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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 11, 2012

Three steps to judging whether a disciplinary measure is legal

An English teacher writes: "Recently, my company placed me on a three-month suspension from work, until five days before my fixed-period employment contract expires. As I am still employed, I cannot claim unemployment benefits, and this lengthy period makes it almost financially prohibitive to remain...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 11, 2012

Hotelier sees disaster bring out best in Japanese

As a veteran of the tourism and hotel industries in Japan for more than two decades, Tony Virili says he will "never forget" what took place at one of his firm's franchise hotels in Sendai on March 11, 2011.
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2012

Squabbles that cloud the future

Regarding the Sept. 5 question-and-answer article "Island row with South Korea rooted in rival historic claims": In the context of Japan's deliberate policy to obscure the past through its junior high school history textbooks, which have so frequently been used as blunt political weapons to euphemize...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 9, 2012

Putin's siege-mentality Russia now firmly in the grip of a 'cold civil war'

There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke about two rival groups of archeologists who cannot agree on the age of a mummy discovered in Central Asia. At their wits' end, they call in the NKVD — the name of the dreaded KGB in Stalin's time — to settle the dispute.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2012

Where Obama and Romney differ on foreign policy

This presidential election will likely determine whether the United States and Russia undertake a major new reduction of nuclear weapons; whether U.S. arms are supplied to Syrian rebels; whether more U.S. troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan next year; and whether Washington renews pressure on Israel...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 6, 2012

Hammer-Head studio to support young artists in Yokohama

Ever since 2002, when then-Yokohama mayor Hiroshi Nakada lit the fuse on his Creative City plan, Tokyo's southern neighbor has hosted a more-or-less unbroken series of cultural events that have leaped, Chinese firework-style, back and forth between the city's many hitherto-underutilized publicly owned...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2012

U.S. candidates can't ignore war in Afghanistan

As Republicans gathered in Tampa on Aug. 27, a 25-year-old Army sergeant serving his third tour in Afghanistan, Christopher J. Birdwell of Windsor, Colorado, was killed in action.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 4, 2012

Our mixed-race children deserve better than this, so why bother with Japan?

When it comes to parceling out rights, Japanese law makes a very clear distinction: What you get depends upon whether you are a Japanese citizen or not. Sort of.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 2, 2012

Will the Takeshima dispute break the Korean wave?

"There's something sad, when a political problem goes so far as to spill over to the entertainment industry," rues journalist Kaoru Kikuchi in Sunday Mainichi (Sep. 9).
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 2, 2012

Goldenglow may be a treat for the Cherokees, but it's a pest for Old Nic!

Summertime here in northern Nagano is very pleasant, quite unlike the muggy ovens of the big cities. This year, after living here for 32 years, I was persuaded to install a fan. We certainly don't have a cooler. At night, or while working in my study, I leave the windows open to let in the sounds of...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2012

Why is government policymaking paralyzed?

It is no secret that the global economy is struggling. Europe is in the midst of a crisis whose root cause is a structurally flawed monetary and economic union.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 28, 2012

Paid leave, advice for foreign parents, JET's value: readers' views

Uncompetitive Japan Inc. Not being a Japanese person employed in a private Japanese company, it is hard for me to imagine the hardship experienced by the writer of the July 17 Have Your Say letter ("Working employees to death"). I can, however, say with a high degree of confidence that laws mandating...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2012

French never blase about the American arts

One of the more instinctive knee-jerk comments in trans-Atlantic relations is that the "French don't like Americans."
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2012

Cairo's problem with new realities

A new reality and an alternative reality are shaping up in Egypt. President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood appear firmly in control. Morsi seized on the killing of 16 Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai early this month — an embarrassment for the military and particularly the Supreme Council of...
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2012

'Grandmothers' still victimized

Regarding the Aug. 23 article "No evidence sex slaves were taken by military: Hashimoto": I always read The Japan Times in the afternoon, and although I should be used to it, I am always flabbergasted by what politicians dare to say.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 26, 2012

In the real world if it looks like violence it's violence

On Aug. 15 police in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, arrested a 19-year-old man for trying to kill the head of the local board of education. The suspect was reportedly angry at the board's failure to properly investigate the suicide of a male junior high school student last October. After the parents of the...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 26, 2012

All the fun of the fair — and that's just the temples

Inspired by this summer's Olympic quest for gold medals, I opt to go for the gold myself. Toshimaen amusement park in Tokyo's northwestern Nerima Ward is home to Carousel El Dorado, one of the world's oldest hand-carved wooden merry-go-rounds. Named for an imaginary city of gold sought by 16th-century...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 26, 2012

If we ruin the air, what will our children breathe?

Watching the sun set into the Pacific Ocean from a hotel tucked in among the dry scrub hills of San Diego, I have a chance to reflect on life here in Southern California, on climate changes and on what's in store for future generations.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2012

Trial of the century reveals China's fractured leadership

The trial, conviction and suspended death sentence of Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Chinese leader Bo Xilai, has called into question not only China's legal system but also the very unity of the Communist Party leadership.
EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2012

Nationalism over the Senkakus

At the grassroots level at the very least, nationalistic sentiment appears to be rearing its head in Japan and China over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. The islands are effectively controlled by Japan but are claimed by both China and Taiwan.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 25, 2012

A plan for a healthy TV diet

The world is going to pieces. I know because the television told me so. Global warming, economic meltdown, regional conflicts, partisan politics, Justin Bieber. Is there anything good happening? Anywhere?
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2012

Okada to seek Wynn Resorts' books

Lawyers for Kazuo Okada, the Japanese billionaire Wynn Resorts Ltd. is trying to remove from its board, are scheduled to return to a Nevada court in October to argue for access to the casino operator's books.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2012

'Anata e (Dearest)'

To call Ken Takakura an icon is almost an understatement. He is not only one of the few stars left from the heyday of the studio era, but he has for decades embodied the sort of ideal Japanese male (stoic, self-sacrificing, unstoppable in a fight) who is vanishingly rare in real life. (Clint Eastwood...
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2012

No evidence sex slaves were taken by military: Hashimoto

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said there was no evidence that the Imperial Japanese Army forced Korean women and girls into sexual servitude at wartime military brothels.
EDITORIALS
Aug 23, 2012

Wage levels for civil servants

The National Personnel Authority on Aug. 8 recommended that the wage levels — monthly wages and bonuses — of national public servants for fiscal 2012 should remain as they are. The authority will need to fully explain why it reached this conclusion, since its attitude this year toward the wage levels...
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2012

Region could drive a global economic revival

Amid concerns about sagging growth in both advanced and developing economies, Japan — which is heavily dependent on Asian demand — may take heart from the region's potential to drive a global revival.

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