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EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2011

Preparing for future disasters

Following discussions in the wake of the March 11 quake and tsunami, an experts' panel of the Central Disaster Management Council submitted its final report to post-disaster reconstruction minister Tatsuo Hirano in late September. The report called on the central and local governments to drastically...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 16, 2011

Struggling Urawa falls into relegation zone

J. League heavyweights Urawa Reds slipped into the relegation places with five matches remaining after a 1-0 derby-day defeat to Omiya Ardija on Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 14, 2011

Busan festival takes a bold step, but is Asian cinema ready?

"Change" was the key word at this year's Busan International Film Festival, and not just because the organizers finally succumbed to the host South Korean port city's request to change the name from "Pusan." Lee Yong Kwan took over as festival director from founder Kim Dong Ho, who is credited with turning...
Reader Mail
Oct 13, 2011

Why tobacco taxes must rise

Joseph Jaworski, in his Oct. 2 letter "Downside of higher tobacco tax", states that, "In a free society, is being unhealthy a legitimate life choice? For a country with socialized health care, critics would say 'no.' Yet, where is the limit? Virtually anything can be consumed in an unhealthy way. Why...
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2011

Up from the heritage of monsters

They didn't invite the city fathers of Ferrol, the birthplace of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, the bloody tyrant who ruled Spain from 1938 to 1973, so the conference can't just have been about fascist dictators.
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.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 9, 2011

Television's skewed version of poverty

The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations currently taking place in New York continue to garner more and more attention from the American media, which mostly ignored the movement when it began several weeks ago. Now everybody in America who reads a newspaper or watches TV news understands that the protesters...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 7, 2011

Hosokawa: Weather the fall with an old Edo classic

Now that summer has been blown away, we finally have the appetite not just to eat but to venture further afield. Time to head across the Sumida River into the shitamachi (old downtown) heartland of Ryogoku, home to the national cult of sumo and its central shrine, the mighty Kokugikan stadium.
BUSINESS
Oct 6, 2011

Diversify reserves with new markets: lawmaker

Japan should hold more of its foreign reserves in emerging market assets to diversify its $1.2 trillion pool, a ruling party lawmaker said.
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.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 3, 2011

Restaurant chain retains No. 1 position in sales . . . and robberies

Why has the Sukiya beef bowl chain become such a magnet for thieves?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Oct 3, 2011

Scoring standout, defensive ace Parker brings fresh energy to Shimane

The Japan Times features periodic interviews with players in the bj-league. Michael Parker of the Shimane Susanoo Magic is the subject of this week's profile.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2011

Driving 'safe' through the Diet

The latest extraordinary Diet session, which started after the Cabinet led by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda was inaugurated, ended on Friday. Mr. Noda put priority on "safe driving" in the Diet — that is, minimizing controversial or problematic statements by him and his Cabinet members when they answer...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 2, 2011

Yatsugatake wanderings in the wet

The old volcanic peaks of the Yatsugatake Mountains describe a narrow crescent across the forested plains and hills in this corner of Honshu where Yamanashi and Nagano prefectures meet. The southern slope of the range is a near-perfect sweep, a quadratic equation graphing the land up into the sky, and...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Oct 2, 2011

Working horses make for even happier woodlands

Our C.W. Nicol Afan Woodland Trust has recently acquired more parcels of land to add to the 30 hectares we have long and lovingly tended up here outside Kurohime in the Nagano Prefecture hills.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 2, 2011

Satoshi Kamata: Rebel spirit writ large

Monday, Sept. 19, was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. But on that sweltering national holiday, it wasn't the heat that that drew tens of thousands of people to Meiji Park in central Tokyo, but their concerns for all the nation's citizens, and others, who may face a threat from nuclear power.
EDITORIALS
Sep 27, 2011

Health side of tobacco tax

Health and welfare minister Yoko Komiyama on Sept. 9 said that the price of a pack of cigarettes should be raised ¥100 each year to around ¥700 at least and the jurisdiction of tobacco-related administration should be transferred from the Finance Ministry to her ministry.
COMMENTARY
Sep 26, 2011

Divining the will of a Russian puppet master

"He took off the Kremlin dog collar," said a friend of Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia's third-richest man, as the political party Prokhorov had founded to run against Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the December elections blew up in his face this month.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Sep 26, 2011

Some four-kanji idioms are even officially child's play

Now that summer fireworks have ended and beach toys have been stored away, it's time for jukensei (受験生 entrance examination-takers) throughout the land to burn the midnight oil in earnest. High school seniors and third-year junior high students moving on to higher education — as well as elementary...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Sep 25, 2011

Discoveries to delight on the very doorstep of The Japan Times

There's an expression in Japanese — Todai moto kurashi (The base of the lighthouse is dark) — which occurs to me as I leave the headquarters of The Japan Times in Shibaura. Though I regularly dock here, I realize I'm in the dark about the surrounding area, Minato Ward's manmade flatlands in Tokyo's...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 25, 2011

Students' skills help to forge a new Tohoku

In late July, when the students of Osaka Institute of Technology's Department of Architecture first arrived at the tiny port of Oharahama, an air of negativity hung over the conversation of the locals.
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 24, 2011

Tashiro, Antlers not ready to relinquish J. League crown

Kashima Antlers would need a miracle to end the season with their fourth J. League title in five years, but that does not mean striker Yuzo Tashiro is prepared to write the campaign off as a bust just yet.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 23, 2011

Forage your way into mushroom season

Edible mushrooms are a feature of the fall season in temperate climates worldwide, and Japan is no exception. The humid climate lends itself to the growth of all kinds of fungi, so it's easy to assume that mushrooms (or kinoko in Japanese) of all kinds have been included in the daily meals of the Japanese...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2011

Where we all should mind our own business

One of the more regressive proposals in this still-young U.S. presidential election season comes not from a candidate but, rather, from a journalist, specifically Bill Keller, the departing executive editor of the New York Times. In a recent column, Keller asserted that candidates should be subjected...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 20, 2011

Osama bin Laden made news, not history

Ten years after 9/11, the instant history is being written. In the French newspaper Le Monde, a highly intelligent commemorative supplement dubbed the period "The Decade of Bin Laden." But is that right?

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat