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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 31, 2007

'Because I Said So'

As a longtime fan of Diane Keaton, it's always disheartening to see her in roles that seem inadequate for the Oscar-winning, lean and brainy hipster icon of the 1970s ("Annie Hall," "Manhattan" and "Interiors," to name just a few). But her most recent foray into mainstream rom-com is just plain painful....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 31, 2007

A great escape to Biwako

Jasmine, a writer who hails from Hiroshima and is much older than me but has a refined magnetizing beauty that cannot be ignored, pours me a cup of green tea on my first ever junket. It's just before the world turns blue; just before I'm dropped into a Marc Chagall painting by an invisible but all-seeing...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2007

China's happy mask hides huge problems

BEIJING — China's "face" may be its Achilles' Heel. As it basks in its new status as an economic superpower — the dragon that is outpacing Asia's tigers as well as the donkeys of the West — China is mistakenly downplaying its own serious structural weaknesses.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2007

Opium King's ties believed went to the top

An obscure tomb in a small graveyard at a Chiba Prefecture temple marks the final resting place of Japan's wartime "Opium King," although the site betrays nothing of this dark cloud, nor the relationship the deceased had with key historical figures.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 30, 2007

Cities in the dust

The Fascist dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco wasn't everyone's cup of tea — but he did manage the unusual feat of transcending time.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2007

Japan profited as opium dealer in wartime China

A Japanese narcotics firm in wartime occupied China sold enough opium to nearly match the annual budget of Tokyo's puppet government in Nanjing, according to an internal company document recently discovered by The Japan Times.
BUSINESS
Aug 30, 2007

Hedge fund numbers, assets mushroom as stocks languish

Hiromichi Tsuyukubo ran the best-performing fund in Japan at Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co., an arm of the nation's biggest lender. Then, after six years, he decided to join a hedge fund.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 29, 2007

Let's (try to) get serious about silliness

August is known as the "silly season" in the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, as newspaper editors faced with legislators all gone on holiday struggle in vain to fill their pages and resort to, well, silly stories.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Aug 29, 2007

Save the planet: wind-powered toys and PC ways to catch insects

A nimal rights are as important to me as they are to the next Homo sapien. But I draw the line at in sects inflicting their unwanted presence on me, mosquitoes most especially spring to mind. Frankly, the first solution that comes to mind is finding use No. 1,001 for a newspaper. Those who prefer a less...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 28, 2007

Worlds notebook; Day 3

OSAKA — News and notes from Day 3 of the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships.
COMMENTARY
Aug 28, 2007

America's dirty little victory

NEW YORK — "Just about everyone agrees that the recent conviction of Abdullah al-Muhajir, aka Jose Padilla, is a good thing," wrote rightwing pundit Neil Kressel in The New York Post.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 27, 2007

Steeplechase kings

OSAKA — Few things in life are guaranteed, but there seems to be one automatic occurrence in athletics: a Kenyan-born athlete will win a major international steeplechase race.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2007

Battling aviation pollution and congestion

LONDON — The British summer this year has been a nonevent: Rain, clouds and wind. The temptation has been to fly south to the Mediterranean where the sun has been scorching.
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2007

The unending humanitarian nightmare

NEW YORK — In August 2002, Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, wrote a prescient article in The Wall Street Journal warning of the dire consequences of invading Iraq. His predictions are confirmed in a new report by Oxfam, the British aid agency...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Aug 24, 2007

Eden

Director: Michael Hoffman Language: German
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2007

'Oyaji'

Action stars in Hollywood tend to have long shelf lives. Jackie Chan, born in 1954, is still making slick kung-fu moves in "Rush Hour 3," while Sylvester Stallone, born in 1946, returned to the ring this year in "Rocky Balboa." And Harrison Ford, born in 1942, is back again for a fourth round as Indiana...
Reader Mail
Aug 22, 2007

Japan exporting unemployment

The International Monetary Fund has lost all credibility with its analysis of Japanese interest rates and Japanese monetary policy. Near-zero interest rates and no inflation are not just puzzling; they are totally incomprehensible for the trained, monetary economist. Japan's reluctance to intervene...
EDITORIALS
Aug 22, 2007

Surviving summer's heat waves

The hot weather last week certainly made some people wonder whether the Japanese archipelago is experiencing the effects of global warming. On Aug. 16, the city of Kumagaya in Saitama Prefecture and the city of Tajimi in Gifu Prefecture registered the highest temperature — 40.9 C — in the history...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 22, 2007

Can others save Earth despite Big Oil's blinkers?

How can an economic superpower founded on progress and innovation be so averse to change that would cut the greenhouse-gas emissions that are spurring global warming and climate change?
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Aug 22, 2007

Vet blames those on high for war's sins, delusions

Sixth in a series
MORE SPORTS
Aug 21, 2007

Troubled Vick should seek mercy of the court - and Goodell

Michael Vick has more to worry about at the moment than just what Roger Goodell thinks. Or so it would seem.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 19, 2007

Kuwata, Igawa, Furuta share uncertain future as players

Too bad about the career of Masumi Kuwata apparently coming to an end after he was designated for assignment by the Pittsburgh Pirates, but success pitching in the major leagues for the 39-year-old right-hander was really a long shot, made even longer because of the ankle injury he had in a spring training...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 19, 2007

Without Rooney, pressure on Man United

LONDON — One week into the Premier League season and already the C-word has reared its ugly head.
Reader Mail
Aug 19, 2007

Abe sends a mixed message

Although I have lived in Japan more than half my life, I had never attended the annual Aug. 6 A-bomb memorial ceremony in Hiroshima until this year, the 62nd anniversary. In addition to a record attendance of representatives from 42 countries, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, still reeling from his party's...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2007

Why not let doping close the gene gap?

PRINCETON, New Jersey — There is now a regular season for discussing drugs in sports, one that arrives every year with the Tour de France. This year, the overall leader, two other riders and two teams were expelled or withdrew from the race as a result of failing, or missing, drug tests. The eventual...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Putting the fun back into feeling fit

Although you may be a typically busy worker, in Japan there's no shortage of easy exercise options to help keep you in shape — whether "10-minute fitness" clubs where you can have a quick workout without even changing your clothes, varieties of home exercise videos or machines and, of course, any number...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Beauty beheld in brutalism

No matter how wild or wacky their hobbies or obsessions, in the age of the Internet no one need feel isolated any more, and by casting all inhibitions aside almost anyone is assured of finding like-minded others out there in cyberspace — if not just around the corner from home.

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