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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 16, 2011

Zhang, Carpenter return to screens — with mixed effect

You know that sinking feeling you get when you're in some trendy upscale shop and suddenly the in-house BGM features some absolutely crap Euro-house remix of one of your most cherished pop songs? Well, that's exactly the feeling you'll get watching director Zhang Yimou's latest, "A Woman, a Gun and a...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Sep 16, 2011

Expect tons of surprises at Tokyo Game Show

For gamers, this weekend will feel like Christmas. Tokyo Game Show (TGS), Japan's biggest gaming event, began Thursday at Chiba's Makuhari Messe convention center and will continue through Sept. 18 (on Saturday and Sunday it will be open to the public). More than 140 exhibitors are on hand, off-site...
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

Geothermal is less wasteful

Regarding the Sept. 9 Kyodo article "Kepco's massive solar plant up and running": Although I applaud Kansai Electric Power Co.'s efforts to provide us with greener energy from its 10 megawatt power plant in Osaka, I can't help but feel the land used is wasted.
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

A comment on Muslims' views

Regarding the Sept. 9 JIJI article "Muslims here feel misunderstood": I would like to add that it seems to me that "feeling misunderstood" is inherent to a certain faction of Muslims all over the so called Western world. That some Muslims feel "misunderstood" increases with their percentage of the population....
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

Fewer liberties for this generation

Sadly everything that was written in Doug Bandow's Sept. 10 article, "U.S. now less secure, less free," is true. In the 10 years since the 9/11 attacks, civil liberties in the United States have been reduced and many people have adopted the neoconservative or war-hawk attitude that many in the Bush administration...
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2011

A refresher course in Job Creation 101

We need a refresher course in Job Creation 101 to judge how much, if at all, U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed $447 billion program of spending increases and tax cuts might revive America's sputtering job machine.
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

Reasons for Osaka's ranking

In his letter "Tokyo doesn't get enough respect", I don't know where Satoshi Sato found the information that Osaka has no museum, no concert hall, no drama theater. I find myself in perfect agreement with the Global Livability Survey ranking Osaka higher than Tokyo.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2011

Iwate survivors wonder, worry about future

The coastal town of Yamada, Iwate Prefecture, used to have a railway station, cafes, restaurants and medical clinics, but all that remains now are the foundations and twisted iron support bars of buildings.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 15, 2011

Will the real Dick Cheney please stand up?

He's been called Darth Vader, feared or derided as a trigger-happy, torture-loving puppet master who called the shots over the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency. And now, with the publication of his memoir, "In My Time," Dick Cheney has once again grabbed the media spotlight. But what about...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 15, 2011

Francois Girard and a woman of many letters

"This wonderful project started when my friend, the Lebanese writer Wajdi Mouawad, gave me a book and said I should make a movie out it," Francois Girard explains. "But after I read it I got back to him and said, 'Sorry, I disagree with you. This is really not right for a movie — but it's perfect for...
Reader Mail
Sep 15, 2011

Don't sweat Russian bombers

Regarding the Sept. 10 Kyodo article "Russian bombers trigger protest": It is incredible that no one reporting this story has chosen to look at the obvious — why would Russia do this?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2011

New mayor's warnings fell on deaf ears

When the March 11 quake struck, mayoral candidate Yutaka Ikarigawa was preparing for a speech on the streets of Otsuchi, Iwate Prefecture.
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.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’