exonerated by police in drug case

A few hours after his Friday release from Osaka Prefectural Police custody, Osaka Evessa power forward Lynn Washington admitted this 18-day ordeal was "a very humbling experience."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 1, 2012

Sky Tree to offer world's highest bungee jump

Tokyo's newest and biggest visitor attraction, the 634-meter-high Tokyo Sky Tree in Sumida Ward, will open to the public on May 22. And if 11th-hour contract negotiations bear fruit, visitors to the Sky Tree may soon have the opportunity to plummet 430 meters (over 1,400 feet) toward terra firma, in...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Mar 31, 2012

Passage hinges on Ozawa, opposition

Despite the Cabinet's approval Friday of a sales tax hike bill that sparked months of dissent and resistance from the ruling party's ranks, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda may find that in the deadlocked Diet, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
JAPAN
Mar 31, 2012

Cabinet OKs bill to double sales tax by '15

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his ruling Democratic Party of Japan-led government managed to submit the contentious bill to the Diet on Friday to double the consumption tax to 10 percent by 2015, while junior coalition partner Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) was on the verge of collapsing over...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 31, 2012

Singer finds fusion in Japan's cultural dichotomy

Japan's fusion of the traditional and modern fascinated musician Yara Eddine as a young child when she learned about the country at a school in Canada. Fifteen years later, Eddine witnessed this integration firsthand.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Mar 30, 2012

How much money do rice farmers need to make from farming?

Since most Japanese farmers are part-timers, TPP may have little effect on their real income.
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2012

Liquefaction driving away Chiba residents

Chiba's population is declining for the first time in 66 years as residents in bedroom communities damaged by last March's liquefaction decide to abandon the prefecture, fed up with authorities' failure to repair their homes and fearful of radioactive fallout.
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2012

Kyoto governor demands reactor safety guarantee

Opposition in the Kansai region to restarting reactors 3 and 4 at the nuclear plant in Oi, Fukui Prefecture, continued to build Thursday, with Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada telling the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency that he isn't convinced of their safety.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 30, 2012

For Kawasaki, new challenge provides fun experience

Munenori Kawasaki had it all in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 30, 2012

'Ano Sora no Ao (Halcyon Skies)'

Tao Nashimoto's "Ano Sora no Ao (Halcyon Skies)," which premiered at this year's Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival, is the type of lyrical, personal, naturalistically acted and elliptically narrated Japanese indie film I used to see by the dozen in the 1990s but is now rather rare. One foreign...
EDITORIALS
Mar 30, 2012

Surprising choice for World Bank

U.S. President Barack Obama has named Dr. Jim Yong Kim as his nominee to lead the World Bank. In the past, that would have been the end of the process — Washington spoke and the bank complied. It is still probable that Mr. Kim will assume the post in June when it becomes vacant, but old certainties...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Mar 29, 2012

Ekitame — coming to a station near you soon?

In Japan's new shopping trend, the destination might be the train station itself.
Reader Mail
Mar 29, 2012

Tap the ocean for energy

I was very interested in the March 26 article reprinted from Sentaku magazine titled "Tapping into oceanic energy." Since the 3/11 accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, several alternative-energy substitutions have been proposed:
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 29, 2012

EU can live on without the euro

Great significance — probably too much — has been attached to a possible breakup of the eurozone. Many believe that such a breakup — if, say, Greece abandoned the euro and reintroduced the drachma — would constitute a political failure that would ultimately threaten Europe's stability. Speaking...

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?