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COMMENTARY / World
Sep 14, 2011

U.S. response to 9/11 plunged Pakistan into chaos

The 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States sent shock waves around the world from which Pakistan has still not recovered. Indeed, Pakistan's participation in what former U.S. President George W. Bush called the "global war on terror" has produced overwhelmingly negative consequences, as it thrust...
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2011

Ten years on, a demoralized America

On Dec. 8, 1951, the day after the 10th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, The New York Times' front page made a one-paragraph mention of commemorations the day before, when the paper's page had not mentioned the anniversary. The Dec. 8 Washington Post's front page noted no commemorations the previous day....
BASKETBALL
Sep 13, 2011

Center Ashby signs with Lakestars

Center Julius Ashby will suit up for his fourth bj-league team, the Shiga Lakestars, this season, The Japan Times has learned.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 13, 2011

Maeda eyes Eco-point plan to revive Tohoku

New transport minister Takeshi Maeda says he wants to bring back the Housing Eco-point incentive system to achieve low-carbon, sustainable cities in the quake- and tsunami-hit Tohoku region.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Sep 13, 2011

Swede on mission to help Japan seniors

Gustav Strandell believes that if there is something good about his home country, Sweden, that he can bring to Japan, it's the concept and some of the technical skills of its social welfare system developed over its 100-year-plus history as an aging society.
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Seize the Olympic opportunity

Regarding the Sept. 4 Kyodo brief "Tokyo faces five in bid for 2020 games": An argument against Tokyo bidding for the 2020 Olympics can be made on financial grounds, especially with the outcome anything but certain. But there is an aura of magnificence about the Olympiad beyond tangible measurement....
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Better bulwark against China

Regarding Jeffrey Hornung's Sept. 7 article, "Shared regional interests draw Japan and India closer": I am an Indian with a small number of very dear Japanese friends. We share a trait that sets us apart from many white Westerners, while drawing us closer to the Chinese. This trait relates to our focus...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Toxic legacy on fourth generation

Regarding Roger Pulvers' Sept. 4 Counterpoint article, "As 9/11 nears, morality dictates we recall victims of America, too": While all will sympathize with the 3,000 victims of the Twin Towers, the article is correct to point out the many deaths caused by the actions of the United States. Unfortunately...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tourists ignoring dolphin culls

Regarding Susanna Duft's Sept. 8 letter, "Boon for a new tourism drive": Duft seems to believe in the misguided logic that ending the annual dolphin slaughter in Japan will encourage much-needed tourism, which has been decimated by the March 11 Tohoku-Pacific earthquake and tsunami.
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Consumption of prime ministers

Regarding the Sept. 4 editorial, "Test awaits Mr. Noda's Cabinet":
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tokyo doesn't get enough respect

According to the Global Livability Survey's ranking of 140 cities worldwide — the subject of the Sept. 1 AFP-JIJI article "Melbourne replaces Vancouver as the world's 'most-livable city'" — Tokyo came in 18th while Osaka was 12th! This annual survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit tends to rank...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 11, 2011

An English school for orangutans

You may have seen the YouTube footage of an orangutan cooling her face with a wet towel. Filmed on a sweltering day in August at Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo, the ape is seen dipping a towel in a pond, wringing it out, and patting it on her face.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 11, 2011

The annual Kerala festival in Tokyo

This is the traditional season for the Keralan festival called Onam, the one time a year when the mythical King Mahabali leaves the netherworld where he now rules and visits his people to help them celebrate the harvest and their traditions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 10, 2011

Swiss tries to bring foreign tourists back to Japan, a step at a time

The undulating sea observes the solitary walker. A triangular bamboo farmer's hat shades his face as the infinite horizon stretches ahead, marking out his path.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 10, 2011

Capello can't get his message across

It was the kind of incomprehensible, muddled display we have become used to when England plays.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 10, 2011

A guide to fortunetellers

Japan is a fortunetelling nation and so, to start, here is Truman Capote's famous line about fortunetellers . . .
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 9, 2011

Sendai to hold jazz festival

In times of trouble music can soothe the soul. And if anyone's souls needed soothing, it would be the people of Sendai.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2011

Beating the midlife blues

Are you feeling down about middle age? Do you find yourself thinking that time is hurtling and you'll never reach your goals — or, perhaps more distressingly, that they don't even fit who you are anymore?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Sep 9, 2011

Geary looking forward to coaching B-Corsairs

Reggie Geary brings a big smile, lots of energy, a well-rounded basketball background and a desire to build a winner as he steps into the spotlight as the first coach in Yokohama B-Corsairs history.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Sep 9, 2011

Seasonal tea with flavors of autumn

The Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Chinzan-so is offering its popular Harvest Afternoon Tea set at its lobby lounge, Le Jardin, until Nov. 14.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Sep 9, 2011

Going crazy for vintage wines

"Wine, the most agreeable of beverages, whether we owe it to Noah who planted the first vine or Bacchus who pressed the first grapes, dates from the beginning of the world ...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 9, 2011

Fukuoka fast becoming Asia film hub

During a speech to mark his receipt of The Japan Foundation Award for Arts and Culture late last year, there was one point that the widely respected film critic Tadao Sato was especially keen to convey to his Tokyo audience.
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Red herring of impeded shipping

Michael Richardson's Sept. 1 article, "Beijing wastes no time with Noda," panders to sinophobics. Even if China were to "extend its presence" in the East China Sea and South China Sea, it certainly wouldn't be the first time in history that Southeast Asian countries have had to deal with a dominant power,...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Economic superpower notions

Regarding Ramesh Thakur's Sept. 5 article, "Forecasts of robust middle-class growth are reason enough for Chinese, Indian optimism": I admire Thakur's optimism about India and China. In the first two decades after India's independence, it was touted as one of the next economic superpowers. Years of waiting...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Aggravating our radiation fears

Although the issue of how to address people's concerns about radioactive contamination was not among those taken up ahead of the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential election, if you ask the nation's housewives, especially those with children, what they expect of the new administration is that it...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Skimming over a barbaric hunt

The Sept. 2 Kyodo article "Typhoon delays Taiji dolphin hunt" misses the main point. It should have said: "While coastal whaling involving catcher boats usually starts May 1, drive hunting — a traditional whaling method born in Taiji in which cetaceans are herded into a shallow bay where they are brutally...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

What is Tepco talking about?

Regarding the Sept. 1 Kyodo article "Tepco plans to flood reactors, extract fuel": I find it simply amazing that the press continues to report the absurd pronouncements of Tokyo Electric Power Co. officials with a straight face. They have lied repeatedly about what they knew had happened. These lies...

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