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M/CLOUDY
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto aims to retract his remark that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa should use its adult entertainment industry to avoid committing sex offenses.
Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.
If you don’t get into the ring once or twice, then you’re a coward, Geoffrey Ima says as he describes people’s attitudes toward boxing in his hometown in Uganda. Ima has been in the ring hundreds of times and came to love boxing so ...
It may seem perverse to express nostalgia for a category of mental illness, but many sufferers, as well as some psychiatrists, regret the passing of “manic depression.”
Getting slapped by a a coach has always been, as far as I could see, simply another aspect of sports training in Japan.
PARIS — For a week it looked as though banking was not “as safe as houses” (a phrase that has seemed singularly inappropriate recently), but instead would turn into a “house of cards” that might be blown down with a puff of wind. The ...
LONDON — Russian recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia is a cynical ploy aimed at annoying Georgians and their supporters in the West. If these two enclaves within Georgia deserve to be independent, why has Russia not granted independence to Chechnya ...
GOVERNING JAPAN: Divided Politics in a Resurgent Economy, by J.A.A. Stockwin. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, 298 pp., £19.99 (paper) Arthur Stockwin, who was until recently Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, is the leading British expert on Japanese politics. ...
LONDON — On Aug. 26, 1858, in Edo (now Tokyo), the Treaty of Yedo was signed by six Japanese commissioners and Britain’s Earl of Elgin. This treaty, when ratified in 1859, opened diplomatic and trade relations between the two countries. Lord Elgin, on the ...
LONDON — The Chinese government fought hard for the right to host this year’s Olympic Games. It remains to be seen whether the huge costs involved in holding them will have brought commensurate benefits to China. Beijing has benefited from new world-class sporting venues, ...
LONDON — The recent Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido was one of the least memorable summit meetings. Every G8 spews out cliches; the Hokkaido meeting was no exception. Leaders at the meeting were generally a mediocre lot. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French ...
LONDON — Some people regard corruption as a victimless crime. It is nothing of the kind. Corrupt practices lead to the granting of favors not available to those unwilling or unable to offer bribes, increase costs, and limit competition. In Russia and China the ...
HIROSHIGE: One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, by Melanie Trede and Lorenz Bichler. Taschen (ISBN978-4-88783-357-9), 294 pp., 2008, ¥15,750 (paper, with presentation box) Hiroshige and Katsushika Hokusai are probably the two most famous Japanese artists in the West. They had a significant influence on ...
LONDON — The European Union now consists of 27 states, with more states in the Balkans and Eastern Europe jockeying to join. Turkey is a candidate for membership. There would be benefits for the EU from further expansion, including more trade, improvements in democratic ...
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda face a sea of troubles. Neither looks likely to keep his job long enough to make a significant contribution to solving the problems in Britain or in Japan. When Brown succeeded Tony Blair last ...
LONDON — The devastating cyclone that hit lower Burma (Myanmar) has caused horrific loss of life and largely destroyed what was once the rice bowl of Asia. There is an urgent need for food, clean water and shelter for those affected, but the Burmese ...
LONDON — The recent African summit at the United Nations could not conceal the number of failed states in Africa. For years there has been no effective government in much of Somalia. We, who live under the rule of law, can hardly imagine what ...