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Tokyo Skytree will celebrate its first anniversary Wednesday but has not yet completed its prime mission of reliably broadcasting to households in the capital and its suburbs. Since December, the world’s tallest free-standing tower, at 634 meters high, has been making test broadcasts to ...
If you work in an office, you probably spend a fair part of your time sitting at a desk, which, of course, isn’t very healthy. To combat that the Pomodoro technique recommends that you work in intervals with regular breaks — for example, 25 ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
“Outsider art” is relatively new in Japan and, as a genre, works made by self-taught Japanese artists are still not very well known on the category-delineating, label-loving international art scene. Now, though, “Souzou: Outsider Art from Japan,” an exhibition on view (through June 30) ...
After all these years, Rafael Nadal still knows how to dominate Roger Federer. In the 30th meeting between the two tennis greats, Nadal controlled the final from start to finish to win 6-1, 6-3 Sunday for his seventh Italian Open title. “Rafa was just ...
Japanese and Germans are thought by some “Anglo-Saxons” to have many similar qualities, including a lack of a sense of humor and a tendency to take themselves too seriously. I don’t think the former is fair; the latter is closer to the mark. A ...
LONDON — British Prime Minister Tony Blair, on assuming office in 1997, said his government would be tough on crime and its causes. Although police numbers have increased with police pay, the proportion of reported crimes that have been solved has not shown significant ...
Who Was Responsible? From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor, edited by James E. Auer, The Yomiuri Shimbun, 2006, 410 pp., 4,000 yen (cloth) Yomiuri journalists worked for 14 months investigating: “Who was responsible for starting the Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War, why ...
LONDON — Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he will resign later this year. U.S. President George W. Bush’s second term ends at the end of next year. These two may not have more vanity than other politicians, but in their final months they ...
LONDON — Very few parents in Britain or Japan are happy about the state of education available to their children. The response of politicians in both countries to these concerns is inadequate and sometimes dangerous. In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair repeats that he ...
Mrs Ferguson’s Tea-Set, Japan, and The Second World War: The Global Consequences Following Germany’s Sinking of The SS Automedon in 1940, by Eiji Seki. Global Oriental, 187 pp., 2007, £35 (cloth) On her way to Penang on Nov. 11, 1940, the Blue Funnel Line ...
JAPAN AND THE ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS: Complete Record of Reported Events 1853-1899, compiled and introduced by Terry Bennett. Global Oriental, 2006, 411 pp., with illustrations, £125 (cloth). The Illustrated London News was among the first journals to carry illustrations of contemporary events. The journal, ...
FROG IN THE WELL: Portraits of Japan by Watanabe Kazan 1793-1841, by Donald Keene. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, 290 pp., including endnotes, bibliography, index and 38 color illustrations, £24.50 (cloth). Watanabe Kazan is not nearly as well known in Western countries as ...
THE OPENING OF JAPAN 1853-1855: A Comprehensive Study of the American, British, Dutch and Russian Naval Expeditions to Compel the Tokugawa Shogunate to Conclude Treaties and Open Ports to Their Ships, by William McOmie. Folkestone: Global Oriental, 505 pp., 2006, £65 (cloth). The assertion ...
KAWADA RYOKICHI — JEANNIE EADIE’S SAMURAI: The Life and Times of a Meiji Entrepreneur and Agricultural Pioneer, by Andrew Cobbing and Masataro Itami. Global Oriental, 2006, 288 pp., £35 (cloth). FALLING BLOSSOM: A British Officer’s Enduring Love for a Japanese Woman, by Peter Pagnamenta ...
TO THE KWAI — AND BACK: War Drawings 1939-1945, by Ronald Searle. Souvenir Press, 2006, 208 pp., £25 (cloth). Ronald Searle, one of the ablest and most famous British cartoonists, and the creator of the girls of “St. Trinians” strip, was a prisoner of ...
NORTH KOREA IN THE 21ST CENTURY: An interpretative Guide, by J.E. Hoare and Susan Pares. Global Oriental, 2005, 253 pp., including index, references/bibliography, b/w illustrations, £14.95 (paper). Jim Hoare opened the British Embassy in Pyongyang in 2001 and was the first British diplomat and ...