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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2010

A force for good or evil?

SYDNEY — Hero hacker or the world's most dangerous tattletale? No Australian has been so applauded and reviled as Julian Assange. Holed up in a London jail awaiting charges for extradition to Stockholm, then to a likely one-way trip to a ghastly fate in Washington, Assange has burst onto the world...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 15, 2010

Very real possibility that Hornets could fold

NEW YORK — Based on the acquisition of the Montreal Expos by Major League Baseball, there are reasons to suppose the Hornets' state of affairs could have a happy ending . . . though not necessarily in New Orleans.
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Dec 14, 2010

Markets offer a taste of Christmas cheer

Let's raise a glass of eggnog to the authentic yuletide cheer of imported European-style Christmas markets.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Dec 14, 2010

Rich kids set to inherit higher taxes

A new proposed inheritance law, which hasn't changed since 1958, is being aimed at the silver spooners who can afford a higher tax.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2010

Setbacks in Indonesia's antigraft policy

PADANG, West Sumatra — Transparency International publishes the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) every year. Based on 13 different expert and business surveys, the CPI measures and ranks public sector corruption in 180 nations.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 12, 2010

Kabuki's golden boy knocked off his pedestal — for now

TBS's Dec. 4 edition of "Newscaster" aired a long report on the run-in that kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo had with a man at a Tokyo bar in the wee hours of Nov. 25, a dustup that resulted in Ebizo's hospitalization with a fractured cheekbone and broken teeth. Elaborating on the principle of "it takes one...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 12, 2010

Era of American managers in NPB finished for now

Flash back to 2007. One-third of the teams in Japanese pro baseball (including half the Pacific League clubs) had American managers. There was Marty Brown with the Hiroshima Carp, Terry Collins leading the Orix Buffaloes, Trey Hillman guiding the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and Bobby Valentine at the...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 12, 2010

New Year's cleaning; a four-legged soldier; CM of the week: Paburon

There are many customs and traditions associated with New Year's, but housecleaning tends to get overlooked since it isn't very sexy. However, this week the quiz show "Wafu Sohonke" ("Head Family of Japanese Style"; TV Tokyo, Thurs., 9 p.m.) will look at New Year's cleaning traditions in detail.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 11, 2010

Rising Asia must reject the power to waste

SINGAPORE — Our ancestors preached it. Our parents taught it to us. The West is adopting it. So why are we Asians abandoning it?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 10, 2010

The swinging trends of modern Japanese painting

"Japanese Art 1950-2010" at the National Museum of Art, Osaka is a historical show by virtue of the span of time it covers.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 10, 2010

'Film Socialisme'

Jean-Luc Godard once said in an interview in the magazine Cahiers du Cinema during the 1980s that 1960's "A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)" was his least favorite of his own films. The interviewer responded that he understood, and that the problem with Godard's first, most watched and most commercially...
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 10, 2010

Class of 2010: Japan's playwrights head west

Japan's young dramatists are increasingly shrugging off their medium's long-standing, self-imposed national isolation and are setting sail in search of new audiences, and critical praise, overseas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 10, 2010

When followers outdo the master

R. D. Laing, the leading light of the 1960s anti-psychiatry movement, believed that mental illnesses were natural responses to the unnatural stresses and strains of modern life. Something similar can be said about Surrealist art, which, at times, seems like an artistic reaction to a world that throws...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2010

Prisons trying to cope with swelling elderly population

ONOMICHI, Hiroshima Pref. — Handrails run down the middle of the hallway to help prisoners make their way from one end to the other. Adult diapers are neatly stacked in a corner. When an inmate chokes on his rice and coughs, a supervisor rushes over to rub his back.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 9, 2010

Hibiya Matsumotoro owner Tetsuro Kosaka

Tetsuro Kosaka, 78, is the owner of Hibiya Matsumotoro, one of Japan's most historical restaurants. A three-story building resembling a cozy country estate, Matsumotoro was designed to sit in the center of Japan's first Western-style park, Hibiya Koen, and it has been in business since the park opened...
SOCCER / J. League / J. LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 9, 2010

Tokyo left to pick up pieces after nightmare year

What began as a year of optimism and promise could not have turned out any worse for FC Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2010

'Tree of Hope' lit up for refugees

The Christmas "Tree of Hope" was set aglow in Tokyo's Marunouchi district Tuesday by Princess Kiko and a group of schoolchildren to show support for refugee kids worldwide suffering in conflicts and hardship.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Dec 8, 2010

'Father of the Internet in Japan' predicts the future of networked devices and tells us why Japan must deregulate online healthcare

In 1990, Jun Murai, at the time an associate professor at Keio University in Tokyo, made a prediction in an article in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. When asked what the future of computer systems would look like, he described a world where, on one level there would be a network, on a second level computers...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2010

Global goodbye for singer Utada

Pop star Hikaru Utada, one of Japan's best-selling artists of all time, is calling it quits at the end of the year, but not before performing for fans this week in a concert that will be streamed live online.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2010

Dead American's kin seek justice

Family and friends of Hoon "Scott" Kang say the 19-year-old's death in Tokyo in August left too many questions unanswered and are seeking ways to shed more light on the case.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 7, 2010

Abuse rife within trainee system, say NGOs

In October 1999, 19 Chinese trainees came to the Takefu city office pleading for help. In their first year in Japan as interns, the women had been promised ¥50,000 a month, but scraped by on ¥10,000. The next year, as technical trainees, they should have received ¥115,000 a month. After health insurance,...
COMMENTARY
Dec 7, 2010

U.S. remains delinquent on landmine treaty

NEW YORK — "I heard a thundering sound and saw darkness all around me. I spent three months in the hospital, and lost my leg and my son. I had stepped on a landmine and the world as I knew it had come to a halting end," wrote Monica Piloya, chairperson of the Gulu/Amuru Landmine Survivors' Network...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 7, 2010

Getting alcoholic beverage makers aboard the wagon

WASHINGTON — This year the World Health Organization adopted the historic Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol. Governments around the world are now taking stock of the toll of harmful drinking on public health, communities and economies, and beginning the important work of implementing...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 6, 2010

India moving to pole position for Security Council challenge

LONDON — U.S. President Barack Obama made a splash in India recently when he indicated that the United States would back India's bid for a permanent seat on an expanded United Nations Security Council.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 5, 2010

Rape: A crime for which hush-up society ought to stand trial, too

Mika Kobayashi is a brave woman.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 5, 2010

Privacy is losing its very meaning

Words come and words go. Times change, language evolves.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear