World War II

Japan’s welfare roll climbs to post-World War II high, AFP says

By Michael Blaskoski • November 10, 2011

The number of Japanese receiving welfare benefits in July rose to a record 2.05 million, the highest since the government started recording the data 60-years ago, Agence France-Presse reported, citing the Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry.

Contractors in Japan begin to shovel aside yakuza groups

By CJ • October 1, 2010

Industry might now be seeing criminal organizations as something other than a necessary evil

Tarawa: at world’s edge

By CJ • July 26, 2010

The view of Tarawa from the window seat of an Air Pacific plane doesn’t properly convey its incredible fragility. Shaped like a fishhook with a turquoise-blue lagoon in its center, the coral landmass, which forms the capital of the central Pacific nation of Kiribati, appears through the clouds as a narrow, curved strip that extends for over 50 kilometers.

Back to basics with Nobel Prize winner Masatoshi Koshiba

By CJ • June 12, 2010

Today Masatoshi Koshiba finds himself back to the classroom as chairman of the Heisei Foundation for Basic Science — a project that aims to get Japanese young people more acquainted with the fundamentals of science.

Closing ceremonies for Kabuki-za in Ginza

By CJ • April 30, 2010

Closing ceremonies for the five-decade-old Kabuki-za theater, located in Chuo Ward’s Ginza district, will be held today.

Return to Tarawa

By CJ • September 14, 2009

Sixty-six years ago, the Pacific island atoll of Tarawa was a World War II battlefield of billowing black smoke and death’s stench

Nippon, Nippon über alles?

By CJ • March 1, 2009

The grainy black and white photo is surely one of a kind. Seated at a table are two “Aryans” and three Asians, at least …

Invasion of the (kid) body-snatchers

By CJ • February 4, 2009

Underground sex business preys on children

King copra

By CJ • December 23, 2008

MAJURO – The continually hot and dusty conditions found on the Marshall Islands’ capital of Majuro can be rough on the interior of any …

‘Anti-Emperor’ group to protest at Yasukuni Shrine

By CJ • August 14, 2008

TOKYO – The left-wing group Anti-Emperor Activities Network said this week that it will once again hold a protest march near the controversial Yasukuni …