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JAPAN
Sep 21, 2007

Mob leaders found liable for botched hit

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered the two top executives of Japan's second-biggest crime syndicate, including its "Godfather" and three hit men, to pay a combined ¥59 million in damages to the family of a South Korean student killed in a botched revenge shooting in 2001.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 21, 2007

Still rising like a phoenix

S teve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy, former old-school hippies turned cybertechno pioneers with their band System 7, have a career that puts most of their contemporaries to shame. And, unlike Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, after three decades of making music, they still love each other, still challenge...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Sep 21, 2007

Miraikan's new moon

Why go to the moon when Miraikan brings the moon to you? To celebrate the season of the harvest moon, the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan), located in Tokyo's Odaiba, will turn its 6.5-meter-diameter spherical LED display — usually reserved for same-day representations...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 21, 2007

Back to Roma

Gypsies are one of music's great cross-pollinators.
TENNIS
Sep 21, 2007

Japan captain likes team's chances at home against Romania

Japan team captain Eiji Takeuchi has said that playing on home turf will give his players a huge advantage over their Romanian opponents in their Davis Cup World Group playoff tie this weekend.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 21, 2007

A slow drink coming

At Takahata Wine Harvest Festival next month the quality of booze will not be a problem — and neither will your conscience as you nurse a hangover the next day.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 21, 2007

Seigetsu: Great balls of cedar promise good sake

It's the constant conundrum we all face when we arrive in a strange city or wander into an unfamiliar neighborhood. Among the profusion of restaurants and bars, how can you tell which ones are any good? One rule of thumb that has stood us in good stead here over the years: keep your eyes peeled for sakabayashi....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 20, 2007

Faces of the screen queen

The screening of "I'm Not There" at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month left many in the aisles whispering "Academy Award" in reference to just one member of the ensemble cast — Cate Blanchett.
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2007

Ishihara's new right-hand man settles in

All eyes were on Naoki Inose as his new career as a politician got into full swing Wednesday with the opening of the first session of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.
COMMENTARY
Sep 20, 2007

Another Japanese prime minister falls

LOS ANGELES — Japan is of gigantic importance to the United States and to the world. This nation — of 127 million people squeezed into one relatively small island — developed into the second-largest economy in the world.
EDITORIALS
Sep 19, 2007

New penalties for cooking the books

The revised Certified Public Accountant Law will go into effect by April 2008, enabling authorities to deal strongly with audit corporations involved in irregularities. It is hoped the revised law will help halt accounting fraud. But it must also be realized that severer administrative action is not...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 19, 2007

Tokyo sanctions an extended cull of Taiji dolphins

The photos accompanying this article were shot covertly despite escalating intimidation by members of the Isana Fishery Union in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, who appear to be increasingly fearful that continuing publicity in Japan and abroad will threaten their widely condemned but profitable annual dolphin...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 19, 2007

Automatic sushi machine, simple soba noodle maker

Many of us possess all the culinary abilities of an aardvark. Bandai Namco is not about to have Michelin knocking on our doors to try out for its restaurant guide, but it at least promises to enable us to make sushi. The toy maker does this with its new automatic sushi roller. The little orange machine...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 18, 2007

Plane wrong?

Max Phillips Jr. wrote in after getting a nasty shock from his local travel agency.
BASKETBALL
Sep 17, 2007

Kawachi excited to be coaching again

This is the fourth straight year that the legendary streetball AND1 Mix Tape team comes to play in Japan. This year, its opponent is the bj-league All-Star team and the league's commissioner, Toshimitsu Kawachi, will be back on the sideline as head coach of the bj-league team.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 16, 2007

Postmodern sports for all

One night last month, while I was lazily channel-surfing at home, I happened on shot-putters doing their thing at the IAAF's World Athletics Championships in Osaka.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2007

Is it right to judge creativity by its 'correctness'?

"Brute! You brute! You beast!" Gloria exclaimed. "You haven't changed, have you? You haven't changed a bit. You're still the little Jew who sold rags and scrap metal in New York, from a sack on your back."
SOCCER
Sep 15, 2007

Takahara finding his feet at Frankfurt

FRANKFURT — Naohiro Takahara puts almost all of his Japanese striking contemporaries to shame by possessing that rare something that is hard to come by on the national team: a killer instinct.
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2007

China opens window on military

China has taken two steps to increase the transparency of its military. The decision to resume providing data to the United Nations register on trade in conventional weapons and to participate in the U.N. Military Transparency Mechanism will provide some insight into what China is doing in this sensitive...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 14, 2007

Got the Biwa blues

This is the second part of a two-part story on a trip to Lake Biwa and its environs in Shiga Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 14, 2007

The guitar skeptic

For a guy who's routinely credited with revolutionizing the sound of jazz, Pat Metheny sounds surprisingly detached from his mode of musical expression.
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2007

Guidelines on takeover defenses to be reworked

Spurred by a rancorous battle for control waged by Steel Partners' activist hedge fund and Bull-Dog Sauce Co., the government plans to revise guidelines on corporate defenses against hostile takeovers, an official said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 13, 2007

Lashing out at U.S. won't help Taiwan

TAIPEI — For all the divisions that define Taiwan politics, parties on both ends of the political spectrum agree on one thing: The island is in trouble. At that point, however, they part ways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2007

Memories of fortresses and clouds

Watching on television as the second plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001, Japanese sculptor Masayuki Nagare's thoughts were not with his most famous sculpture, "Cloud Fortress" (1975), which was located at the base of the towers. The then 78-year-old was recalling a time 58 years earlier when, as...
EDITORIALS
Sep 12, 2007

Mr. Abe tones down rhetoric

In his policy speech in the Diet on Monday, the first day of the extraordinary Diet session following his Liberal Democratic Party's devastating defeat in the July 29 Upper House election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toned down rhetoric on his conservative political agenda and touched more on issues closely...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 12, 2007

Carp

* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other...
COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2007

Stopping sexual abuse of Russian kids

NEW YORK — One of the regrettable consequences of the uneven economic expansion that Russia has experienced in recent times has been the increase in child abuse, particularly child prostitution.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 11, 2007

Funds law no match for wily politicians

Almost every day it seems another politician is making headlines over a money scandal. Four members of embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet — administrative reform minister Genichiro Sata, and farm ministers Toshikatsu Matsuoka, Norihiko Akagi and Takehiko Endo — have been forced from their...

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