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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 15, 2007

Bliss for a Lazy Birder

Birders are often motivated by their species list — often something akin to their meaning of life.
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2007

Inflation shows Japan is doing OK again

Inflation, deflation, disinflation; expansion and contraction, it can do your head in. Markets are all about balloons and bubbles at different stages of contraction and expansion. The art is to get the best out of the expanding balloon, avoiding the deflating ones along the way.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Aug 14, 2007

Sumiko Sakamoto

Sumiko Sakamoto, 70, is a singer and award-winning actress whose heartfelt performances have made her a favorite of the late film director Shohei Imamura. Imamura cast her in three of his films, among them "The Ballad of Narayama," winner of the 1983 Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, in which her...
Events
Aug 12, 2007

KANSAI: Who & What

English tour takes in Koyasan temple town
COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2007

Wanted: creative leadership

HONOLULU — As expected, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) were defeated in Sunday's Upper House election. And, despite concerted attempts to lower expectations, the results still embarrassed the ruling party.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 2, 2007

DanDans meets Coco Chanel

Artists' lives are seldom easy, but the reality they face in Japan can be particularly daunting.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2007

Resolution irks right wing but won't harm relations

OSAKA — The passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of a nonbinding resolution calling on Japan to apologize for forcing thousands of young women into sexual slavery during the war will further inflame Japan's rightwing politicians and media, according to experts on Japan's relations with the...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 1, 2007

E-cash silencing the jingle of change

Since major electronic money services emerged in 2001, it has become common in Tokyo for people to go through ticket gates by just touching a smart card to electronic readers at train stations and to make small purchases without pulling out their wallets at convenience stores. Japan's cash-based tradition...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2007

North Korea will still want its reactors

HONG KONG — The failure of the six-party talks to agree on a schedule for North Korea to declare and disable all of its nuclear programs shows that there are major obstacles ahead, although the first phase — providing for the shutdown of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor — went relatively smoothly,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 27, 2007

'The Flock'

Richard Gere stars as a creased, rumpled, work-obsessed monitor of sexual offenders in "The Flock" (released in Japan as "Kieta Tenshi)," a vehicle in which he seems to derive absolute pleasure from shattering his own, Desirable Male No. 1 stereotype.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 26, 2007

Demented in NY

It's almost counterintuitive — in the midst of the glorious chaos that is China as it modernizes itself, Chinese painters are technically spotless. In their hands, paint has been tamed, a tool with which they slickly create canvases with flawless surfaces that almost hide their workmanship.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2007

The death of Iraq's Christian community

WASHINGTON — Although Islam long has been in the ascendancy in Iraq, the so-called Assyrians, who speak a neo-Aramaic language, predate the rise of Islam. Today, however, the Iraqi Christian community faces possible extermination.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 22, 2007

TETRAPODS

Ah, tetrapods!
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 21, 2007

What's your Hokey Pokey biography?

So, where are you from? How old are you? What are your hobbies? What do you like sports? How long stay Japan? Tired of answering questions? Really?
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2007

Murakami took to stocks early, a genuine 'activist'

Yoshiaki Murakami, the self-proclaimed "professional of all professional players in the stock market," began investing while still a child.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 20, 2007

Futuristic film screens as part of youth conference

Game over. Those words would erase the smile off the face of any video-game fanatic. But in Oshii Mamoru's 2001 film "Avalon," those could be the very last words you ever hear. This futuristic sci-fi film about a perilously addictive virtual-reality game — where a "death" can result in you meeting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 20, 2007

Serving up some piping-hot salsa

Calling Oscar D'Leon a salsa superstar doesn't do justice to his stature in the world of Latin music. Over the course of his 36-year-career, the bassist and singer has acquired more nicknames than the late James Brown.
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2007

Murakami given two-year sentence

The Tokyo District Court sentenced fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami to two years in prison Thursday for using inside information obtained from Livedoor Co. to trade in shares of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc.
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2007

Ban on online campaigns further besieged

of the Democratic Party of Japan takes part in an event to promote Internet election campaigning in Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, on June 15. HIROKO NAKATA PHOTO
BUSINESS
Jul 18, 2007

DoCoMo to sell Japanese BlackBerry

Aiming to challenge the dominance of cell phones, Research In Motion Ltd. of Canada will launch a Japanese version of the BlackBerry 8707h through NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s sales network next Monday, targeting corporate users, the companies said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 17, 2007

Schools single out foreign roots

Since 1990, when Japan started allowing factories to easily import foreign labor, the number of registered non-Japanese (NJ) residents has nearly doubled to more than 2 million.
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2007

Miyazawa knew economics

Obituaries for former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, who died recently at age 87, agreed that he was a statesman and a genuine internationalist. But some — those from Nikkei, Japan's leading economic media group, especially — also criticized him as a Keynesian economist responsible for Japan's economic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jul 13, 2007

Four top tipples for summer

The first rule for a summer wine is that it needs to be refreshing. High-scoring monster reds that warm the soul on a winter evening become plodding, heavy, alcoholic beasts on a sweltering day. Under conditions of heat and humidity, such big, bruiser wines leave us weary, rather than exhilarated.
Japan Times
JAPAN / PARTY LINE
Jul 12, 2007

JCP will go own way regardless of election outcome

The Japanese Communist Party will not form an alliance with the Democratic Party of Japan or any other party regardless of how the July 29 House of Councilors election turns out, according to party leader Kazuo Shii.
COMMENTARY
Jul 12, 2007

China's 'patriotic' church

HONG KONG — The Vatican, through a pastoral letter from Pope Benedict XVI to the 12 million Catholics in China, has called for reconciliation between the so-called patriotic church, which operates independently from the Holy See, and the underground church, which recognizes the supremacy of the pontiff....

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past