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SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
May 27, 2008

Asashoryu mars Kotooshu's day of glory

In a shade over 250 years of recorded sumo history, no European has ever been crowned king of the ring. No European has ever held aloft the Emperor's Cup. No European has ever won a Grand Sumo Tournament.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
May 27, 2008

Home alone

When Web designer Soko Hirayama moved to Tokyo five months ago, she did not expect to be living solo.
LIFE / Language
May 27, 2008

Mastery of kanji takes time to build, just like Rome

If you want yuyujiteki no seikatsu wo suru, to live the life of Riley, in Japan, then you should learn as many four-kanji expresssions as you can. (Yuyujiteki implies living in unsurpassed comfort for the rest of your days, an admirable goal if there ever was one.)
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 27, 2008

Arbitrary rulings equal bad PR

Getting to know Japan is hard work: a complicated language, cultural esoterica, mixed messages about prudent paths to take. People who find their way around and assimilate deserve kudos and respect.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 27, 2008

Law bends over backward to allow 'fuzoku'

Some desires money can't gratify, but for appetites of the flesh, there are ways in Japan to legally sate one's carnal cravings.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 26, 2008

Eat less beef and help the planet, G8 is told

KOBE — Experts gathering for the Group of Eight environment ministers meeting in the city known for its high-quality beef have a suggestion on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Eat less beef.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 26, 2008

G8 meet sidesteps midterm gas cuts

KOBE — Environment ministers from the Group of Eight countries meeting Sunday in Kobe apparently sidestepped the major issue of setting midterm greenhouse-gas reduction targets for 2020 due to a divide between developing and industrialized countries over specific targets.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2008

Can India and China dance?

TRIVANDRUM, India — It is fashionable these days, particularly in the West, to speak of India and China in the same breath. These are the two big countries said to be taking over the world, the new contenders for global eminence after centuries of Western domination, the Oriental answer to generations...
JAPAN / AFRICA LIFELINE
May 26, 2008

Tokyo ready to shift foreign-aid focus from Asia to Africa

Japan is embarking on a diplomatic sea change.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2008

Recognizing the limits of American influence

JERUSALEM — Israel's 60th anniversary has come and gone. So, too, has President George W. Bush's final visit to the Middle East. Amid the celebrations and the soul-searching, no meaningful breakthrough in the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is visible.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
May 25, 2008

U.N. climate chief urges ministers to show their cards

KOBE — The United Nations' top climate-change official expressed concern Saturday about what Japan means by "industrial sectoral" approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and warned that the concept should not replace national targets in any new environmental treaty that would take effect when...
LIFE
May 25, 2008

Sonoko

"You're a strange girl!" muttered my mother, shaking her head.
CULTURE / Books
May 25, 2008

Abu Ghraib stirs memory of a prisoner of conscience

BLACK GLASSES LIKE CLARK KENT: A GI's Secret From Postwar Japan, by Terese Svoboda. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2008, 225 pp., $14 (paper) In most of the developed world, for most of the post-World War II era, the notion that torture might be OK was about as open to discussion as the notion...
Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 25, 2008

Morozov blames agent for breakup with Takahashi

When you have been in the business as long as I have, you develop a kind of sixth sense about when something is not right.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 25, 2008

The art of 'not being funny' drums up big laughs on TV

It was a year ago that comedian Yoshio Kojima got his big break, and Japanese TV hasn't been the same since. Kojima is the young man who wears the colorful bikini briefs and nothing else while happily dancing and declaiming in meter: "Sonna no kankei nai (I couldn't care less)." His only punch line is...
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 24, 2008

Status quo may block climate pact

KYOTO — A weak prime minister, a divided bureaucracy and opposition from big business mean Japan's ability to use the July Group of Eight Summit at Lake Toya to forge an effective global warming treaty is at risk, a leading environmental activist warns.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
May 24, 2008

Iwakuma flying high for Eagles

Hisashi Iwakuma seems to have finally arrived for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles.
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2008

Difficult times for business

Most companies listed in the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange have announced their performance for the 2007 business year ended March 31, and they show an increase in aggregate ordinary profit for the sixth consecutive year.
BUSINESS
May 24, 2008

Pension reserves urged split, diversified

Japan should split the nation's ¥150 trillion in pension reserves into smaller funds and diversify what they are invested in, private-sector members of a government advisory panel said.
COMMENTARY
May 23, 2008

It'll be Serbia's choice when the sulking stops

LONDON — The rhetoric before the Serbian parliamentary election May 11 was ugly enough, but it has gotten worse since. President Boris Tadic spun the outcome as a victory for the pro-European Union forces when only half the votes were counted, which served his purposes as he is also the leader of the...
BASKETBALL
May 23, 2008

Ryuku Golden Kings terminate Planells

The Ryukyu Golden Kings lost 34 of 44 games in their first season in the bj-league, finishing with the worst record in the five-team Western Conference. And Hernando Planells, who guided the team during its rocky first season will not return as head coach next season, The Japan Times has learned.
JAPAN
May 23, 2008

Whale meat being sold before OK: Greenpeace

Whale meat from Japan's processing ship Nisshin Maru is being illegally sold prior to the official government release of whale stocks, activists from the environmental group Greenpeace charged Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 23, 2008

Descending into the somber history of a once-glittering prize

It's a balmy spring day in Shimane Prefecture, but one step into the newly reopened Okubo Shaft of the Iwami silver mine and your body is enveloped by the darkness and the cold. In these eerie surroundings, it's not hard to imagine encountering the ghosts of the miners whose labor helped reshape Japan...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
May 23, 2008

Bottled water: It's naughty, but nice

I know, I know, bottled water is terribly unethical these days. Pinching a natural, life-sustaining resource and flying it to rich people in faraway lands is a bit naughty, all that packaging is trashing our planet, and our taps dispense safe water for less than ¥1 per liter — or a little more than...
Reader Mail
May 22, 2008

Struggling with a dying art

In his May 18 letter, Grant Piper makes some very good remarks on letter writing in Japan. Letter writing is a dying art. I think quantity and varying quality is a good thing and allows for more varied opinions. It also does not exclude anyone based on someone else's prejudices. The problem with The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 22, 2008

Rwandan troupe investigates societies' failures

I n 1994, Hutu militias began the systematic genocide of the Tutsi people of Rwanda. In just 100 days, an estimated 1 million people had been butchered and whole families, villages and towns destroyed. Once Tutsi rebels regrouped and took control of the unstable country, many of the Hutus responsible...

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