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Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Jun 16, 2009

Racing dragon boats in Yokohama

At 8:15 on a drizzly, windy Saturday morning at the end of May, cheerful shouting could be heard coming from Yokohama's seaside Yamashita Park. Even at the early hour, people had already gathered to participate in the 16th Yokohama Dragon Boat Race, spanning four days over two successive weekends.
BUSINESS
Jun 16, 2009

Low gasoline prices may put damper on Honda's U.S. Insight sales forecast

Honda Motor Co. may miss its U.S. sales target for the Insight hybrid because cheap fuel and consumer reluctance to buy cars amid the recession are hampering its efforts to loosen Toyota Motor Corp.'s grip on the green market. Sales of Honda's gasoline-electric Insight, which debuted at U.S. dealerships...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 14, 2009

Is a national 'Manga Museum' at last set to get off the ground?

When it was announced in April that ¥11.7 billion had been set aside in 2009's supplementary budget to create a new National Center for Media Arts (NCMA) — a museum for manga, anime, video games and technology art — the news was greeted in the same way that most cultural-policy issues are in Japan....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 14, 2009

What lit the fuse of culture?

In this month's column, we solve the mystery of the emergence of modern human culture. As a bonus, there's a bit of good news for Tokyoites — and for those of us who may worry that success is solely down to brainpower.
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2009

The deficits of democracy

LONDON — Britain and Japan have prime ministers who have not been endorsed by the electorate in a general election. Both are hanging on to power and argue that it is their right as prime minister to choose the date for the next election. Under our constitutions this is a valid claim, but is it in accordance...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009

Drinking the Japanese way

Sake lovers will have an opportunity to sample 500 varieties of the drink from around the country at the Nihon-shu Fair 2009, to be held at Tokyo's Ikebukuro Sunshine City on June 17.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 12, 2009

BMO Music Fest

The BMO Music Fest is a one-night urban music extravaganza that squeezes a lot of entertainment into a limited space of time. Seven major hip-hop and R&B artists will be on hand, all of whom could fill a club or even an auditorium on their own. This year's headliner is Shaggy, who remains the biggest...
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009

'Seishin'

Mental illness, as Kazuhiro Soda notes in his documentary "Seishin" ("Mental"), is one of the big taboos of Japanese society.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 12, 2009

The first 'Japanese' opera?

Kabuki actor and designated Living National Treasure Sakata Tojuro (b. 1931) stages an opera, for the first time in his career, this month at the New National Theatre.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2009

Argentine wins poster contest

An Argentine university student has won the Global Student Poster Competition for raising public awareness of climate change, its organizers said.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009

Play portrays Afghanistan's 30 tragic years

A play about the history of Afghanistan inspired by former Afghan ambassador to Japan Haron Amin will be staged on June 16 and 17 at Space Zero in Shinjuku.
COMMENTARY
Jun 11, 2009

Sri Lanka and Tiananmen: Time to accept the truth

It used to be said the first casualty of war is the truth. But today we do not even need wars to see truth destroyed. Even domestic conflicts in distant countries can do the job, with a flood of black information and news distortions produced, some causing enormous harm. The distorted interpretation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Jun 11, 2009

Fragrant fashions, high-brow specs, Vogue in 3-D, and Tokyo's own

Getting intimate Tucked in the residential boroughs of Tokyo's Aobadai district in Meguro is a new intimate shop, Lilid 05, where the uplifting scent of fashion wafts you through its unassuming doors. The store opened at the end of April, but the Lilid 05 brand itself is also fairly new, only now in...
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2009

Vaccine strategy poses serious quandary

The swine flu panic has waned in the past few weeks and authorities are breathing a sigh of relief, but some medical experts say the government has been slow to prepare for a possible second outbreak this fall.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2009

No. 3 son readied to succeed Kim

Kim Jong Un, third son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, is currently holding a low-ranking position within the National Defense Commission in preparation to succeed his father, according to recently obtained information from sources in Beijing close to the Pyongyang leadership.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2009

Laws, legal terms get official translation

Japanese businesses might operate on a global scale, but foreign firms often run into a wall — the language barrier — when trying to understand the ins and outs of this nation's legal system.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 2009

Sea-zone ban fuels speculation of missile launch

North Korea has banned vessels from traveling in a designated area off its northeast shore between Wednesday and June 30, raising speculation that another missile launch is on the way, the Japan Coast Guard said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 9, 2009

Rumpus on campus

Illegal arrests, forced expulsions, "kidnappings" by security police and beatings by hired thugs. No, it's not another dispatch from a violent banana republic. Those accusations come from the leafy back-streets of Ichigaya, Tokyo, home to a branch campus of the prestigious Hosei University.
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2009

Feasible anti-emission goal

In July 2008 the Japanese government adopted a target for 2050 of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent from 2005 levels. At the same time, a special panel was created to deliberate midterm reduction goals (through 2020).
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2009

Pandemic test eyed for cell phones

A few months from now, a highly contagious disease will spread through a Japanese elementary school. The epidemic will start with several unwitting children, who will infect others as they attend classes and wander the halls.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 7, 2009

Our columnist's 'drug runs' are happily over

Whenever I visit the United States, friends ask me to pick up things for them, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that are cheaper in the States than they are in Japan. I always return with this booty as nervous as if I were carrying a brick of hash, having once been told by a colleague how customs...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 7, 2009

All aboard for Saitama's splendors

"Get ready!" comes the call from Kato, our river guide who is standing at his post in the stern of our wooden longboat. My gaze snaps forward, scanning the waterway.
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2009

Dodging a CO2 hangover

Officials from Japan and other parts of the world are meeting in Bonn, Germany, until June 12 for more negotiations on a new set of global arrangements to prevent runaway climate change. The deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012, is supposed to be clinched at a climate summit convened...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’