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JAPAN
Jan 16, 2008

Long-term residents may face language test

The government may require long-term foreign residents to have a certain level of Japanese proficiency, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2008

Slowdown in housing starts

Repercussions from the fabrication of quake-resistance data by structural engineer Mr. Hidetsugu Aneha and other engineers continue two years after the scandal first surfaced. In the wake of the scandal, the Building Standards Law has been revised to make buildings safer. Since the revision took effect...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 16, 2008

Japan toughens up on Internet regulation

In a country with one of the world's most vibrant Internet cultures, rumblings of change in the way that online information is managed, controlled and regulated is causing concern for many.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2008

Fukuda again rejects calling early election

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reiterated on Tuesday his reluctance to dissolve the Lower House for a snap general election before the Group of Eight summit this July in Hokkaido.
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2008

Reviews of films set in Japan

In the Jan. 4 article "Once again, here comes the West to the Orient," writer Kaori Shoji labels the film "Silk" Orientalist, but fails to provide any convincing evidence for this pejorative. Her one relevant criticism is that a village lord speaking English in pre-Meiji Japan would have been "an impossible...
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2008

Check on overseas phone charges

Are phone companies in the habit of failing to tell their customers about what charges they have to pay?
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2008

Taiwan votes for change

Legislative elections in Taiwan have given the opposition Nationalist (KMT) party a two-thirds majority and handed President Chen Shui-bian a stunning rejection. Voters turned their back on Mr. Chen's confrontational politics and his focus on national identity over practical measures to improve the lives...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2008

Canine style unleashed as dogs hit catwalks in Tokyo

These days, dogs want to be in fashion, too.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 13, 2008

Single parenting drama, variety commonplace talents, childbirth drama

SMAP band member Shingo Katori, whose last TV drama job was playing a monkey, gets to be more than human in the new series "Bara no Nai Hanaya (A Florist Without Roses)" (Fuji, Monday, 9 p.m.). Katori plays Eiji, a young widower with an 8-year-old daughter, Shizuku. He saves his money for years to fulfill...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 13, 2008

'The Third Party' is a charm

THE THIRD PARTY by Glenn Patterson, Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2007, 169 pp., £7.99 (paper) An unnamed businessman and a well-known novelist, both from Belfast, meet while checking into a hotel in Hiroshima. The recognition of a shared home, so far away, is awkward and unwilling, but over the coming...
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2008

The year of sake

The Year of the Rat may also turn out to be the Year of Sake. Last year, exports of sake (Japanese rice wine), rose to the highest level since a passing miniboom 11 years ago. The just-finished Year of the Boar saw a 10 percent increase over 2006 and a 40 percent increase since 2001. All signs point...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 13, 2008

Japan's wild genius of slime-mold fame and more

First of two parts
Reader Mail
Jan 13, 2008

Get used to lower domestic sales

The Jan. 8 article " '07 vehicle sales lowest in 35 years" indicates that Japan is finally waking up to reality. Domestic sales in Japan will decline in nearly every sector. Fewer people mean lower sales. There is no cure but immigration, and that will never happen on the scale needed to produce results...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Jan 13, 2008

Ranking Japan's most scenic skylines

Mountaintop vistas and an absence of patrol cars make for a slice of motoring heaven.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2008

Lower House rams through antiterrorism bill

For the first time in half a century, the Lower House on Friday overrode the Upper, ramming a bill through the Diet to resume the Maritime Self-Defense Force refueling duty in the Indian Ocean.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 12, 2008

Vote of confidence kiss of death for Allardyce with Magpies

LONDON — Sam Allardyce probably knew the end was in sight when Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley and chairman Chris Mort said it wasn't. Ashley's stock reply to speculation about his manager's future was to tell people not to listen to rumors.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2008

U.S.-China ties worry Ishihara

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, head of Asia's wealthiest metropolis, says the United States and China will form stronger ties and leave Japan behind because of the two countries' "money worship."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2008

Billing Catch-22 traps patients

On Oct. 6, 2005, when Nobuhito Kiyosato went to the Kanagawa Cancer Center, where he had been treated for kidney cancer since 2001, he was told there would be a major change in his treatment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2008

'Le Faute a Fidel!'

Children are often much more conservative than adults give them credit for. Many prefer orderliness over chaos, predictability over confusion, and custom over trends that come and go.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Jan 11, 2008

"The Notorious Bettie Page"

Director: Mary Harron
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2008

Mistaken economic policies

Another year, another budget. And yet another increase in public debt as tax revenues yet again fail to provide the funds needed even for the budget's highly restricted outlays.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2008

Variety of statuses for Koreans

Misao Nakayama's Dec. 30 letter, "Korean workers not used as slaves," and Susan Menadue-Chun's Jan. 6 letter, "Deafness to survivors' stories," represent two extremes. Menadue-Chun is right to point out that most Chosenese (Japanese nationals with registers in Chosen, the name for "Korea" when it became...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2008

Establish limits on naval support to U.S.

As the debate continues in Japan's Diet this month over a new Antiterrorism Special Measures Law (ASM Law) authorizing Japanese naval force activities in the Indian Ocean, serious attention must be paid to the issues of exactly how such activity is to be limited, and how the Diet can meaningfully monitor...

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?