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COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2007

America's budget black hole

WASHINGTON -- The Iraq war continues to consume lives, both American and Iraqi. The conflict also is burning mountains of cash.
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2007

Less than music to the ear

The Supreme Court, in a 4-1 decision, has ruled that it is constitutional for a principal to order a music teacher to play the piano accompaniment to the "Kimigayo" national anthem during a public school ceremony. The top court took the position that the principal's order does not constitute a denial...
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2007

Indonesia decides to share

The fight against infectious diseases can be won only if all countries participate, sharing research and results. That's why Indonesia's recent decision to stop sharing samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus so alarmed public-health officials: It could have prevented researchers from working on one of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 27, 2007

Yoko Sagae

Yoko Sagae, 57, is the vice principal of the Toyomi Public Kindergarten in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. Ms. Sagae has taken care of more than 1,700 children -- and their parents -- during her 31 years in early childhood education, and she is not about to stop. Loved by generations in the neighborhood where she...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

In fallen cities, where money trumps love

Love in a Fallen City, translated by Karen S. Kingsbury and Eileen Chang. New York: New York Review Books, 2007, 321 pp., $14.95 (paper) Money and the scramble to get it are at the center of many of our best novels, and this is nowhere truer than in the work of Jane Austen. The financial security that...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 23, 2007

Roofs raised in prayer

Most people are only too aware of the devastating effects of global warming -- the breaking up of polar ice shelves, weather patterns going haywire, glaciers in retreat, that documentary starring Al Gore. But the thermal consequences of all the carbon that humans assiduously upload into the atmosphere...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2007

Damo Suzuki networks with younger generation

'My home is everywhere. I am a nomad of the 21st century; my address is my e-mail address," writes Damo Suzuki in English via, naturally enough, e-mail.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 22, 2007

Beirut dramatist seeks new strategy

Lebanese dramatist Rabih Mroue returns to Tokyo International Arts Festival this year with the world premiere of his new play, "How Nancy Wished that Everything was an April Fool's Joke," three years after making his TIF debut. It is a work that reflects the fluid situation of Lebanese society after...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 22, 2007

Drama despite the Establishment

At last December's press conference heralding this year's Tokyo International Arts Festival, Artistic Director Sachio Ichimura was in a less than festive mood.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2007

SDF deploys perky mascot to boast cuddly image

Perky cartoon character Prince Pickles -- with saucer eyes, big dimples and tiny, booted feet -- poses in front of tanks, rappels from helicopters and shakes hands with smiling Iraqis.
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2007

A viable farming sector

This year will be important for Japan in developing policy for creating a viable agricultural sector without inviting criticism of protectionism from abroad. Among the reasons for tackling this issue is that, although the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations has stalled, the liberalization...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2007

Act locally on climate change, leaders urge

KYOTO -- Sharing a growing sense of crisis over climate change internationally, mayors and municipal officials met Friday in Kyoto to discuss how their local governments can cooperate to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 16, 2007

Delivering men from evil

Two hours by train from Tokyo, history has twice blessed the small town of Nikko with good fortune.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 14, 2007

Brain-scanning gets closer to reading minds

Is the world inherently good or bad? You might believe that people are essentially good. Then again, you might believe that most people just pretend to be good -- and some don't even bother to conceal that they're not. You might complain that it's a stupid question in the first place.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2007

Lucky feeling helps to prop up U.S. dollar

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Many people have been asking why the dollar hasn't crashed yet. Will the United States ever face a bill for the string of massive trade deficits that it has been running for more than a decade?
EDITORIALS
Feb 12, 2007

A milestone for justice

In a world where states are sovereign and supreme, international relations are anarchic. Who can call leaders to account apart from their own citizens? The inability to answer that question makes a mockery of the idea of "justice," subordinating the idea to domestic political concerns. The International...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Resentments sustain a moribund meat trade

Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2007

Exam system put to the test

When road signs point to universities, racks at shrines fill with rows of handwritten ema (votive pictures/messages), and a respectful hush falls over the city, you know it's time for one of Japan's most important rituals -- entrance exams.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 11, 2007

Gore's charge unlikely to skewer Japan's traffic plans

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore was in Japan a few weeks ago promoting "An Inconvenient Truth," the documentary film version of his traveling power-point presentation on the dangers of global warming. He made the rounds of the news shows at the time, but due to the extra time required to edit entertainment...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Deadlock is dominant in whaling's 'petty parlor game'

In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2007

Asia's honored sailor sets sights on eighth circumnavigation

An angler yanks a fish out of the drink and it flops and flaps on the deck of a boat, pop-eyed, its gills wondering where the water went.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2007

Bullying reflects problems in adult society

Disturbing incidents of bullying continue to make the news. We hear daily of the tragedy of children who, unable to endure the harassment and violence inflicted on them by peers and classmates, are driven to suicide.
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2007

Climate change beyond a doubt

For 60 years, the "Doomsday Clock" has measured mankind's proximity to its own annihilation. The closest it ever came was two minutes to doomsday -- registered in 1953 at the beginning of the thermonuclear age. At the end of the Cold War, the timekeepers moved the minute hand back in recognition of the...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 5, 2007

Hingis claims record fifth in Tokyo

Martina Hingis' record-breaking fifth Toray Pan Pacific Open title was the sweetest of them all.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2007

Hingis in final again; Injury hits Sharapova

With Maria Sharapova suffering from an uncharacteristic shaky serve and slovenliness, it was clear the world No. 1 was not having the best of times at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2007

Japanese interest in Macau reaches new heights

MACAU, China -- Macau is definitely a hot spot these days, not just as a tourist destination but also as a focal point for international diplomacy and security.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 4, 2007

Whatever befell Japan's heady '60s hopes?

Over the past two weeks in this column, I have looked at Japanese society in the 1980s and '90s in order to trace how the nationalistic policies of the current Shinzo Abe administration, particularly in the educational and military spheres, are the outcome of developments in the preceding decades.
Rugby
Feb 3, 2007

Top League has hope heading into final

Katsuyuki Kiyomiya is no Ichiro Suzuki, but he may be just what the Top League needs.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 3, 2007

Sharapova slips into semis

Maria Sharapova may not be keen on on-court coaching, but it is doing her the world of good in her quest for a second Toray Pan Pacific Open title.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past