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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 28, 2005

A dream comes true as one mighty ocean-dweller nests under myriad stars

It was as dark a night as I can ever remember, and one I will never forget.
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2005

Electoral fatigue takes a toll on Britain

LONDON -- The British general election takes place May 5. It was formally announced April 3 but electioneering has been going on for months and many voters had become bored even before the dissolution of Parliament. It is widely feared that boredom and disillusionment with politicians of all the parties...
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2005

TVs, phones give Sharp record profit

Sharp Corp. said Tuesday its net profit for fiscal 2004 jumped 27 percent to a record 76.85 billion yen, driven by brisk sales of liquid crystal display TVs and mobile phones.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 27, 2005

Russian diva's voice to die for

"Russians always need a little shit in our lives. If everything is good and we seem completely happy, then we become suspicious of that." This is Russian opera star Anna Netrebko's philosophy -- slightly incongruous for one who, at a glance, seems to have it all and to be enjoying every bit of it.
BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2005

Credit card fraud -- how they do it and how to protect yourself

People walking around with their wallets sticking up out of their back pockets is a sight pickpockets in Japan are only too used to being grateful for.
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2005

Better India-Pakistan relations

Last week Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on various new confidence-building measures between the two nations. Their talks, held during Mr. Musharraf's unofficial visit to India on April 17, produced agreement, for example, on the passage of trucks...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2005

Enough blame to go around

HONOLULU -- Deteriorating relations among Japan, South Korea and China underscore the failure of leadership in all three countries. Recent events have triggered a downward spiral in relations, but this shift hasn't occurred in a vacuum. All three governments share the primary burden to set a strategic...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 25, 2005

Knight still mounted on a tethered horse

NEW YORK -- In 1958 there was a political upheaval in Iraq, which, as far as that country at that particular juncture in history was concerned, was the final rejection of Western rule. But Japan's reaction was shifty and muddled. Or so writer Yukio Mishima (1925-70) thought.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 24, 2005

It's not cartoons, it's education

JAPANESE THE MANGA WAY: An Illustrated Guide to Grammar & Structure, By Wayne P. Lammers. Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 2005, 312 pp., 500 b/w illustrations, $24.95 (paper). Wayne Lammers is among the best of the younger translators of Japanese to English. He has rendered such classical texts as Fujiwara...
COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 2005

A provincial pitch for votes

LONDON -- Britain is now in the grip of a general election campaign with voting due May 5. As with political campaigns generally in the modern world, this one is heavily oriented toward domestic issues and disputes. Globalization and the worldwide information revolution seem to have had the opposite...
Features
Apr 24, 2005

Grande dame of haute kuchuuru

In the fickle world of fashion, where players come and go with the regularity of the seasons that their working lives are firmly pinned to, there are fortunately just a few who hang in there to lend some sense of continuity.
Features
Apr 24, 2005

Wannabe style capital puts on a 'cute' show

"Fancy a trip to the Singapore Fashion Festival?" My gnarled editor swiveled around from the Mac and shot me a grin. "This looks like a junket."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 24, 2005

Time for some Showa trivia and Heisei melodrama

GEISHA -- HARLOT -- STRANGLER -- STAR: A Woman, Sex & Morality in Modern Japan, by William Johnston. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 245 pp., $29.50, (cloth). ISOLATION, by Christopher Belton. New York: Leisure Fiction, 2003, $6.99, 372 pp., (paper). To be honest, I've never really understood...
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2005

81 Diet members visit Yasukuni Shrine

A Cabinet minister and at least 80 other Diet members visited Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine on Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2005

New prison to track inmates with IC tags

Japan's first prison operated by the private sector will introduce a surveillance system to track the location of all prisoners via integrated-circuit tags, Justice Ministry officials said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2005

Reform remains pope's top priority

In one of the swiftest conclusions to a conclave in a century, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, a German theologian, has been elected pope to succeed the late John Paul II, who pursued pacifism, human rights protection and inter-religious dialogue. The hope for Pope Benedict XVI -- the name is said to suggest...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 22, 2005

Sipping on Heian history in Uji

In Uji, it's a tough job to go anywhere without consuming its famous product as green tea is liberally doled out on the streets.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 21, 2005

For a life less ordinary, try marrying an otaku

Wedding bells rang for my friend Yoshika six months ago and last night a bunch of us got together over drinks to hear all about it -- her new life as a wife to a genuine, full-fledged ota-yome (wife of an otaku or "nerd").
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 21, 2005

Time to honor the planet, every day

'If the environment is a fad, then it's going to be our last fad," warned Denis Hayes at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, having given up his own graduate studies at Harvard only months before to organize this historic event.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 20, 2005

'S wonderful: Wiling away the time with Caetano Veloso

Caetano is here. Caetano Veloso. The man who has been hailed for decades in his native Brazil as a singer, composer, poet and revolutionary, and commonly celebrated abroad as the 'Bob Dylan of Brazil,' despite his dislike for such labels.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 20, 2005

The painter's art is mud

Regarded as Spain's greatest living artist, Catalan painter Antoni Tapies (born 1923) is the subject of a comprehensive retrospective currently showing at the Hara Museum of Art in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward.
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2005

Market responds to 'clueless' Japanese companies

Tokyo stock prices have tumbled amid fears about the economic fallout from China's intensifying diplomatic and street protests targeting Japan as bilateral relations sour to their worst state in decades.
EDITORIALS
Apr 17, 2005

A sermon is a sometimes thing

Sign of the times: Cookie Monster, of the globally beloved U.S. children's television show "Sesame Street," is going to have to start watching what he eats. According to the American show's producers, the shaggy blue carbohydrate-cruncher will no longer be allowed to gobble chocolate chip cookies by...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 17, 2005

Peace of mind for Japanese inventors

VALUING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN JAPAN, BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES, edited by Ruth Taplin. London: Routledge, 2004, 163 pp., $97 (cloth). On April 1, Japan's first court dedicated to cases concerning patents and other intellectual property rights (IPR) was established as part of a far-ranging renovation...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Apr 17, 2005

A nation asleep at the wheel

Train carriages filled with white-collar workers dozing off on each other's shoulders are one of the most striking sights in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Apr 17, 2005

Make no bones about it, this place is like nowhere on Earth

The view is daunting. Colossal. Inland, thunderheads loom over distant mountains signaling heavy rains in the interior. To our left, considerably nearer, a thick bank of billowing sea fog rises several hundred meters high. The sun is just visible behind it, pale and wan; a ghostly eye peering down on...
EDITORIALS
Apr 16, 2005

Mr. Wen courts India

Ties between China and India continue to strengthen. While some worry about a "new axis" between Beijing and Delhi, it is only natural that two of the world's largest countries -- neighbors, no less -- have strong and cooperative relations. Asia needs them to have a positive, forward-looking partnership....
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2005

Common-sense solutions floated to ease tensions

Ahead of Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura's trip to Beijing on Sunday to meet his counterpart, The Japan Times interviewed Sino-Japanese relations experts Tomoyuki Kojima and Zhu Jianrong to hear their views on how the two nations can defuse mounting anti-Japan activities in China, blamed in part...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan