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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 4, 2011

Deli, coffee — and don't forget your monocle

The Monocle Cafe — the first in the world created by the eponymous international lifestyle magazine — looks just the way you'd expect. Sleek but comfortable, with light-wood furniture in a modern Scandinavian vein, it blends in perfectly with the designer boutiques inside Hankyu Men's Tokyo, the...
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2011

GSDF dispatch to South Sudan gets go-ahead

The government announced Tuesday that several hundred Ground Self-Defense Force engineers will be dispatched to South Sudan as part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2011

TPP bandwagons play tunes not all find pleasing to the ear

The question of whether Japan should join the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade talks has taken center stage in the Diet as the chasm grows between TPP advocates, mainly on the side of businesses, and opponents, representing long-protected farming and fishing constituencies.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 2, 2011

Shōgi showdown for supercomputer

Eiki Ito, 49, started programming a shōgi (Japanese chess) computer in 1998, because back then, he says, his job with an IT firm wasn't keeping him busy enough. Thirteen years later, his pet machine boasts a computing ability of 4 million moves per second. And it may well soon beat one of the strongest...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Nov 2, 2011

Preorders keep that 'I-can't-wait-to-play' energy alive

Nov. 11, 2006, was one of the most stressful nights of my gaming life. That was the date the PlayStation 3 launched in Japan — and it was hell.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Nov 1, 2011

Japan's 'new towns' are finally getting too old

In September, real estate developer Tokyo Tatemono started to demolish the Suwa Ni-chome apartments in the western Tokyo region of Tama. The Suwa danchi (housing development) was an integral part of Tama New Town, which opened in 1971. Of the various "new towns" built in the late 1960s and '70s by the...
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2011

Panasonic to report second-biggest loss

Reversing an earlier projection of a ¥30 billion profit, Panasonic Corp. said Monday it expects to post a group net loss of ¥420 billion for the current business year ending next March.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 31, 2011

Controversy is no stranger to Nobel Peace Prize

Earlier this month, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced its decision to award its annual Peace Prize to three African women — two Liberians and one Yemeni — Time magazine published online, on the same day, a list of the top 10 among "the most controversial moments in the 110-year history...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011

Hope found in despair of Japanese POW camp

VICTORY IN DEFEAT: The Wake Island Defenders in Captivity, by Gregory J.W. Urwin. Naval Institute Press, 2010, 478 pp., $38.95 (hardcover) An American solder mused, "We were amazed. We had always been told that [the Japanese] were inferior people. We was amazed at how well they were bombing."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 28, 2011

Marubeni swaps trail only Tepco in growth

The cost to insure debt of Marubeni Corp. is poised to rise the most this month of any Japanese company besides Tokyo Electric Power Co., reflecting concern an economic slowdown will make it more difficult to meet forecasts for record profit.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2011

Time for more decisive action

A 51-day-long extraordinary Diet session started Oct. 20 — the second extraordinary Diet session under Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. In the first session, Mr. Noda, who had been in power only for a short period of time, adopted the tactic of "driving safe," avoiding going deep into details in discussions...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2011

A thousand prisoners for one

The celebrations in Israel over the release of the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit come after the Israeli government concluded that diplomatic rarity, an agreement with Hamas. It is as if the government had brought back an Israeli who had been sent to Mars.
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2011

Freedom of information threatened

A government committee headed by Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura on Oct. 7 decided to submit to the Diet in 2012 a bill to mete out severe punishment to people who leak "special secrets" related to diplomacy, national security and public order. The committee says that the purpose of the bill is...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Oct 25, 2011

Hiroshima-area family roots inspire Canadian film director

When Linda Ohama, a third-generation Japanese-Canadian, heard the news about the earthquake and tsunami that hit the Tohoku region on March 11, she says she was "very shocked" and felt a strong urge to do something for the people there — especially the children.
EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2011

Releasing psychiatric patients

A recent report by Bloomberg news that the government is planning to reduce the number of patients in psychiatric hospitals signals an important shift in Japan's view of mental health. According to the report, which was not well circulated in the Japanese press, the health ministry set a 10-year timetable...
BUSINESS
Oct 22, 2011

Honda enlists Thai soldiers as floods approach

Outside a Honda Motor Co. factory on Bangkok's outskirts, Thai soldiers guide gravel bags lowered from a crane into a canal as guards stationed on the plant's plastic-lined walls monitor rising floodwaters.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 21, 2011

Kabaya starts strong as B-Corsairs evolve

With four games in the books, the expansion Yokohama B-Corsairs now have several relevant things that can be discussed in team meetings. A few trends have started to emerge, too, including the solid play of guards Masayuki Kabaya and Kenji Yamada.
BUSINESS
Oct 20, 2011

Olympus backtracks on Gyrus fee

Olympus Corp. said Wednesday it paid $687 million in advisory fees for its acquisition of Gyrus Group PLC, almost double the ¥30 billion Olympus Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa said the day before.
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2011

A decade of Afghan tragedy

On July 1, 2002, the United States bombed an Afghan wedding in the small village of Deh Rawud. Located to the north of Kandahar, the village seemed fortified by the region's many mountains. For a few hours, its people thought they were safe from a war they had never invited. They celebrated, and as customs...
BUSINESS
Oct 19, 2011

Olympus investors drop ¥250 billion

Olympus Corp. shareholders, including Nippon Life Insurance Co., lost more than ¥250 billion in value of their holdings in the first two trading sessions after the board fired President Michael C. Woodford.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 18, 2011

The EU's clean-air turbulence

Passengers flying to and from Europe face higher fares from next year, and anyone flying to Japan or Asia will pay sharply more than those staying within Europe or going to the Middle East, thanks to new rules from the European Union in pursuit of an oxymoron, making air travel environmentally friendly....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 16, 2011

Irabu's impact on MLB-NPB relations profound

Hideki Irabu, once considered to be one of the best pitchers in the world, is dead, in what has been adjudged to be a suicide in late July.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years