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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 26, 2006

Can NHK keep the air free?

The credibility of public broadcaster NHK is on the line over its handling of political interference by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006

Politics at the grass roots

Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event would garner valuable worldwide media coverage...
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jun 11, 2006

Ron puts on a show in Bonn

BONN -- The Japan national team received a boost this week with the arrival of unofficial mascot Rommel the dog.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2006

Tragedy in a farming community

The investigation into the murder of a 7-year-old boy in a farming community in northern Honshu has taken a bizarre twist. A 33-year-old woman from the community was arrested and she initially admitted that she had abandoned the body of the boy near a river.
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2006

Bills aimed at making noise

The Diet has begun discussions on two separate bills submitted by the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito, and by the No. 1 opposition party, to specify procedures for holding a national referendum to amend the Constitution.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 28, 2006

Japan sleepwalks by design toward peace-renouncing poll

The Japanese people may soon be asked to make a momentous decision in a nationwide referendum. As I write this, the major political parties are at loggerheads over conditions under which that referendum will be conducted. Behind the closed doors of the Diet, but barely touched on in the media, this debate...
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2006

Pioneers turned paper into must-reads

LOS ANGELES -- It was a remarkably sad coincidence that within the span of a few days, two of the world's more influential newspaper figures died.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Apr 16, 2006

'Conspiracies of silence' feign sympathies largely unfelt

Japanese people are known for their sense of propriety and decorum. Reserve and self-restraint are fine Japanese virtues, and they have afforded the society an enviable harmony and level of personal safety unparalleled in the developed world. Putting a damper on people's self-assertive instincts, and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 2, 2006

Accepting apologies is not so easy

JAPANESE APOLOGIES FOR WORLD WAR II: A Rhetorical Study, by Jane W. Yamazaki. London: Routledge, 2005, 256 pp., £65 (cloth). POLITICS, MEMORY AND PUBLIC OPINION: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, by Sven Saaler, Munich: Deutsches Institut fur Japanstudien, 2005, 202 pp., 28 euro...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2006

News rivals hit Yasukuni visits

Recent events in the nation's normally staid print media have surprised readers of the powerful Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2006

Defense Agency probes leaks about China intel

The Defense Agency has conducted an internal probe into what it says are media leaks that resulted in two newspaper reports detailing Chinese military operations last May and September, informed sources have said.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2006

In court ruling flip-flop, NHK reporter can hide source

The Tokyo High Court on Friday accepted an NHK reporter's refusal to reveal a news source, saying news-gathering activities are a premise for the freedom of press that serves the public's right to know, which is an indispensable component of a democratic society.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 5, 2006

A few bows too many for shamed DPJ lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata

One picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, and the one that graced the front page of the Feb. 24 Asahi Shimbun is worth more than all the kanji expended on the Democratic Party of Japan's e-mail fiasco.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 15, 2006

Japan Times wins award for animal rights coverage

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) today announced that The Japan Times is this year's winner of its prestigious International Genesis Award, given in recognition of its Nov. 30, 2005 "breakthrough expose" headlined: " 'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests."
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2006

Egypt ambassador counsels caution on cartoons

Attacks like the ones on the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon last weekend could take place in Japan if the media here insult Muslims by reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr warned Friday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 29, 2006

Sifting through the geeks -- that's all of us -- to identify the perverts

Less than a week after the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence for serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki on Jan. 17, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia had not only recorded the ruling in its entry on Miyazaki, but had added an incisive note. When the Miyazaki case was dominating the headlines in 1989, he...
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2006

The feud can end anytime

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should realize that he holds the key to settling the growing discord with China even as Beijing adds fuel to the fire by urging the Japanese government to restrict news media reports on the alleged security threat posed by China.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 22, 2006

Flag-makers aren't the only beneficiaries of patriotism in sport

Tabloids utilize a clever kind of shorthand for their headlines in order to fix the attention of people as they pass by news-stands. My favorite one recently was a Nikkan Gendai header announcing "Ichiro's abnormal enthusiasm for WBC."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 15, 2005

Proving it to the people

While waiting for the news conference to begin for "Sayuri" at the Imperial Hotel on Nov. 28, two Japanese women were discussing Zhang Ziyi, the Chinese actress who plays the title role of a geisha during the years leading up to and immediately following World War II.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 11, 2005

If you want to build a home for the future then do it outside of Japan

Shortly after the quake-proofing scandal broke, Shukan Bunshun referred to the "hairstyle" of architect Hidetsugu Aneha as being just as much a "fabrication" (gizo) as the structural calculations he drew up for all those doomed condominiums. The joke was a telling one. Publicly exposing wig-wearers is...
Features
Dec 11, 2005

Discordant history mars neighbors' friendship overtures

Japanese actress Yoshino Kimura was the lone main guest at the Chuo Kokaido Hall in Osaka in October. She appeared without her Korean counterpart in the opening ceremony to celebrate this year's 40th anniversary of the 1965 Japan-South Korean Treaty that normalized Tokyo-Seoul relations.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 23, 2005

It's about time for Japan to take its foot off the gas . . . and think

What do the following recent news items have in common? 1) An automobile driven by a 23-year-old man in Yokohama accidentally runs into a line of high-school students returning home from school, killing two and injuring seven. 2) The United States Senate votes to open the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 22, 2005

'Manga' publishers see cell phones as the future

Cartoon-strip publishers, whose printed-matter sales have been losing steam, are actively embracing mobile media because cell phones are what young people are spending their time and money on.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2005

Urban support seen as key for Horie

ONOMICHI, Hiroshima Pref. -- A small office in front of JR Onomichi Station attracts hundreds of visitors daily as the Sept. 11 House of Representatives election draws near.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2005

'Yon-sama' buys into Internet firm

South Korean actor Bae Yong Joon has became a shareholder of Interactive Media Mix Inc., the Japanese Internet-content provider said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 3, 2005

Detractors have a whale of a time as Japan flounders on

The American historian Brooks Adams (1848-1927) defined history as "just one goddamn thing after another." Though it is a century old, Adams' aphorism is a spot-on characterization of the most recent events surrounding Japan.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb