Search - information

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jun 20, 2008

A North Korean about-face

North Korea has promised to begin a "reinvestigation" of the fate of Japanese nationals abducted by its agents and to hand over the four remaining members of the nine leftists who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet to Pyongyang in 1970 along with two wives of the leftists.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008

Santogold at Summer Sonic

Santogold has quickly eclipsed Vampire Weekend as the year's certified hippest new indie-rock act, and for good reason. Santi White's weird and wonderful vocal style — a sly mix of girl-group theatrics and new-wave experimentalism — complements her high-energy, ska-derived beats in such a natural...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 19, 2008

Egberto Gismonti at Tokyo Summer Festival

The theme of the 24th annual Tokyo Summer Festival, which runs from July 3 to 31 at venues throughout the city, is Forest Echoes/Desert Voices. Representing the former is pianist and guitarist Egberto Gismonti, who studied classical music in Paris only to return to his native Brazil to live in the forest...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2008

The confines of Darwin's writing

Regarding Rowan Hooper's June 11 article, "Of Darwin and Mishima . . . ," which reviews Charles Darwin's scientific ideas and their impact: Hooper says Darwin rebelled against his father when, at 22, he set off on the HSM Beagle for a voyage around the world but that "the greater rebellion -- mounted,...
CULTURE / Art
Jun 19, 2008

'Mark Jenkins and Miho Kinomura: Glazed Paradise'

Diesel Gallery, Aoyama, Tokyo
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2008

Serial killer Miyazaki, two others hanged

Serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, 45, who abducted, molested and strangled four young girls in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture in 1988 and 1989, was hanged Tuesday along with two other inmates, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 18, 2008

Aloft with ospreys, ultimate Fisher Kings

There is a moment of commitment; a glint of scales just beneath the water's surface is perhaps the trigger. As the bright-yellow eyes register the rippled light patterns, the brain is already identifying them as potential food, computing distance, assessing direction, considering depth.
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2008

Media can't bow to expectations

The Supreme Court last week ruled that even if people who have become the subject of coverage by a broadcaster come to have expectations concerning a broadcast program, such expectations, in principle, are not subject to legal protection.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 17, 2008

Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global

In a September 2003 article for The Guardian newspaper, Michael Meacher, who served as Tony Blair's environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003, shocked the establishment by calling the global war on terrorism "bogus." Even more controversially, he implied that the U.S. government either allowed...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jun 17, 2008

King Kojien dictionary knights new words

The four writing systems utilized in Japanese (>kanji, katakana, hiragana and the Roman alphabet, known as romaji ) provide Japanese advertising copywriters, journalists and young people with an abundance of raw material from which to create new words. The great majority of these neologisms fade away...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 15, 2008

Trio release music that's all bottled up

One recent night at Note Cafe, a small coffee shop tucked away on a side street off a shopping arcade in the Jujo district of northern Tokyo, two women and a man sat round a table together. They took out a dozen glass bottles of various sizes, shapes and colors, and placed them on the table.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2008

Shared goals, IT connect Polish-Japanese couple

Jacek Strakowski from Poland and Mai Usami from Tokyo have information technology to thank for bringing and keeping them together.
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2008

Rising trend in global crime worries G8

Justice and home affairs ministers from the Group of Eight industrialized nations began a two-day meeting Thursday in Tokyo on measures to halt a rising trend in global organized crime.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 13, 2008

Lady virtuoso 'sings' like a bird

Her music is as lovely as a song sung by a pretty bird. Of course, birds don't actually "sing," and neither does Kimiko Wakiyama. Like a bird, she whistles. In fact she's a champion whistler, who won the women's crown at the 2007 International Whistlers Convention (IWC 2007) in North Carolina.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 13, 2008

World Beat 2008

If New York City was the world, then the borough of Brooklyn would be Global Bohemia, the place where undiscovered international creative forces meet, get drunk together and make art. In terms of music, no Brooklyn indie band personifies this idea better than Gogol Bordello, the "gypsy punk" collective...
BUSINESS
Jun 13, 2008

Sharp to sell cell phones in China

Sharp Corp. said Thursday it will start selling mobile phones in China later this month aimed at affluent consumers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2008

Rethinking what lies beneath the folds

With its smooth curves, honeycomb fabric and splashes of gold glitter, the apparently abstract sculpture takes center stage in the gallery.
BUSINESS / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 12, 2008

Soaring prices pose challenge to G8 finance chiefs

Finance chiefs from the Group of Eight countries are expected to discuss Friday in Osaka how their economies can tame the soaring oil and food prices battering businesses and consumers around the world.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 11, 2008

Luminescent mushrooms cast light on Japan's forest crisis

'Look over there! Turn out your flashlights," exclaimed Kunihiko Otsuki one recent Sunday night as he stood in an area of broadleaf mixed woodland with five other forest enthusiasts.

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