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SOCCER
Nov 7, 2009

Al Ittihad, Pohang aim for continental crown

South Korea's Pohang Steelers will attempt to add another major title to their trophy case when they meet Saudi champions Al Ittihad in Saturday's Asian Champions League final.
BASKETBALL
Nov 7, 2009

Golden Kings roll

Shigeyuki Kinjo scored a team-high 19 points and four teammates scored in double digits as the Ryukyu Golden Kings rolled to an 89-68 road win over the Takamatsu Five Arrows on Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 7, 2009

Yoko Ono, forever a force for peace

Even before she married John Lennon, even before she embarked on a career as an avant-garde and conceptual artist, Yoko Ono was under scrutiny, first by her teachers and peers, later by people of a different region as her family fled the fire-bombings of Tokyo.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 6, 2009

Koyano continues to deliver in the clutch

Although he barely missed hitting the .300 mark, Eiichi Koyano was a big part of the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters' pennant-winning run with his MVP-type performance throughout the year.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Nov 6, 2009

Kinjo coming into own for defending champs

While racking up the bj-league's Most Improved Player honors last season and collecting a championship ring, Ryukyu Golden Kings guard Shigeyuki Kinjo emerged as a genuine hero for countless youngsters in Okinawa.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 6, 2009

Giants one win away after clutch homers

Yoshiyuki Kamei showed everyone why he won this year's new NPB award for dramatic home runs with a shot in the ninth inning of Game 5.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 6, 2009

Soil creates life with 'death jazz'

"The Lounge Lizards and Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers in a Japanese brothel," is how acclaimed U.K. DJ and record-label owner Gilles Peterson has described funky jazz sextuplet Soil & "Pimp" Sessions.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2009

Not all smooth at CREAM festival opening

The celebratory mood surrounding Yokohama's new CREAM — Creativity for Arts and Media — festival was disrupted when one of the participating artists, Masaki Fujihata, unexpectedly announced that he would be withdrawing his work.
EDITORIALS
Nov 6, 2009

Confusing approach to goals

Under the slogan "Politics that values humans, not concrete," the Hatoyama administration is taking a different direction from that of the Liberal Democratic Party when it was the ruling party. Symbolic of the change are decisions to stop the Yanba dam project in Gunma Prefecture and to introduce monthly...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2009

The human rights outlook and new justice minister

Ever since the historic landslide victory of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the Lower House elections, we have wondered how the new government will wield its power. In the area of human rights protection, at least, there is cause to expect dramatic change. One of the more startling appointments...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2009

Cultivating a way for egoless art

Perhaps the strangest experience I've had at an exhibition this year was being led into a small room by a polite museum attendant, shown to a desk with a sheet of paper and some colored pencils, and being asked to draw — just as soon as the lights were switched off!
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Nov 5, 2009

Meiji University celebrates manga heritage

A national media arts center might never see the light of day but Meiji University is doing its part to preserve classic manga.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 5, 2009

Ogasawara busts out but keeps poker face

Watching Game 3 of the Japan Series must have been a bitter pill to swallow for Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters fans.
Reader Mail
Nov 5, 2009

Civil Code defines parental rights

Darryl McGarry, in his Oct. 25 letter, "Family register defines reality," is right to feel consternation with the family register system, which certainly needs revision. I know how important — and, at times, frustrating — registration can be; I went to court in 1978 and 1982 on behalf of my children,...
Reader Mail
Nov 5, 2009

Wonders of carbon science

Regarding Gwynne Dyer's Nov. 1 article, "Avalanche of evidence on vanishing ice caps": As the Copenhagen conference on global warming approaches, Dyer gives an excellent introduction to the sophisticated science applied to this issue. It seems to be well established that high temperatures are associated...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Nov 4, 2009

Gokai: The more I know Japan, the thicker the fog

What a strange dream! The city was engulfed in a wave of random murders (musabetsu satsujin, 無差別殺人), and when my doorbell rang it was not the murderer (satsujinhan, 殺人犯), as I'd feared, but a high police official come to coax me out of retirement (taishoku, 退職) and put my detective...
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2009

Still wrestling with Europe

Some things seem to go on forever. For half a century the British have been wrestling with the question of their relations with the rest of continental Europe and the struggle continues unabated and still unsolved.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Nov 4, 2009

Ando aims for second win of GP season at NHK Trophy

When Miki Ando takes the ice at the Big Hat in Nagano on Friday she will be looking to notch a Grand Prix victory for Nikolai Morozov's stable of skaters for the fourth straight weekend.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 3, 2009

Giants stay cool as Japan Series heats up

Brian Sweeney was ready for anything.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 3, 2009

Lehman-stung Shinsei refocusing on Japan

Having experienced a record loss on overseas investments and loans to Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., an executive of Shinsei Bank Ltd. said the nation's seventh-largest bank will now focus on corporate and individual customers at home instead of proprietary investments abroad.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Nov 3, 2009

Marriage ever-changing institution

Marriage may be an institution, but it's permutations have run the gamut from polygamy, a practice that dates to ancient times but is still allowed in certain areas, to the recent legalization in some places of same-sex partnerships, with everything in between.
Rugby
Nov 2, 2009

All Black McCaw predicts bright future for Japanese rugby

New Zealand captain Richie McCaw believes Japanese rugby can use Saturday's historic Bledisloe Cup match in Tokyo as a springboard to success, but warned improvements will not happen overnight.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2009

Obituary: Vivienne Kenrick

Vivienne Kenrick, who wrote the weekly Personality Profile in The Japan Times from 1963 to 2007, died Sunday of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital. She was 89.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2009

Vienna looks to alter staid image by design

Mozart, Freud, Klimt. Those who came to Vienna in centuries gone by to join the heart of European activity are now the very attractions that draw crowds of tourists to the Austrian capital today.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 1, 2009

Ministry insider speaks out

Health ministry bureaucrat Moriyo Kimura made headlines in late May just after the H1N1 flu outbreak sparked a massive mask-buying spree across the nation. Appearing before a Diet committee as an expert witness, the 44-year-old quarantine officer sharply criticized her own ministry — and especially...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Nov 1, 2009

The haunting beauty that is Yushima

On a glowering October morning, I exit the Chiyoda Line at Yushima Station and stroll northwesterly through the back streets of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 1, 2009

Japanese food-safety label protects business foremost, and not people

It's wise to take any advertisement claim with a grain of salt, and some products invite not just skepticism but downright disbelief. Commercials for hair restoration aids may not actually state they will return your bald pate to a state of hirsute lushness, but they nevertheless get your hopes up toward...

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