Japans Consulate General in New York lodged a protest with New York Times Co. on Thursday for publishing a cartoon in which Snow White, carrying a newspaper with the headline "Japan nuclear radiation," asks an old woman offering an apple if she comes from Japan.The consulate said that since the cartoon refers to a story in Grimms Fairy Tales in which Snow White falls into a stupor after biting a poisoned apple, it may stir up what the consulate called unfounded anxieties over the safety of foods from Japan.The cartoon …

NAGOYA, Japan: Hundreds of people joined anti-nuclear protests in Japan on Sunday following the country’s worst ever atomic accident at the tsunami-stricken Fukushima plant.
In the capital, about 300 people — some wearing gas masks — marched past the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power, operator of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi power station, chanting: "We don’t need nuclear plants!".
A similar number of demonstrators turned out in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, gathering outside the offices of regional energy company Chubu Electric Power shouting "We don’t want another Fukushima."
"I want to be …

German Prime Minister Angela Merkel said it last fall. British Prime Minister David Cameron rendered the same verdict last month. But in can be said that on multi-culturalism, Japan got there first.  By “there” we mean: “not for us—it cannot work in Japan.”
Ask almost any bien pensant foreign (especially American) economist, businessman, bureaucrat or journalist how Japan should deal with its demographic challenge and the answer is always immigration. First among the major advanced countries (but with others in Europe to follow), Japan’s total population has begun a slow decline. …

Boston’s handful of scenic parks — while filled with trees — are outmatched by sources of air pollution. These huge mushroom tree things called Treepods could help filter CO2 from the air, powered only by the sun and little kids on seesaws.
The Treepods would be constructed purely of recycled plastic bottles. On top, they’d be covered with solar panels to help power the CO2 filtration process, which would take place throughout the branches using a ‘humidity swing’ process. The trunk of the tree sports an integrated seesaw, where children can …

There are expressions that buzz like busy little bees and ones that don’t buzz anymore. One of the dead-bee buzzwords in Japan is shimaguni konjo, meaning "island mentality." As for a buzzword for 2011, you’d be hard put to find one more busily doing the rounds than garapagosu, which references the Galapagos Islands that lie nearly 1,000 km out in the Pacific off the coast of Ecuador.

In their Japanese context, shimaguni konjo and garapagosu have more in common than merely their connection with islands.
I heard "shimaguni konjo" bandied about a …

Japan must devise a concrete plan for tax reform to avoid deepening the nation’s massive debt and the loss of confidence in the economy, the new fiscal policy minister said on Wednesday.
The comments from Kaoru Yosano come as Prime Minster Naoto Kan faces what analysts say is a make or break battle over the issue, which has proved divisive with voters.
‘If we keep going with no fiscal discipline, allowing the stock of public debt to grow larger or continuing to borrow more than we receive in tax revenue, international confidence …

The first decade of this century started with the so-called dot-com bubble. When it burst, central banks moved aggressively to ease monetary policy in order to prevent a prolonged period of Japanese-style slow growth. But the prolonged period of low interest rates that followed the 2001 recession instead contributed to the emergence of another bubble, this time in real estate and credit.
With the collapse of the second bubble in a decade, central banks again acted quickly, lowering rates to zero (or close to it) almost everywhere. Recently, the United States …

Japan is likely to sink deeper into stagnation unless society can change in a way that makes it easier for women to play a greater role by capitalizing on their abilities. This problem is highlighted every year by Japan’s abysmal positions in the international rankings of gender equality.
This year, Japan was ranked 94th of 134 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI), compiled by the World Economic Forum, a Geneva-based nonprofit foundation best known for its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, that brings together business and political leaders from …

What is the difference between a developed society that has remained in an economic slump for 20 years and one with steady prosperity for the same period of time? The answer is not clear. But that question dogged my mind in a recent two week visit to Japan after a gap of 20 years.
The Japan of today is amazingly prosperous. The first thing you notice is that it is spic and span clean: not a cigarette butt on a station platform; metro car floors you could eat off of; all …

One of the things I love about Japan is that the ground is painted like a giant asphalt canvas, with street signs in bright colors like the “TOMARE” which means “STOP” for cars.
One of the things I love about New York, is that anything goes, and new meanings can be found for just about anything.
What would happen if we painted “TOMARE” on the streets, and underneath it wrote the word “LOVE”.
Living in Japan , in a way, helps me to find the freedom to be who I am by living …