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JAPAN
Feb 23, 2008

Offbeat exploits attract foreign visitors

Dressed entirely in black with his head wrapped in cloth, Michael Studte throws darts, turns somersaults and twirls lassos in a ninja class for foreign tourists in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2008

Beware Kosovo's offspring

Last Sunday, Kosovo formally declared independence to the accompaniment of festive celebrations by the good citizens of the world's newest country. We can but wish them well as they chart a new course inside a new Europe free of the distracting conflicts that had ravaged the continent until the middle...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2008

Takagi taps the color of sound

Is Masakatsu Takagi a musician that makes video art or a video artist that makes music?
Reader Mail
Feb 21, 2008

Boost police presence on Okinawa

While the recent conduct of a U.S. Marine with a 14-year-old girl in Okinawa is more than unacceptable, I find the reactions of officials and commentators rather peculiar. While one may wish that discipline and order would prevent such incidents from happening, it will never be quite possible to avoid...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008

A living play appears from the past

"I have absolutely no idea beforehand what exactly I am going to do. Everything comes together really at the last minute," says 50-year-old English dramatist Simon McBurney when asked how he's approaching his latest collaboration. Working with Japanese actors, McBurney is producing "Shunkin," a play...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 20, 2008

Nature tour turns sour as we see 'endangered' prey killed

A great white mass, a broken blanket of sea ice, was moving south down the Sea of Okhotsk carried on currents and blown by winds from the north. From the flank of Mount Mokoto it appeared like a mirage, a whitened margin to the sea's northern horizon, but from the much closer range of the cliff tops...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2008

Treating clinical depression a tall order

Depression is no stranger to Japanese society, but only within the last decade has its "clinical" component gained currency along with the realization that the malady can affect almost anyone.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2008

Ministry hopes 1880 ¥2 coin fetches 10 million times that

An 1880 Japanese gold coin, 16.97 mm in diameter and weighing 3.33 grams, is expected to fetch a record high price of around ¥20 million when the debt-ridden Finance Ministry puts it on the auction block this Sunday.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Feb 19, 2008

Chuhai

Dear Alice,
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2008

Medical fee reform falls short

The Central Social Insurance Medical Council has decided on the details of the medical-fee hike for fiscal 2008. The council was expected to distribute the increase in a manner that would slow the drain of doctors from hospitals due to hard work. Although the council has made efforts in that direction,...
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

What curfew for Okinawa's youth?

What's amazing is that more than 30 investigators jumped on this case. Does it really take that many? If it was a Japanese man that was suspected of this type of crime, would there be the same amount of involvement and publicity?
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Feb 17, 2008

Trailblazer Matsui continues to hone game at Columbia

K.J. Matsui is a perfectionist.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

Double standard is showing

Although Japanese commit crimes at 12 times the rate of Americans in Japan (National Police Agency figures for 2004), every crime involving an American is treated like a deliberate act of war. The governor of Okinawa sends out the "hive is under attack" message, and the Japanese rise up on cue in "outrage."...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 17, 2008

Japan's 'pouch curry' turns a tasty 40

Fancy a feast? Un petit peu du foie gras, perchance? A slice or three of the finest Aberdeen Angus roast beef, if you will — with lashings of horseradish, sans doute. Or, drop a plastic pouch of curry into boiling water, wait for 3 minutes, pour it over rice and — voila! — you have a meal fit for...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

A return to Japanese sensibility

SHAME IN THE BLOOD by Tetsuo Miura, translated by Andrew Driver. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007, 216 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Of all the major postwar Japanese writers, Tetsuo Miura is the least translated. One or two of his short stories found print in English-language magazines during the 1970s, and my own version...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 16, 2008

In the land of the statistically speaking

Numbers don't lie. Not in Japan anyway. Here, they tend rather to flatter. Or "fibulate." Or nourish.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 16, 2008

Ireland's recent hire produces more questions than answers

LONDON — Giovanni Trapattoni, the new Republic of Ireland manager, can claim to be the greatest club coach of all time.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008

Yasunao Tone, Sachiko M and Yoshihide Otomo

Yasunao Tone makes the kind of music that hi-fi buffs have nightmares about. The septuagenarian composer and sound artist has spent the past two decades pushing digital audio equipment to its limit and reveling in the wonky results.
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2008

Why is the Pentagon begging for billions?

LONDON — Last week the Pentagon asked Congress for the biggest defense budget since World War II: $515 billion, plus an additional $70 billion to cover the costs of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq for part of the coming year. The United States is proposing to spend more on the armed forces, quite...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2008

Yayoi Kusama: Inside an artist's head

It took director Takako Matsumoto about a year to really win the confidence of Yayoi Kusama, the subject of her documentary "Watashi Daisuki (I Adore Myself)." Only then did the avant-garde artist start addressing the filmmaker by her name — in the first 12 months it was all guarded looks at the camera...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2008

Let science empower you

The setting: The 350-year-old Royal Society in London, whose magnificent neo-Classical base overlooks the Mall, which has Buckingham Palace at one end of the boulevard and Trafalgar Square at the other. The speaker: Lord Rees of Oxford, the Astronomer Royal. Martin Rees is the current president of the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 13, 2008

Pollen set to come out of hibernation

For sufferers of "kafunsho" (pollen allergy), it's hay fever season again.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 13, 2008

Casio unveils its speediest camera; and every home gets its very own fireplace

Snappier snaps: A good-quality digital camera can take perhaps four or five photos a second, but Casio has left the competition in its wake with its just-announced Exilim Pro EX-F1, which boasts a staggering pace of 60 6-megapixel photos a second. It can also record video at an equally outlandish rate...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2008

Flowers back for a second bite of Shinsei Bank

Christopher Flowers is back in Tokyo, eyeing a second opportunity to make money from Shinsei Bank Ltd.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2008

Okinawa rape case sparks resentment

A U.S. Marine who allegedly raped a 14-year-old Okinawa girl was turned over to prosecutors Tuesday in a case that has prompted government officials to voice outrage and warn the incident could affect the Japan-U.S. alliance and the reorganization of U.S. bases in the prefecture.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?