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Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2008

Egyptian preaches Japan's success

Anyone feeling down on Japan's future and in need of a pick-me-up should listen to Hisham Badr, a former Egyptian ambassador to Tokyo and an ardent admirer of Japanese tradition.
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 30, 2008

Di Maria's goal lifts Argentina

Japan's Olympic soccer team gave itself a confidence boost with a credible performance against defending champion Argentina on Tuesday night, before a thunderstorm forced the match to be abandoned with Japan trailing 1-0.
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2008

Matsushita sees profit double on solid demand

Profit at Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. for the April-June period nearly doubled from the previous year on solid global demand for flat-panel TVs and digital cameras, the company said Tuesday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jul 30, 2008

New compact Lumix makes room for better summer memories

More sensor: Increasing the number of pixels in a digital camera's sensor without increasing the sensor's size is an underhanded act designed to sell more cameras, and in that regard, Panasonic is as guilty as any compact camera maker. But the Japanese electronics giant is earning early points for parole...
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2008

More good lawyers needed

The Japan Federation of Bar Associations (Nichibenren) has made an emergency proposal to slow down the government's plan to increase the number of successful applicants in the annual national bar exam to 3,000 by around 2010. Nichibenren said that since the current system of nurturing legal professionals...
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2008

EU, Japan should try to make up for lost time

BRUSSELS — After the Cold War, in which Europe and Japan played subordinate political — and military — roles to Washington, the European Union and Japan found themselves in the position of being "economic giants" but "political dwarves."
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008

Was the 'Japanese Renaissance' lost at sea?

Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 27, 2008

Athletics squad faces pressure in Beijing

There was a mild dose of optimism Japan would collect a bunch of medals at the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Osaka. Some said the nation's athletes would benefit from the home stadium advantage and the fact they were acclimated to the hot, humid summers in Kansai.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2008

Space and the city: experimenting in Japan

BURN YOUR BELONGINGS by David F. Hoenigman. SIX GALLERY PRESS, 2008, 201 pp., $24.99 (paper) In a letter to Charles Olson on June 5, 1950, the late Robert Creeley wrote that "form is never more than an extension of content." In her "How To Write" published in 1931, Gertrude Stein claimed "Sentences are...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 27, 2008

Zeami's notes: appreciating blossoming performances

ZEAMI: Performance Notes, translated by Tom Hare. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008, 528 pp., $45 (cloth) Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443), the actor, playwright and aesthetic theorist who established the Noh drama as a classical theatrical art, left behind some 21 treatises.
COMMUNITY
Jul 26, 2008

Psychic travels world to save lives

Professor Jucelino Nobrega da Luz was 9 years old when he had a dream that scared him half to death.
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2008

Inflation quickens as core prices rise 1.9%

Japan's consumer prices rose at the fastest pace in a decade in June as higher food and gasoline costs squeezed household budgets, slowing economic growth.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2008

Horie's 30-month prison term upheld

The Tokyo High Court rejected Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie's appeal Friday and upheld his 2 1/2-year prison term for falsifying financial statements and violating the Securities and Exchange Law, describing the defendant as "lacking dignity."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2008

Mazda resurgent as Ford finds need for small autos

Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally's crisis is Mazda Motor Corp. CEO Hisakazu Imaki's opportunity.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 25, 2008

Photographer finds affection in the Arctic

Love's warmth can be found in the coldest of places — and among the wildest of creatures.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 25, 2008

Kyoto's geisha: Behind the sliding door

A waitress took our drink orders and we waited, my anticipation building by the moment. Suddenly the door slid open and there knelt Ms. Ichimame, our maiko entertainer for the evening. She bowed deeply and introduced herself, smiling slightly.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2008

Jables steals the show

You could tell Jack Black was itching to act up. Sitting on the dais with four colleagues to promote their new animated film, "Kung Fu Panda," at a hotel in Shinjuku, the roly-poly actor looked — as he himself put it — like "the cat that ate the canary": face frozen in a self-satisfied grin except...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2008

Alternatives to Iranian oil

SINGAPORE — Talks to defuse the brewing crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions ended inconclusively last weekend. The discussions in Geneva involving China, Russia, the United States and leading European powers were followed by a warning to Tehran that it had a fortnight to respond positively or face...
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2008

Barack Obama's overseas tour

Barack Obama wants three things out of his tour of the Mideast and Europe. He wants people everywhere to think that he has the answers for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He wants U.S. Jews to believe that he is Israel's unquestioning supporter. And he wants Americans to notice that Europeans would vote...
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

Visitor got off easy in Hokkaido

Regarding D.B.'s July 17 letter, "Three days in the Hakodate jail": Japanese law is quite clear -- a visitor must carry his passport with him at all times. I cannot believe that this gentleman chose to deliberately break the law by traveling to Hokkaido at a time of heightened security without his passport....
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

Sports no match for good books

I applaud The Japan Times for publishing Grant Piper's July 21 letter, "Social competition or pathology?" I agree with his views that competitive sports are immoral and inappropriate, but I disagree that noncompetitive, friendly and recreational sports are qualitatively any different from organized sports....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2008

Bettye LaVette brings her triumphant soul battle to Fuji

Few artists could have struggled through a career as thoroughly frustrating as that of American soul singer Bettye LaVette and still continue to display the strength and good humor that she does.
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

More questions than answers

Regarding the July 20 article "Teenager held in dad's stabbing": How bizarre we can get? A 15-year-old girl "admitted stabbing her father in the chest several times with a knife." She "didn't like to be told to study" by her parents. The police got a call "from the teen's family" saying "the daughter...
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2008

Happy birthday, Mr. Mandela

Mr. Nelson Mandela turned 90 last week. The former political prisoner turned world leader is a hero and an icon — one of the few people who truly deserves those labels in an age of hyperbole and superficiality. Mr. Mandela has "retired from retirement," settling down to a quiet life with his wife and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2008

Fab Four flick offers a taste of revolution

It's easy to be skeptical about the idea of a movie-musical based on the music of The Beatles. After all, we've been there before with 1978's "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the Robert Stigwood-produced travesty that took the most twee aspects of The Beatles' oeuvre, cast The Bee Gees and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2008

Osama bin Laden: the Islamic bard of terror

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — In Riyadh last March, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decorated U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney with the Kingdom's Order of Merit. This gesture elicited hundreds of Internet postings from Arabs condemning the award as treachery and lamenting the pitiful state of leadership in...
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Jul 23, 2008

Veteran sheds hatred, finds Japan now like second home

21st in a series

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’