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COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2010

Drug use is fueling AIDS epidemic in Russia

NEW YORK — Russia has one of the world's most serious epidemics of injection drug use, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS. It is estimated that Russia has 2 million injecting drug users (IDUs), 60 to 70 percent of whom have HIV-related illnesses. In the past decade, the number...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2010

Unleashing Indians' dynamism in the shift from state capitalism

NEW DELHI — Nowadays, economists are assailed by irresolute thoughts: What, for example, is the right term to apply to current global economic conditions? Is it "depression," "recession" or "recovery"?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 1, 2010

Japanese quotes cast country's life and culture in disparate lights

SECOND IN A THREE-PART SERIES — In its current issue, the popular monthly magazine Bungei Shunju has a long feature titled "Tekichushita yogen 50," meaning "50 predictions that hit the mark."
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 30, 2010

Japanese dietary tips to prevent summer lethargy

Anyone who has spent a summer in Japan will likely be well- acquainted with natsubate, or "summer fatigue" — a general state of lethargy and tiredness, lack of concentration, sleeplessness and even mild depression.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 30, 2010

Making 'BioArt' a cultural practice

At this year's Society for Social Studies Conference at the University of Tokyo, Aug. 25-29, there will be a session on "BioArt," which begs the question: What would that be?
Reader Mail
Jul 29, 2010

The way to enrich communication

The anonymous author of the July 22 letter, "Rakuten may be asking for trouble," fears a loss of culture because of Rakuten President Hiroshi Mikitani's decision to make English the company's official language by 2012. As a citizen of a country where English is very often used as a business language...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2010

EU leaders must face a welfare state crisis

PARIS — In the Western part of Europe — the part that former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld maliciously labeled "Old Europe" — almost every government is in deep political trouble.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 25, 2010

The samurai who were let out of the box

NEW YORK — The Museum of the City of New York has an exhibition titled "Samurai in New York: The First Japanese Delegation, 1860." The "delegation" was the first embassy dispatched by Japan in more than a millennium. The previous one, in 838, went to the Tang Dynasty court to pay tribute to the Chinese...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 25, 2010

Death of 'The Boss' huge news in U.S., not in Japan

I'm just back from a summer trip to the United States with time in northern New Jersey, where the big news last week was the death of New York Yankees owner George "The Boss" Steinbrenner on July 13, and the press coverage was extensive.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 25, 2010

A northern odyssey

Komandorskiye Ostrova — the Commander Islands in English — are about as bleak and remote as anywhere imaginable for human habitation. Indeed, the two islands in the group, named Bering and Medny, support only one hardy community of fewer than 1,000 souls in a settlement called Nikolskoye on Bering...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2010

On the hunt for snakes and dragons in Chinatown

Two years back I reviewed "Year of the Dog," about the exploits of detective Jack Yu, the creation of Chinese-American author Henry Chang, who portrayed New York's Chinatown as a frightfully sordid place. Yu, besides being forced to endure the slings and arrows of a race- baiting police department, suffered...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 23, 2010

In celebration of the yin of butoh

"In 1949, Tatsumi Hijikata saw Kazuo Ohno perform for the first time. He was moved and described Ohno-sensei's dance as geki yaku — like a powerful drug or deadly poison. Ohno-sensei was a dancer of powerful poison!" exclaims Takeshi Morishita of Keio University's Tatsumi Hijikata Archive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Jul 22, 2010

iPhones become ice-breakers at gokon dating parties

iPhones are helping to lubricate the interaction at Japanese gokon dating parties.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 18, 2010

No lack of foreign candidates to manage Swallows

It has been reported the Tokyo Yakult Swallows are looking for a former player to take over as manager in 2011, and pitching coach Daisuke Araki, a one-time Yakult pitcher, is the presumed leading candidate to become the next field boss.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 18, 2010

Kujukuri: the long, long beach on Tokyo's doorstep

If it was thousands of miles from home, I would wistfully think of this as an exotic and special place. It has almost everything I want in a seaside hangout: Empty beaches backed by pine forests, not condos; surfing waves; fishing piers; hilltop viewpoints; and family farms growing corn and watermelons....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 18, 2010

