Search - 2003

 
 
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2008

Barack Obama's overseas tour

Barack Obama wants three things out of his tour of the Mideast and Europe. He wants people everywhere to think that he has the answers for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He wants U.S. Jews to believe that he is Israel's unquestioning supporter. And he wants Americans to notice that Europeans would vote...
JAPAN
Jul 24, 2008

Major asbestos suit kicks off in Tokyo

What is believed to be the biggest asbestos-related litigation in Japan opened Wednesday at the Tokyo District Court with construction workers and relatives of deceased workers taking the stand to describe years of health problems that could have been prevented.
BUSINESS
Jul 24, 2008

Japex eyes China for foray into carbon-capture business

Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. plans to develop a carbon-capture business and wants to lead a project to trap and store pollution from coal-fired power plants in oil wells in northeastern China.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2008

Science fact or fiction?

Later this year, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is scheduled to go into operation outside Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists hope the LHC will enable them to better understand what happened when the universe was born. Some critics fear that the machine could trigger a catastrophe that ends life on Earth...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

What's that smell?

No one in Japan can avoid the sweat and smells of hot humid summer, regardless of sex, age or ethnicity. But a recent survey on body odor reeked of bad news for men.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

The rising middle classes want their wheels

BEIJING — W hat becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an affair with the car. The entire nation, it turns out, is in love with them, is...
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2008

Redress again doled out over Yokota base noise

The Tokyo High Court ordered the government Thursday to pay about ¥194 million in compensation to 210 people who suffered from noise pollution generated at the U.S. Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2008

India's pioneering DJ Pearl goes global

Since the worldwide dance-music explosion hit its peak in the late 1990s, the market for clubbing has been saturated. From Tokyo to New York to Ibiza, the "superclubs" are established, the fan base for the music is pretty much stagnant and everyone is looking for the next place that will experience a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2008

Pop Levi goes slightly wrong

"It was a very obsessive thing," says Jonathan Pop Levi about the recording of his new album of warped pop music, "Never Never Love." "It took six days a week for 12 hours a day for four months to get it to sound that way. Especially in the vocals; if a computer could do a perfect impression of a human,...
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 2008

Fishermen fed up

The one-day stoppage of fishing operations on Tuesday proves that current high oil prices are acutely affecting economic activities. Most of Japan's 200,000 fishing boats took part in the fishermen's strike throughout the country, the first and largest of its kind.
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2008

The odds are stacked against an Iran attack

The Iranians have clearly concluded that all the American and Israeli threats to attack them are mere bluff. Israel could not destroy all of Iran's nuclear facilities unless it was willing to drop large numbers of nuclear weapons on Iran. The United States could do the job using only conventional weapons,...
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2008

MMC, trio fined over false report on defects

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday overturned a lower court ruling and fined Mitsubishi Motors Corp. and three former executives ¥200,000 each for falsifying documents on its defective truck hubs, which caused a fatal accident in 2002.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 15, 2008

Famed electronics hub still sparks the curious, bizarre

Tokyo's Akihabara district draws throngs not only with its hundreds of electronics shops but also because it is the mecca for "otaku" computer geeks, and fans of "manga" and "anime" pop culture.
COMMENTARY
Jul 13, 2008

Cigarettes, lies and impressionable film fans

MADRAS, India — Humphrey Bogart used to seduce women through his smoke rings. In a movie like "Casablanca," much of this Hollywood star's playboy persona came from the cigarette he held between his fingers. That the tobacco stick finally finished him is something that all his fans, especially female,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 11, 2008

Sympathy for the Maries

All the boys are in their birthday suits and beautiful long-haired Ryohei Shima is mincing up toward me. Just think of a naked Mick Jagger — a 26-year-old one, that is — entering stage right on the set of a gay porn flick and you'll get the picture. Ryohei theatrically swivels his hips upon approach,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2008

'Horton Hears A Who'

I'm sorry, but when it comes to Dr. Seuss, I'm definitely a purist. It couldn't be any other way having grown up with so many great childhood memories of reading his books — or having them read to me — over and over.
BUSINESS / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 10, 2008

Nuke plant makers cast eye abroad

The voice of Atsutoshi Nishida, president of Toshiba Corp., rose an octave as he talked about the electronic giant's quest to build atomic power plants.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2008

Nature stifling wind power in Japan

CHOSHI, Chiba Pref. — About a 2 1/2-hour drive east of central Tokyo, on the edge of the Kanto plain, stands one of the closest wind farms to the capital, whirring away as it generates up to 25,500 kw of clean electricity.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 8, 2008

Pounds equal prizes

There are several topics of note coming out of the upcoming Grand Sumo Tournament in Nagoya.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 8, 2008

Boom time for Hokkaido ski resort area

NISEKO, Hokkaido — Playing golf on a clear summer day in the shadow of Mount Yotei, otherwise known as Ezofuji, or Hokkaido Fuji, may be an ideal way to spend a vacation. But simply walking around the premises of Hilton Niseko Village, which opened July 1 in Hokkaido's resort area of Niseko, seems...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 8, 2008

Beware the foreigner as guinea pig

Anywhere in the world, noncitizens have fewer legal rights than citizens. Japan's Supreme Court would agree: On June 2, in a landmark case granting citizenship to Japanese children of unmarried Philippines mothers, judges ruled that Japanese citizenship is necessary "for the protection of basic human...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 6, 2008

Hillman aims for Sapporo-like success in K.C.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last November at his sayonara party in Tokyo, I semi-promised outgoing Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Trey Hillman I would travel to Kansas City in 2008 to see him in action as skipper of the American League Royals. Last month, I made good on that promise.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT SPECIAL: JAPANESE ECONOMY
Jul 6, 2008

Time for Japan to take technological lead in combating global warming

At the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Kuala Lumpur on June 15 to 16, participants called for a fresh paradigm for dialogue to tackle mounting global risks, particularly climate change that threatens the global environment. They said global risks have reached a point where the advanced countries...
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008

Toyota leads charge for new 'green' power source

As the world warms and gasoline prices rise, Japanese automakers are gearing up their efforts to develop vehicles that emit less or zero carbon dioxide.

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