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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Apr 24, 2009

Sake goes abroad, brings back fans

Times are tough for the sake industry. Gone are the days when Japan's once-beloved national beverage held a place at every table; now, in a market flooded with beer, wine and shochu, sake struggles to compete. Domestic consumption has fallen every year since 1995, hitting a record low of 700,000 kiloliters...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 24, 2009

Eisler: international author of mystery

Start with an image. A man walking down a street in Tokyo. Steep, like San Francisco. Maybe Daikanyama. As the man walks toward Shibuya, two men follow in the shadows.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2009

'Warship Island' open to tourists once more

A landing ban on uninhabited Hashima Island, better known as Gunkanjima, or Warship Island, located some 19 km off the city of Nagasaki, was lifted Wednesday for the first time in 35 years as more and more people have become interested in its ruins.
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 2009

A complicated trial

The Third Petty Bench of the Supreme Court, in a 5-0 decision Tuesday, upheld lower court rulings that sentenced a Wakayama woman to death for killing four people and poisoning 63 others by lacing a curry stew with arsenic during a community summer festival in July 1998. This was a difficult and unusual...
EDITORIALS
Apr 14, 2009

Recession and suicides

The National Police Agency has announced that 32,249 people killed themselves in 2008, making it the 11th consecutive year that the annual suicide rate has topped 30,000. The NPA added that 2,645 people killed themselves in January and 2,470 in February this year. The January figure is 340 more than...
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2009

DPJ would ban corporate funds in political arena

A key political reform committee of the Democratic Party of Japan, whose leader, Ichiro Ozawa, is mired in an illicit funds scandal, unveiled a draft report on political funds Thursday that seeks a complete ban on corporate donations.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2009

North said in driver's seat after 'triumph'

Sunday's launch of what Pyongyang called a satellite — but many others around the world saw as a ballistic missile test — is a "triumph for North Korea," analysts said, because it gives the reclusive state plenty of diplomatic leverage as it pursues its nuclear program and handles the succession...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 3, 2009

'The Duchess'

I'm not sure if "The Duchess" was as good a film as my enjoyment of it would indicate, but after a mere five minutes of trailers for "Monsters vs. Aliens" and (shudder) "Transformers 2," I was ready to embrace any film that offered actual dialogue and acting, not head-splitting volume and an endless...
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2009

Aside from U.N., Japan has few options against launch

Second of two parts
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 27, 2009

Concert fetes anniversary of Mendelssohn

As this year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of early-Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn, Musica Poetica, led by Yumiko Tanno, an expert on German Protestant music, is staging a concert on March 27 titled "The Evening of Passion Music" at Tokyo Cathedral.
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2009

When push comes to shove, can Japan shoot down missile?

First of two parts
LIFE / Digital
Mar 25, 2009

Programmed for combat or for pleasure

While Japan is a technological powerhouse, it is usually a follower and not a pioneer.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 22, 2009

Our mantra of continuous growth has left us on ecological brink

If print media are any indication, change is in the air. Readers are sourcing news in new ways, and newspaper sales are declining as a result.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2009

All eyes on Okubo as DPJ treads water

The political funds controversy hanging over the Democratic Party of Japan is likely to start boiling Tuesday when prosecutors decide whether to indict DPJ President Ichiro Ozawa's top secretary, Takanori Okubo, whose period of custody ends the same day.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2009

India's newfound irrelevance to Washington

LONDON — For the last eight years under the Bush administration, India occupied a pride of place in the strategic calculus of the United States. India was wooed as a rising power, it was seen as a pole in the emerging global balance of power; it was acknowledged as the primary actor in South Asia;...
JAPAN / Q&A
Mar 20, 2009

Hand-wringing over fund scandal

The political fund scandal involving Nishimatsu Construction Co. has brought to light once again the unhealthy relationship between politics and money. This time, prosecutors went straight to the top by arresting the chief secretary of Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Mar 17, 2009

Students project art with passion

It seems anything is possible at The American School in Japan. Take the standard procedure of inviting a guest to talk to the students. Most schools would settle for a well-known alumni; ASIJ gets Colin Powell and George Bush Sr. Now they're trying something new: a residency program where scholars or...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 17, 2009

Found in 'Area 51,' he goes by one name

Pitching greats Daisuke Matsuzaka and Yu Darvish are leading Japan's star-studded squad as national teams battle it out in the United States in the World Baseball Classic.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2009

Experts doubt MSDF's antipiracy mettle

The Maritime Self-Defense Force got the word Friday to send two destroyers to combat pirates in the Gulf of Aden, but experts quickly questioned whether the flotilla would be able to protect Japanese vessels — let alone themselves.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2009

Japanese tots doze less than global counterparts: expert

Infants and toddlers in Japan have shorter sleeping hours than those in the United States, Europe and other parts of Asia, a sleep psychologist said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2009

DPJ's way out is to pick new boss

The Tuesday arrest of Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa's chief secretary was an unexpected blow for the largest opposition party but observers say the damage can still be contained ahead of a general election later this year — if Ozawa quits his post.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2009

Human Rights Watch coming to Tokyo

Civilians are killed as the Sri Lankan military closes in on the Tamil Tiger rebels.
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2009

Econ lessons from Japan

Searching the reasons for Japan's "lost decade" — the deflation and stunted growth said to have plagued Japan ever since the collapse of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s — has long been popular among U.S. and British commentators seeking an answer to the West's current economic problems.

Longform

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