Bathing in northern 'megaherbs'

When I first visited New Zealand in 1994 I was impressed by its astounding landscapes — the stunning beauty of its landforms, coasts and islands. However, I was soon not so enamored of its much-publicized "clean green" image when I realized the incredible destruction wrought on the ecosystem by its...
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2010

Sumo's seamy underbelly

NAGOYA — Sumo is more than a sport to Japan. It's like a religion, a bastion of traditional culture and a matter of national pride. Wrestlers aren't just athletes — they are icons, role models and, often, larger-than-life heroes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2010

'Inception'

Director Christopher Nolan has fashioned a career as neatly parceled into halves as that of Bruce Wayne/Batman: On the one side are his ontological thrillers, crafty mind games such as "Following," "Memento" and "The Prestige," with their shifting levels of reality and unreliable narrators. On the other...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2010

A year to recall what made de Gaulle great

LONDON — By coincidence, this is a busy year for round-number anniversaries for France's greatest leader since Napoleon. Charles de Gaulle was born 120 years ago in Lille. He died 40 years ago at his home in Colombey-les-deux-eglises, expiring of a heart attack as he played solitaire one evening. Seventy...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 12, 2010

Where will limits of G20 policy leave debt-strewn Japan?

The G8 and G20 meetings in Toronto, closely watched last month as Europe struggled to halt the chain reaction of doubt set in motion by the Greek debt crisis, exposed their inability to coordinate on quelling financial uncertainty.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 11, 2010

Media fixated with China's new wealth

With the World Cup, sumo's baseball betting scandal and Sunday's Upper House election dominating the media's attention, some readers may have not noticed the extensive coverage also being devoted to China. And we're not just talking about crowds at the Shanghai Expo, but the crowds of visitors to Ginza,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 10, 2010

Architect wants to end nail-hammer cycle

Miwa Mori, president of Key Architects, thinks a lot about nails, both as part of her profession and as her philosophy about life.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2010

Japan's economic fantasy

HONG KONG — Belatedly, Japan's leading politicians are waking from their coma and realizing that the country's economy is in a massive mess hit by a triple whammy of low growth, heavy debts and an increasingly aging population.
JAPAN / OKINAWA'S HOSTAGE ECONOMY
Jul 7, 2010

Futenma relocation has certain bidders salivating

NAGO, Okinawa Pref. — Last month an executive of a major construction company in Nago confessed what was considered a long-held industry secret in this city that is poised to be the replacement site for the Futenma military base: For decades most local contractors had rigged bids for public works projects,...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 6, 2010

Despite 'wagyu's' history, foot-and-mouth hit hard

Although sushi may be the dish of choice for many Japanese, consumption of beef has greatly expanded in the country since it opened its doors to Western culture following the Meiji Restoration.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2010

Value of universities during economic crisis

WARWICK, England — Is academic freedom affordable in a time of economic crisis? That was the topic for discussion at the annual signing of the Magna Charta Universitatum at the mother of universities, the University of Bologna, earlier this year.
COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2010

China now exports its convicts

Relieving pressure on overcrowded national prisons by employing convicts as laborers at Chinese-run projects in the developing world is a novel strategy China has adopted — an approach that is certain to create new backlashes against Chinese businesses overseas, besides highlighting the country's egregious...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2010

Self-defeating equivocation on democracy

MOSCOW — Prime Minister Vladimir Putin insists that "without normal democratic development, Russia will have no future." We Russians are pleased to hear these enlightened words, yet Putin adds a "but" to his argument that renders his points senseless.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2010

Korean peace still elusive, six decades on

HONOLULU, EAST-WEST WIRE — The tragic Korean War, which began 60 years ago, resulted from the post-World War II division of Korea by the United States and the Soviet Union — intended to be temporary — and from the political struggle that developed between Seoul and Pyongyang. After the division,...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 29, 2010

Elementary schools to get English

Starting next fiscal year, all elementary schools will be required to introduce compulsory English lessons for fifth- and sixth-graders.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight