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JAPAN

JAPAN
Aug 30, 2009
Party chiefs make final plea for votes
Top political leaders made their final appeals to voters Saturday before a crucial Lower House election that could bring a sweeping victory to the opposition and break the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's decades-long grip on power.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 30, 2009
War over whaling takes to Japan's airwaves
In early August, director Louis Psihoyos told The Toronto Star that his documentary, "The Cove," had been submitted to the Tokyo International Film Festival and rejected. In the article he quoted an unnamed TIFF "director" who said that the festival receives funding from the Japanese government, which...

BUSINESS

BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 30, 2009
Annals of cheap: Garigari-kun
Garigari: It's amazing what a brand rethink can do for ice and sugar on a stick.

ENVIRONMENT

Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 30, 2009
Avian killing fields of lotus
Earlier this year it was reported that one of the 10 Crested ibises reintroduced to the wild on Sado Island last autumn had turned up in Fukushima Prefecture, in central Honshu. The islanders worried that Nipponia nippon, which had come to represent their Japan Sea home, had abandoned them.

Opinion

EDITORIALS
Aug 30, 2009
U.S. Senate loses a lion
Edward Kennedy, the senior U.S. senator from the state of Massachusetts, died Tuesday night after a yearlong struggle with cancer. Mr. Kennedy's death deprives the United States of one of its most powerful and eloquent voices, a man who demanded justice and equal opportunities for the country's weakest...
Media connivance in walking the dogs of war
NEW YORK — For five days following Japan's surrender this month in 1945, the Mainichi Shimbun, by then reduced to a single sheet because of severe paper shortages, published editions with a good deal of blank space: on Aug. 16, Page 2 totally blank; on the 17th, not just Page 2 but also a third of...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 30, 2009
Japan at a crossroads of government and of its citizens' values
Charles de Gaulle, the magisterial president of France from 1959-69, was inordinately fond of the phrase, "Moi ou le chaos" — "Me or chaos." It was not much of a choice.

Sports

SOCCER
Aug 30, 2009
Barca lifts European Super Cup
MONTE CARLO, Monaco (AP) Barcelona substitute Pedro Rodriguez scored the only goal deep into extra time to lead the European Cup holder 1-0 over UEFA Cup winner Shakhtar Donetsk in the European Super Cup on Friday.
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 30, 2009
Ardija rout first-place Antlers
SAITAMA — Omiya Ardija raised hopes of a genuine J. League title race with a comprehensive 3-1 win over league leaders Kashima Antlers on Saturday night.

LIFE

LIFE
Aug 30, 2009
Family lore tells a remarkable tale of the charmed life lived by a young survivor of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923
Just before noon on Sept. 1, 1923, after severe shaking in a small wooden house in Kyobashi, an old Tokyo district east of the Imperial Palace, my father-in-law, then a 6-month old baby — along with a steaming pot of rice — was scooped up by my father-in- law's mother as she dashed into the street....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Aug 30, 2009
A textiles tour to dye for
A landlocked train stop named Hikifune (Tugboat) begs a question. Two such stations in Tokyo's downtown Sumida Ward — the other is nearby Keisei Hikifune — suggest there should be some answers.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 30, 2009
no night to be alone
The typhoon swept into Okinawa, bringing rain and cannon-shot thunder, sheets of lightning almost low enough to sear the TV antennas on the blue-tiled roofs. The winds ripped branches from palm trees and left them flapping in the mud like broken-backed seagulls. Even the American helicopters on the nearby...

CULTURE

CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 30, 2009
The artistic influence of the East
This large and lavish volume is the catalog of an important art exhibition at the New York Guggenheim Museum that ran from Jan. 20 to April 19 this year. Since the show itself is not traveling to other venues, this excellent account of its purposes and content is now all that remains of one of the most...
Ryuichi Sakomoto on 'Bakusho,' dishes worth tears and 'The Host's Wife'
This week the subject of "Bakusho Mondai no Nippon no Kyoyo" (Bakusho Mondai's Japan Education; NHK-G, Tues., 10:50 p.m.) is music, but not necessarily Japanese music.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji