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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 25, 2012

Does austerity promote economic growth?

In his classic "Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices," Publick Benefits (1724), Bernard Mandeville, the Dutch-born British philosopher and satirist, described — in verse — a prosperous society (of bees) that suddenly chose to make a virtue of austerity, dropping all excess expenditure and extravagant...
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2012

Noda team faces rocky Diet session

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says his partially reshuffled Cabinet is the best lineup ever, but it will need to be to face the turbulence expected in the Diet session that started Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2012

China's limits as a role model

Forty years ago, the arch-conservative American President Richard M. Nixon shocked his country and the world by visiting communist China, a country that the United States did not recognize and whose soldiers had fought American soldiers in the Korean war.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Jan 25, 2012

Matsubara ready for results on abductions

Jin Matsubara, newly appointed minister in charge of the North Korean abduction issue, hopes to take advantage of the helm change in Pyongyang to resolve the dispute, which has raged for decades.
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2012

Difficult case tests lay judges

At the Saitama District Court on Jan. 10, six lay judges — three men and three women — together with three professional judges started to deal with not only three murder cases but also with seven other cases involving the defendant, Ms. Kanae Kijima — fraud, attempted fraud and theft.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 24, 2012

American claims Tokyo cop assaulted son, 8

Elementary school student Jian Macdonald had always thought policemen were cool — especially ones that rode fast motorcycles.
EDITORIALS
Jan 24, 2012

Akashi policing on trial

The criminal trial of Mr. Kazuaki Sakaki, former deputy police chief of Hyogo Prefecture's Akashi police station, started Jan. 19 at the Kobe District Court. Acting on a January 2010 vote by Kobe's No. 2 prosecution inquest committee (an 11-member citizens' panel), court-appointed lawyers have charged...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2012

LDP chief pursues snap election at party rally

Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki pledged Sunday to force the ruling Democratic Party of Japan to dissolve the Lower House as early as possible so a snap election can be held to return the conservative party to power.
Reader Mail
Jan 22, 2012

Deliver us from nuclear waste

I would like to comment on the Jan. 19 front-page article "" Their warnings are surely in line with what people have been telling us for over 20 years. The nuclear lobby will go on telling us that we need its energy and that, if we shut the reactors down, we will be catapulted back into the stone age....
CULTURE / Books
Jan 22, 2012

Fresh light on history books

POSTWAR HISTORY EDUCATION IN JAPAN AND THE GERMANYS: Guilty Lessons, by Julian Dierkes. Routledge, 2010, 224 pp., $130 (paper) The ways in which both Japanese and Germans remember and narrate the history of World War II have generated a vast literature in recent years. School education and textbooks...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2012

Protesting nuclear power

Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Yokohama the weekend of Jan. 14-15 to show their support for a nuclear power-free world. Organizers of the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World claimed 6,000 participants from some 30 countries on the first day and 5,500 on the second. Newspaper...
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2012

Todai aims for fall start in five years

The president of the University of Tokyo said Friday that he wants to form consultative bodies with other universities and companies to achieve a smooth transition to an autumn start of the academic year within five years.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2012

Sales tax shouldn't be the priority: Takenaka

Before hiking the 5 percent consumption tax, the government should first cut trillions of yen in public spending and adopt measures to spur economic growth, former economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka says.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jan 21, 2012

Three prefectures' trash flowing down to isle

Discarded trash and other debris is being carried by rivers running through Aichi, Gifu and Mie prefectures and washing ashore on Toshi Island in Ise Bay, an Environment Ministry study found.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 20, 2012

'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark'

What a bummer. Last week it was Katie Holmes in "Jack and Jill" — this week it's Mrs. Cruise again, in "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark." The former is a comedy and the latter a remake of a horror film (actually a TV movie) from 1973. But whatever the emotional situation or physical location, Holmes remains...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jan 20, 2012

Special Chinese New Year courses

The Peninsula Tokyo is celebrating the Chinese New Year by offering a special festive six-course lunch as well as dinner at its Chinese restaurant Hei Fung Terrace, through Jan. 31.
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2012

New Kimigayo ruling

In lawsuits brought by 171 current and former teachers and other staff members at public schools in Tokyo who were punished for not following orders that principals issued in connection with the Hinomaru national flag and the Kimigayo national anthem at school events, the No. 1 Petit Bench of the Supreme...

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?