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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 28, 2010

Journalist wants Ashikaga murder case reopened

In June 2009, this column mentioned a TBS news report about the DNA testing method that resulted in the 1992 conviction of Toshikazu Sugaya for the 1990 murder of 4-year-old Mami Matsuda in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. Sugaya was sentenced to an indefinite prison term but was released last year after...
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2010

Japan hand Chalmers Johnson dead at 79

OSAKA — American author and scholar Chalmers Johnson, whose views on postwar Japan angered American academics and Japan experts in the late 1980s but influenced a generation of students studying the country, died Saturday in California at age 79.
COMMUNITY / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 23, 2010

For couple, home is where the heart is

Andrew Pickard, 42, from Leeds in northern England, and Kayoko Hirayama, 35, of Tokyo, met seven years ago at an aikido dojo in Tokyo.
BUSINESS / ASEAN JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Nov 16, 2010

Japan urged to cope with changing landscape in Asia

Japan needs to come to terms with its declining influence in Asia and readjust its strategy toward Southeast Asia, where its once-dominant position has been replaced by rising China, veteran journalists from the region said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 12, 2010

Theater with a hint of human truth

Yumi Suzuki co-founded the Jitensha Kinqureat theater company with friends at Nihon Joshi Daigaku (Japan Women's University) in 1982, and it was not long before the Tokyo troupe gained a prominent reputation and a keen following for its true-to-life plays in colloquial language about the lives of young...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 8, 2010

Marines win Game 7, 2010 Japan Series

NAGOYA — The Chiba Lotte Marines have got wa. Now they have another Japan Series title to go along with it.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2010

Bending over to humiliate Tokyo

HONG KONG — Is Beijing deliberately trying to intimidate and humiliate Japan and Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara, or are the Japanese merely collateral damage in China's wider ambitions to assert the political muscle of its new global economic aspirations?
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2010

ATM for the new gold rush

HONG KONG — The 21st-century version of the Gold Rush is becoming so sophisticated and convenient that soon all you will have to do, if you live in the right place, is put your card in the normal slot of a special ATM machine, punch in your password, and out will tumble not boring paper currency but...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Oct 28, 2010

A decade of trouble draws to a close

The world of sumo has been through a rough few years, but as the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, few serious fans would doubt that the future is looking brighter. Surely there is a silver lining in the dark clouds that have hovered above the sport since mid-2007.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 24, 2010

Nomo's legacy should land him in Hall of Fame

Fourth in a four-part series
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Oct 22, 2010

Pavlicevic pleased with Susanoo Magic's start

The expansion Shimane Susanoo Magic can place a check mark next to the first item on their to-do list.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 21, 2010

Susan Roos champion of balance

Susan Roos wears many hats. A mother of two and the wife of U.S. Ambassador John Roos, she is also a partner at Cook Roos Wilbur LLP in San Francisco, where she practices as a labor law attorney.
JAPAN
Oct 20, 2010

Maehara says foreign missions will move or sell excessive wine supplies

It looks like the beginning of the end of wine heaven for officials in the foreign service, now that the Foreign Ministry has started taking measures to decrease massive stocks of wine at dozens of Japanese embassies and consulates.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 17, 2010

Utopia means free money for everyone

Scientifically and technologically, the world is in flux bordering on chaos. Every day brings something new: a new discovery, a new device, a new technique, a new cure. The pace of change is dizzying; we scarcely know where we stand. Yesterday's novelty is today's norm, tomorrow's anachronism.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 9, 2010

Davies would make England history with debut

LONDON — England plays Montenegro in a Euro 2012 qualifier on Tuesday, when Bolton's Kevin Davies, at 33, could become his country's oldest debutant in modern times.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 8, 2010

Ichiro hampered by poor supporting cast

It's been suggested that Ichiro Suzuki cares about statistics — his stats — and really doesn't care about winning.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 26, 2010

Where the osprey and the oxymoron play

NEW YORK — The United States sets aside an area larger than Japan for wildlife conservation. This is one of the things I found out as we spent two weeks this past summer at an isolated cottage on the Chesapeake Bay.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2010

Kanagawa to open language center

The Kanagawa Prefectural Government is opening a language and cultural institute in Yokohama in January to help foreign residents learn basic Japanese, while assisting schoolteachers and local government officials as they try to deal with foreign residents.
COMMENTARY
Sep 23, 2010

Their own private seabeds

SINGAPORE — A bitter sea dispute between China and Japan, Asia's two biggest economies, is intensifying after the decision of a Japanese court Sunday to extend detention of a Chinese fishing boat captain until Sept. 29.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 21, 2010

Battling a broken system

First in a two-part series In July, Tokyo's family court granted me, an American, physical custody (kangoken) of my 13-year-old daughter exactly 120 days after she was abducted by my Japanese wife, a lifelong public servant employed as a teacher at a state school in Tokyo. This just may be the first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 17, 2010

Firth on playing it gay by playing it straight

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Colin Firth was nominated for an Oscar for best actor this year for "A Single Man." As we know, Hollywood insider Jeff Bridges took home the Oscar, but Firth was "genuinely thrilled at the nomination and genuinely relieved when it was over. The stress is something else. So are...
EDITORIALS
Sep 7, 2010

Preparing for 'deep landslides'

Unusually strong rains caused heavy damage in western Japan and the Chubu region this summer. For example, an evacuation order was issued to 110,000 residents of some 48,000 households in Hiroshima. In mid-July, record precipitation was recorded at six points in Japan, including rainfall of 107 mm per...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 5, 2010

Masumi Kuwata: Pitching for change

Masumi Kuwata has spent most of his life in the spotlight of stardom and publicity.
LIFE / Digital
Sep 1, 2010

Gree, Mixi innovators say Japan Web firms need global strategy

Web services such as Twitter and YouTube have entered Japan and become familiar tools in the arsenals of Japanese Web surfers.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 22, 2010

How to stand, individually, against your nation on the warpath?

A dilemma confronts each and every citizen of a country at war: what to do if you believe that your country is in the wrong?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 10, 2010

Of Charisma Men and Western Women

Last month, The Japan Times invited readers to send in their thoughts on "Charisma Man," originally a comic strip that ran from 1998 in The Alien, a Nagoya-based magazine, but lately something of a byword for the stereotypical nerdy Western guy with the beautiful Japanese girlfriend.
COMMENTARY
Aug 8, 2010

Let's talk about an attack on Iran

LONDON — When Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking American officer, was asked recently on NBC's "Meet the Press" show whether the United States has a military plan for an attack on Iran, he replied simply: "We do."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 25, 2010

A bailout by any other name

The gap between rich and poor seems to be widening worldwide, the result of government deregulation and the dominance of market-led economic policies. As businesses are given freer rein to do whatever they want, wages at the lower end of the pay scale drop. Government revenues consequently shrink, thus...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 25, 2010

Wherefore art thou, corporate social responsibility?

As an American lawyer, I know a bit about working in a profession that has had serious image problems.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 13, 2010

One more time — with Charisma

My first reaction on hearing that "Charisma Man" was attempting a comeback was to ask, "Can it even work today?" Would the strip come across as funny, or just endearingly nostalgic? Worse, could it be completely misinterpreted and considered amateurishly silly, a gross exaggeration aimed at getting a...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami