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COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2010

Not China's coastal waters

Would someone please provide the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) spokesman with a map! Over the last few months, since it was rumored, then denied, and then confirmed that the George Washington aircraft carrier would be involved in naval "show of force" maneuvers off the west coast of South Korea,...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 30, 2010

Chinese labor strife frames larger fight over ideology

Since May, a number of factories in China have been hit by strikes and other forms of labor disputes, and an end seems to be nowhere in sight. Most of the plants targeted by the strikers are subsidiaries of overseas corporations. Especially hard hit have been the subsidiaries of Japanese companies, including...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 29, 2010

No country for millions of Canada geese

NEW YORK — The State of New York plans to "gas" or otherwise kill 170,000 Canada geese to reduce the number from 250,000 to 85,000.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 28, 2010

Aichi aims to earn a place in arts via Nagoya's Triennale festival

Nagoya hopes the Aichi Triennale art festival will bring together artists and citizens from around the world.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Aug 23, 2010

LDP riding out momentum with unhappy campers

The mood within the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party is far from jovial even though the July 11 Upper House election saw it regain some of the ground it lost to the Democratic Party of Japan in last year's general election.
Reader Mail
Aug 22, 2010

Road designs discourage cycling

I read with interest (online) Tomoko Otake's Sept. 27, 2009, article, "Let's Bike!" Our organization, UWABA, is advocating for the construction of better and safer infrastructure for cyclists in Dar es Salaam. Tanzania is a poor country in East Africa and most funding for major roads comes from external...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 22, 2010

Uneasy neighbors across the sea

August 22 is the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Annexation between Japan and Korea that came into effect on Aug. 29, 1910 — commemorated now in North and South Korea as a day of shame.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 21, 2010

Nagoya mayor petitions to recall city assembly

Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura will begin collecting signatures Aug. 27 in a bold move to recall the municipal assembly.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 21, 2010

Pen mightier than samurai sword

You've probably heard that Japanese people are shy to speak English because they are afraid of making mistakes. Every night before I go to bed, I pray that this English language phobia will spill over into English writing. As one visitor to Japan said to me, "You could spend your life correcting all...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 18, 2010

Redefining the minimum wage in an age of no expectations

The DPJ wants to raise minimum wage to u00a5800 but is that high enough to decrease the number of 'working poor'?
COMMENTARY
Aug 17, 2010

Saving Japan's universities

The consensus says Japanese university students are lazy and apathetic. Unfavorable comparisons are made with Chinese studying here. Yet those same students at their annual autumn festivals can show an enthusiasm, professionalism and attention to detail superior to anything at a Western university, or...
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2010

A mixed verdict in Rwanda

Rwanda's Paul Kagame has won a second term as president. Having ruled the war-torn country since 1994, and claiming — quite rightfully — to have ushered in a period of peace after civil war and genocide, he had been expected to win another election. But beneath the calm that prevails in Rwanda is...
Reader Mail
Aug 15, 2010

Don't tempt the U.S.-Israeli 'crazies'

Regarding Gwynne Dyer's Aug. 8 article, "Let's talk about an attack on Iran": The problem with Dyer's analysis is the assumption that most of the people of the United States and Israel are rational. The fact is that many Americans would welcome the use of nuclear weapons, especially the Christian fundamentalists...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 15, 2010

Does cost of peace consign the Japanese to frailty or strength?

A series of articles in the Aug. 1 edition of The Big Issue Japan, a biweekly magazine sold by homeless people, is addressed "to adults who have never known war." Few major powers, past or present, can equal Japan in that regard. Sixty-five years of peace in a bellicose world have turned war in this...
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 14, 2010

Dairy farm output in Aichi hurt by heat

A heat wave is hitting dairy cows in Aichi Prefecture, where dairy farming is an important industry.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Aug 13, 2010

Summer's 'hottest' ice treats

aisu kuriimu, popsicles and ice candies.
Reader Mail
Aug 12, 2010

Keeping track of the centenarians

Regarding the Aug. 6 article "Cities scrambling to find centenarians": This is the funniest — yet not funny — scandal to ever hit the pages of multimedia. Maybe a good suggestion would be to connect the medical insurance system with the pension system, since more than 99 percent of the population...
Reader Mail
Aug 12, 2010

America can atone for its mistake

I am dumbfounded by what Gene Tibbets (the son of the pilot of the B-29 aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945) says about the Hiroshima memorial ceremony in the Aug. 7 Kyodo article "Fox News: Tibbets' son likens U.S. presence to apology." He is quoted as saying: "I don't know what...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2010

IMF barks at China over currency, account surplus

HONG KONG — The report by the International Monetary Fund on China published the week before last got less attention than it deserved, yet it is worth looking at what the IMF said.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2010

Salvaging Britain's failed rights revolution

LONDON — The budget-cutting austerity program of Britain's new coalition government has been claiming all the headlines, but David Cameron's Cabinet is breaking with its Labour predecessor in another key area as well: human rights. Indeed, the human rights experiment that Tony Blair's Labour government...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 8, 2010

A warm embrace for ruff justice

Some years ago, a Belgian woman named An van Dienderen wondered why so many Japanese tourists visited her hometown of Antwerp, and particularly its cathedral. She learned that they wanted to see the place where the boy Nello and his faithful dog Patrasche died in the story "A Dog of Flanders." This thin...
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 7, 2010

Mie's marauding macaques wreak costly havoc on seniors' farms

Macaques are causing crop damage in Mie Prefecture to the tune of about ¥150 million annually, the largest amount nationwide.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 3, 2010

Ubiquitous Tokyo subways moving the daily masses

With nearly 300 stations, Tokyo has one of the world's busiest and most sprawling subway networks at work today — not to mention globally notorious rush hours.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 1, 2010

A fish that knows not time

Recently, a few days before my 70th birthday, I was visited by the beautiful and vivacious actress Mayu Tsuruta. If you watch Japanese television, I'm sure you will know her from the many films, dramas and documentaries in which she has appeared.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 31, 2010

Aichi looking to host Flower Expo by 2020

Flower-growers in Aichi Prefecture have started campaigning to bring the International Garden and Horticulture Exposition, better known as the Flower Expo, to Aichi by around 2020.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2010

Economic ideology abuse

LONDON — "The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than commonly understood. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.''...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2010

Who deserves to sit alongside Chagall?

There are many ways to view the lush, colorful, dreamlike and apparently naive art of Marc Chagall, one of the undoubted greats of 20th-century painting. "Marc Chagall and the Russian Avant-garde, from the Collection of the Centre Pompidou" at The University Art Museum, Tokyo University of Arts, makes...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?