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BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 18, 2012

Clippers looking like the real deal

In Kobe Bryant's initial meeting with Mike Brown, he cautioned the Lakers' newly hired coach "not to pull back," to coach him "like everyone else; otherwise the players will turn on you," he told me during dinner in Los Angeles just before Christmas.
BASKETBALL
Jan 18, 2012

Blackledge joins Phoenix

Forward Lawrence Blackledge has agreed to play for the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix after his release from the Osaka Evessa last week, the two-time defending bj-league champion announced on Monday. The Japan Times first reported the move in last Friday's editions.
COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2012

Loyalty alone is not enough

Japanese have been taught over the centuries that loyalty is the supreme virtue. Loyalty to Japan and to the emperor was inculcated into every child in prewar Japan. The emphasis now seems to be on loyalty to the company employing you, loyalty to your section in the company and loyalty to your immediate...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2012

U.S. no longer land of the free

Every year, the U.S. State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for...
COMMENTARY
Jan 17, 2012

Democracy and growth: Russia's great challenge

At this particular historic moment, the urgency of the economic assimilation of new natural and human resources worldwide is somehow obscured by the global crisis and by the necessity of reforming the global financial system.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2012

Entrance exam system faces review

The education ministry on Monday ordered a review of how the nation's unified college entrance exams are managed after delays and slipups affected more than 4,500 test-takers over the weekend.
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2012

Machinery orders climb 14.8% as firms stay optimistic on investment

Machinery orders rebounded in November, signaling that companies are willing to invest even as the yen remains strong and the global economy slows.
Special Supplements
Jan 17, 2012

The Japan Times Academy

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BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jan 16, 2012

Whaling may be sunk by commercial reality

Activism aside, is there a market for whale meat large enough to sustain the industry?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 16, 2012

Aoki takes All-Star shooting crown from Okada

Sharpshooter Cohey Aoki, a long-distance and free-throw shooting maestro, thrilled the masses during Sunday's bj-league All-Star Game 3-Point Shooting Contest.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2012

British influence and the EU

At the European crisis summit in December, David Cameron was snubbed by his European colleagues. His "veto" on accepting treaty changes believed by other members to be necessary to save European economies left Britain isolated.
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Won't dumb down the homework

Regarding Minoru Matsutani's Jan. 10 article "Student count, knowledge sliding": I teach university-level English conversation for first-year students and have become increasingly frustrated with my students' performance concerning the basic English that is taught in all junior highs throughout Japan....
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Shedding light on war victims

Regarding John Tirman's Jan. 12 article, "U.S. overlooks the true tolls of its wars" (reprinted from The Washington Post): It is hypocritical of President Barack Obama to praise American troops who served in Iraq when he voted against any invasion of Iraq and criticized the previous administration's...
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

No magic feeling with adulthood

I went to my coming-of-age ceremony (for 20-year-olds) last Monday. I enjoyed it, but I didn't feel as if I'd become an adult. The ceremony seemed more like a serious alumni meeting.
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jan 15, 2012

Anniversary of Korean annexation, "harakiri" row halts Diet, Socialist Party-China communique, Kyoto Journal debuts

100 YEARS AGOSunday, Jan. 7, 1912
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Lack of motivation for studying

Shiga University President Takamitsu Sawa's Dec. 19 article, "Motivation for college study," leads me to believe that he missed the point of his own article. Japanese students, generally speaking, are not motivated to attend college abroad mainly because they are not motivated to study or encouraged...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2012

Danger! Nuclear waste! Keep out — forever!

The earliest known cave paintings date from about 30,000 years ago, and the earliest bone tools found so far predate those paintings by another 40,000 years. Go back 100,000 years, and Homo sapiens — us lot — are only just emerging, though the fossil record suggests our ancestors back then had larger...
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2012

Discomfiting question about life

Like many, I too am against the killing of whales, but like many, I too didn't exactly know why. Until now! Joseph Jaworski's Jan. 12 letter, "The moral case against whaling?," has caused me to rethink my objections. To his question, "Can anyone opposed to whaling explain precisely what principle makes...
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2012

Wars over whaling

Japan's annual whaling season is currently under way with the inevitable lurid reports and tangled accusations. The history of conflict between Japan's whaling boats and anti-whaling protesters has not only gained newspaper headlines, but has inspired its own TV program, "Whale Wars," on the American...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 15, 2012

Sealing a connection with nature

The cliff-ringed cape known as Notoro Misaki stands as a massive natural breakwater west of the city of Abashiri in northeastern Hokkaido, sheltering it from some of the might of the ocean.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 15, 2012

The other side of world's 'worst battle'

FIGHTING SPIRIT: The Memoirs of Major Yoshitaka Horie and the Battle of Iwo Jima. Edited by Robert D. Eldridge and Charles W. Tatum. Naval Institute Press, 2011, 224 pp., $26.95 (hardcover) Iwo Jima is a tiny sliver of an island 1,200 km south of Tokyo, an unlikely setting for anything historical, let...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 15, 2012

Recall, for inspiration, that young people made the last 'Japanese Spring'

How can Japan extricate itself from the morass it sank into two decades ago when its asset-inflated bubble burst? This is the question on nearly everyone's mind in this country today. One thing is for sure: You can't get out of quicksand by pulling on your own hair.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 14, 2012

Triumphant return fitting for Henry

There are moments in football that remain in the memory. Your team or country has won a major honor, perhaps a goal by a home-produced striker or maybe a debutant's hat trick.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2012

GOP candidates dyeing their white collars blue

With attacks on Mitt Romney's career as a venture capitalist coming fast and furious from his primary opponents, the Republican presidential campaigns have entered strange new territory for the GOP: economic reality, or, more precisely, the economy that most people experience.
BASKETBALL
Jan 14, 2012

Warriors' Tyler making strides in rookie season

Like any NBA rookie, Jeremy Tyler faces a series of huge adjustments in his daily life on and off the court.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 13, 2012

Bulk of teams still have chance at landing spot in playoffs

Four teams have no realistic shot at finishing the season as winners. The bj-league's other 15 teams are in contention for a playoff spot and, possibly, a title.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 13, 2012

Bearing witness to brutality in 'Devil's Double'

"Should I ask him whether it's true or not?" That's the question I had for my editor regarding my interview with Latif Yahia, the Iraqi exile whose story about being the lookalike body-double for Saddam Hussein's psychotic son Uday has been parlayed into a best-selling book and a movie. "Probably," said...
Reader Mail
Jan 12, 2012

Nuclear accident solutions

Tune into Asian news on PBS in the United States on any given weekday morning and the chances are that the lead story will be about the March 11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster.
Reader Mail
Jan 12, 2012

What do 'experts' know about it?

In the Jan. 7 Kyodo brief, "Ideas on female royalty solicited," we find out that handpicked "experts" will be asked to approve of the government proposal to expand the number of members of the royal family. When will we see a constitutional challenge to this government-by-expert panel?

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?