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Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jun 13, 2009

Marriage to Aussie 'otaku' found in translation

For Junko Hirose, her Australian husband, Richard Northcott, is pretty much Japanese when viewed from two aspects.
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2009

Hatoyama quits Aso Cabinet

Internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama resigned Friday after rejecting Prime Minister Taro Aso's request to approve Yoshifumi Nishikawa's reappointment as president of Japan Post Holdings Co.
BUSINESS
Jun 13, 2009

Honda looks to raise ¥100 billion for loans

Honda Motor Co., the nation's second-largest carmaker, may raise about ¥100 billion by selling asset-backed securities or commercial paper to fund car loans as it expects demand to recover later this year.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009

'Seishin'

Mental illness, as Kazuhiro Soda notes in his documentary "Seishin" ("Mental"), is one of the big taboos of Japanese society.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 12, 2009

Sonic after three decades of Youth

There's an old punk maxim that you should never trust anyone over 30. And yet as Sonic Youth rapidly approach the big three-oh, their music is on an upward curve.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009

Samurai get put through paces

Anyone who knows anything about musicals knows they require endless rehearsals in order to be staged successfully. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers didn't just jump up and glide around a sound stage as the cameras rolled; they had to practice each step of those seemingly effortless dance routines over...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 11, 2009

Bangladeshi minister pushes for investment

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hashina's special envoy, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud, called on Japan Wednesday to increase direct investment in his country, which is aiming to emerge as a midlevel developed country by 2021.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2009

Vaccine strategy poses serious quandary

The swine flu panic has waned in the past few weeks and authorities are breathing a sigh of relief, but some medical experts say the government has been slow to prepare for a possible second outbreak this fall.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 11, 2009

Prius hot, but at other models' expense?

Toyota Motor Corp.'s new Prius hybrid won more than 80,000 orders even before going on sale, prompting departing President Katsuaki Watanabe to call it the carmaker's "savior." Investors don't share his faith.
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2009

Nomura ups firms' profit outlook

Nomura Holdings Inc. narrowed its profit decline forecast for Japanese companies in the 2009 business year, citing benefits from favorable currency-exchange rates and cheaper oil.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jun 10, 2009

Just Hungry, Just Bento

The kitchen has long been used as a portal to distant places and times, and Just Hungry and Just Bento are two blogs by Makiko Itoh that put all the wonders of Japanese cuisine within a cutting-board's reach. For Makiko, cooking has been a way to re-create comfort foods from Japan while living abroad...
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2009

Feasible anti-emission goal

In July 2008 the Japanese government adopted a target for 2050 of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent from 2005 levels. At the same time, a special panel was created to deliberate midterm reduction goals (through 2020).
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2009

Pandemic test eyed for cell phones

A few months from now, a highly contagious disease will spread through a Japanese elementary school. The epidemic will start with several unwitting children, who will infect others as they attend classes and wander the halls.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2009

One every 15 minutes

For the last 11 years, one Japanese person has committed suicide every 15 minutes. This suicide rate, compiled by the National Police Agency, means that more than 30,000 suicides occur every year, a third of a million people in a decade. This astonishingly high rate, by far the highest for all developed...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2009

Keeping the faith in globalization

CHICAGO — As governments do more to try to coax the world economy out of recession, the danger of protectionism is becoming more real. It is emerging in ways that were unforeseen by those who founded our existing global institutions.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 7, 2009

Kang Sang Jung: Born but not Bred

Kang Sang Jung is one of the most influential ethnically Korean residents of Japan (zainichi). A political science professor at the University of Tokyo, he also gives lectures around the country, is a regular television commentator and has a column in the prestigious weekly current affairs magazine Aera....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 7, 2009

Our columnist's 'drug runs' are happily over

Whenever I visit the United States, friends ask me to pick up things for them, usually over-the-counter (OTC) drugs that are cheaper in the States than they are in Japan. I always return with this booty as nervous as if I were carrying a brick of hash, having once been told by a colleague how customs...
COMMENTARY
Jun 5, 2009

Suspect in stabbing death a national hero

HONG KONG — A public outcry in China over the case of a woman arrested for stabbing to death a local official who assaulted her after she refused to provide sexual services reflects the widespread distrust of officials and sympathy for the underdog — even someone who may face murder charges.
BUSINESS
Jun 5, 2009

Asahi Kasei cuts long-term targets

Chemical maker Asahi Kasei Corp. lowered its long-term profit goals and investment plans, saying the global recession is cutting demand.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2009

Takefuji next?

Consumer lender Takefuji Corp. said Wednesday it wants to raise as much as ¥100 billion in capital to help it weather the industry crisis that has claimed about half of its rivals in the past four years.

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