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LIFE / Travel
May 17, 2009

Do's and don'ts when you hitch in the backside of Japan

Backpack: check. Thumbs: check. Sense of adventure: check.
JAPAN
May 16, 2009

P-3Cs sent to join hunt for pirates

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada issued the order Friday to send two P-3C patrol airplanes to the Gulf of Aden, expanding the ongoing antipiracy mission of two Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers off Somalia.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 16, 2009

Machinery orders resume retreat, slip 1.3%

Orders for Japanese machinery resumed falling in March, the government said Friday, in a sign that managers remain wary of upgrading factories and equipment before an economic recovery takes hold.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 15, 2009

Deerhunter

Bradford Cox, frontman for Atlanta, Georgia's, self-styled "ambient punks" Deerhunter, tends to attract attention.
JAPAN
May 15, 2009

Japan, Canada ink deal on air force refueling

Japan and Canada signed an agreement Thursday that will let the Canadian Air Force planes refuel in Japan when participating in disaster relief and humanitarian missions in Asia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

Lights, mirror . . . reaction

S ometimes the cutting-edge is five years old. Take the current exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, "The Kaleidoscopic Eye: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection." Featuring some of the best of what the contemporary art world has to offer, by the time it's made it to the museum, the art world...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
May 15, 2009

Bunraku theater to celebrate an anniversary

"Hiragana Seisuiki" ("Records of the Battles between the Minamoto and Taira Clans in the 12th Century"), a five-act historical bunraku play by Bunkodo and collaborators, which was first staged at the Takemoto-za in Osaka in 1739, is being presented at the small auditorium of the National Theater in Tokyo...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

A new spirit for tea traditions

In the rarefied world of Japanese tea ceremony, innovations have often been greeted coolly. When the Japanese-American abstract sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904-88) gave a tea kettle of his own making to the landscape designer and tea connoisseur Mirei Shigemori (1896-75), the recipient was baffled.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

Gauguin: 'I shall never do anything better'

Was he just a "Sunday painter" who abandoned his wife and five children for a bohemian life in a distant island paradise — where he died of syphilis and poverty in the arms of a teenage mistress?
JAPAN / CITIZEN JUSTICE
May 14, 2009

Determining sentences seen as lay judges' hardest task

Third in a series
JAPAN
May 14, 2009

Nuclear energy deal not welcomed by all

OSAKA — The nuclear energy cooperation agreement signed Tuesday by Japan and Russia is expected to be a great boon to firms like Toshiba that are seeking new international markets for their atomic power technology, as well as ensuring Japan a steady supply of enriched uranium for its own electricity...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 13, 2009

Being Nihontsū: Japanophiles in our own country

"Wakonyōsai (和魂洋才, the soul of a Japanese and the talents of a Westerner)" was a phrase once used to describe the ideal of the modern, enlightened Japanese. This perfect person supposedly combined the knowledge, logic and open-mindedness of the West with the principled restraint, sense of honor...
JAPAN
May 13, 2009

Saturday poll set to choose new DPJ boss

A day after embattled Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa abruptly announced he plans to resign, the top opposition party scrambled to set the stage for electing its next leader.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 13, 2009

Extra power for your netbook

More for your book: Japanese gadget innovator Century is offering a device for putting more muscle into netbooks in the form of its Netbook Stand, the CNBS-WT/ODD. While fundamentally a netbook cooler, the Century gadget also packs in a DVD burner. A fan is built into the left side and swivels up into...
JAPAN / Q&A
May 12, 2009

Historic change puts justice in public hands

With the "saibanin" lay judge system set to take effect May 21, Japan is gearing up for an important transition in its judicial system, in which citizens begin serving as de facto jurors in district court trials involving serious crimes.
JAPAN
May 12, 2009

School's in for Osaka students quarantined with flu at Narita

OSAKA — The Osaka prefectural board of education said Monday it will open an office to deal with the study needs of high school students from Neyagawa, Osaka Prefecture, being quarantined at Narita airport because they have swine flu.
EDITORIALS
May 11, 2009

Basic plan on space

In May 2008, the Diet enacted a basic law on space without rousing sufficient public debate. Representing a drastic departure from Japan's traditional "peaceful purposes only" space policy, the law paves the way for extensive use of space for security purposes, especially missile defense.
Reader Mail
May 10, 2009

Media wield too much influence

Since graduating from college, I have worked at a travel company that specializes in handling trips to Korea. Sometimes I can't help feeling that we are too sensitive to the news from the media such as television.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2009

Petty torture rules played on sense of duty

PARIS — The top-secret memorandums released by the Obama administration concerning torture practices in CIA prisons shed new light on a fundamental question: How is it that people acting in the name of the United States government could so easily accept the idea of torturing detainees in their charge?...
JAPAN
May 9, 2009

Lawmakers urged to act now to revise organ transplant law

People in need of organ transplants and their supporters urged lawmakers Friday to revise the transplant law during the current Diet session, despite the World Health Organization's decision to delay until next year enacting a resolution to restrict overseas travel for transplants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 8, 2009

The Bawdies

More than 25 years ago, ZZ Top sang, "They come running just as fast as they can, because every girl's crazy about a sharp-dressed man." Looking quite dapper in matching suits and ties, The Bawdies will see if this still holds true as the Tokyo outfit attempts to pack clubs with hordes of screaming ladies...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 8, 2009

Government day care falling short

The line of children waiting to get into government-subsidized day care is swelling for the first time in five years, a sign of these recessionary times, some observers say. But for others it is merely the latest blow in a long-term problem, especially for working mothers unable to leave their toddlers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Cubism remixed at a European crossroads

Cubism, as it emerged from the experiments of the painters Pablo Picasso and George Braque, was for some a necessary but limited artistic investigation in the 20th century. For others, though, it offered a blueprint for a new language, as in that part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that became Czechoslovakia,...

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Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.