Search - 2002

 
 
COMMENTARY
Apr 9, 2008

Contrasting responses to crackdowns in Tibet and Burma

NEW DELHI — There are striking similarities between Tibet and Burma — both are strategically located, endowed with rich natural resources, suffering under long-standing repressive rule, resisting hard power with soft power and facing an influx of Han settlers. Yet the international response to the...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2008

Whither Africa's 'frontier markets'?

NEW YORK — Zimbabwe's election appears to confirm a truism: Africa only seems to make international headlines when disasters strike — a drought, a coup, a war, a genocide, or, as in the case of President Robert Mugabe, grossly incompetent government.
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2008

The man who came to dinner

Russia is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Mr. Vladimir Putin is a lame duck president, but he and his country threw a long shadow over the just-completed NATO summit that convened last week in Bucharest, Romania. Not only did Mr. Putin show up uninvited at the NATO heads dinner...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 6, 2008

Japan's legal reaction to globalization

LAW IN JAPAN: a Turning Point, edited by Daniel H. Foote. Seattle: University of Washington Press, April 2008, 704 pp., 10 tables/8 figures, $65 (cloth) Even as the pace of change in recent years has brought Japanese law to a "turning point," the "confession-centric" system of criminal justice risks...
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2008

Downtrend in business sentiment

Japan's longest postwar economic expansion, which started in February 2002, appears headed toward a critical stage. The Bank of Japan's Tankan survey shows that business sentiment among companies has deteriorated because of the yen's steep rise against the dollar, stock price declines and high oil prices....
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2008

Last stand before Russia's next chance

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday through Friday, NATO will hold its biggest summit ever in Bucharest, the capital of its new member, Romania. Incredibly, NATO has invited its fiercest critic, Russian President Vladimir Putin, to attend. For the first time since 2002, he will. His presence is an embarrassment...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Mar 30, 2008

Browne lands deal with WJBL's Koalas

Ree Browne, a former California State University-Dominguez Hills center, has signed a contract to play for the Mitsubishi Koalas of the WJBL, The Japan Times has learned.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 27, 2008

Maki Rinka at SXSW: My music goes well with alcohol

Far from the glorious cacophony blasted out by the majority of the Japanese acts at South by Southwest, Osaka's Maki Rinka plays a coquettish, kitsch pastiche of 1950s and '60s jazz and good old Hollywood glamour. At the first of her two SXSW shows, at The Rio on March 12, she took the stage dressed...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2008

Access to water is a right, not a privilege

BANGKOK — How will Japan and other countries in the world achieve the millennium development goal (MDG) target to reduce by half the proportion of 2.6 billion people who have no access to basic sanitation by 2015?
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 25, 2008

Basics of the U.S. military presence

The issue of U.S. military forces in Japan has come to the fore again following the alleged rape of a 14-year-old Okinawan girl by a U.S. Marine. Although the girl has withdrawn the accusation, locals and politicians have seized on the incident — a reminder of the 1995 gang rape of a 12-year-old girl...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 23, 2008

Ortiz, Youkilis spark BoSox past pesky Tigers

The Boston Red Sox came to Japan to give their Japanese fans a good show and they didn't disappoint. But neither did the Hanshin Tigers.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 22, 2008

Red Sox, Athletics arrive for MLB season opener

After a few tense hours on Thursday, the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A's finally arrived in Japan. More importantly for the Japanese fans, Daisuke Matsuzaka was present and accounted for.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 21, 2008

Setagaya theater brings kyogen forward

Mansai Nomura is the leading star of kyogen (Japan's traditional comedy theater), but this 41-year-old who made his stage debut at age 3 has several other artistic faces, having acted in films, TV dramas and in contemporary theater dramas, too.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 21, 2008

Words from the food wise on finding the best izakaya

The izakaya, of course, is much more than a pub in the Western sense of a drinking establishment. While there will always be plenty of sake and other kinds of inebriants, food is an integral part of the experience — ranging from tried-and-true traditional "comfort cooking" to inventive cuisine with...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 20, 2008

The final days of revolutionary struggle in Japan

The West sees the turbulent era of the late 1960s and early '70s principally through the lens of its own protesters and radicals, with America's war in Vietnam the focal point of activist anger. If it thinks about East Asia in this period at all, it is usually the China of Mao and the Red Guards, who...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 20, 2008

"Blood"

Dairakudakan Kochuten, Tokyo's Kichijoji
BUSINESS
Mar 19, 2008

Retailing giant Wal-Mart to buy last 4% of ailing Seiyu

Wal-Mart Stores will buy the rest of ailing Seiyu as the U.S. retail giant seeks the flexibility it says it needs to turn around the money-losing supermarket chain.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 18, 2008

Figuring out 'cleaning fees'

Years ago, when a friend of mine was preparing to move back home to Los Angeles, I helped her clean her rented studio apartment in Tokyo. Shoving aside a pile of books, clothes and various other kinds of clutter, we wiped the wood floor, scrubbed the bathtub and polished the kitchen sink. We spent almost...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 18, 2008

Police in dock over rape

Crimes by women and crimes against women in Japan receive uneven coverage in the press. Female suspects, particularly those charged with serious offenses, are so thoroughly skewered in the media that defense attorneys often complain that a fair trial is near impossible. Crimes against women receive...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 18, 2008

Scales of justice: Legal system looks for right balance of lawyers

Judicial reform is having a quick and dramatic impact on the legal profession, not least on the number of lawyers. In March 2002, the government decided to increase the number of those who pass the bar exam to 3,000 a year by 2010. Only 1,000 were passed in 1999.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 16, 2008

Grampus thump disjointed Reds

SAITAMA — Urawa Reds slumped to their second straight defeat of the new J. League season on Saturday as Nagoya Grampus hit them with a high-tempo onslaught to claim a 2-0 win at Saitama Stadium 2002.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan