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EDITORIALS
Feb 15, 2007

Breakthrough with North Korea

After tumultuous negotiations, the six-party talks reached agreement on a deal that would end North Korea's nuclear-weapons program and end the country's international isolation. The agreement took three and a half years to conclude, during which the North exploded a nuclear weapon. There is no guarantee...
Reader Mail
Feb 14, 2007

Youth-dampers working overtime

Regarding Eddy Nelson's Jan. 28 letter, "Why are young adults so glum": I don't think Nelson's letter is a product of malice, but rather one of a naive understanding of young people similar to that which has become so popular among the Japanese media. What Japanese young people really need now is not...
BUSINESS
Feb 14, 2007

Nikko vows better internal controls

Scandal-tainted Nikko Cordial Corp. announced on Tuesday measures to boost the group's internal controls to prevent accounting irregularities, including creation of a new section to prevent fraudulent deals involving affiliated companies.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007

From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted

The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2007

Dignity for disabled people

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 13. The convention, which covers rights to education, health, work, cultural activities, etc., is the first human-rights treaty of the 21st century....
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2007

Aussie book on Crown Princess draws official wrath

The Foreign Ministry came to the defense of the Imperial family on Tuesday, saying it had lodged formal protests with the author and publisher of a new book about Crown Princess Masako that it called "contemptuous" and "insulting."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

The price of stalemate

One of the most controversial elements of Japan's campaign to overturn the International Whaling Commission's 1986 commercial whaling ban is the alleged use of official Overseas Development Aid to "buy" the votes of poorer IWC member-countries. That is an allegation vehemently denied by fisheries bureaucrats....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 8, 2007

Blood, guts and bathing

Colonialism leaves a peculiar scar. As generations pass and ethnicities merge, the distinction between indigenous and invader becomes increasingly blurred until it is impossible for either side to regard the other without finding something of themselves reflected there. Some 500 years after the arrival...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2007

Rejecting kawaii culture

Momoyo Torimitsu (b. 1967) is a little tired of being remembered for Jiro Miyata, a life-size robot she created based on a middle-aged salaryman in 1994. But who could forget? Miyata, which Torimitsu had crawl around the streets of Tokyo, Paris, New York and other cities, so brilliantly embodied the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2007

Funny and dark, the Mori laughs

Known for its unique fare of thought-provoking and comprehensive exhibitions that give you the "greatest hits" of a theme or period, the Mori Art Museum is now tackling the complex topic of humor in a two-part exhibition running till May 6.
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2007

Rough deal for future mothers

The unfavorable social climate for Japanese who want to have babies has recently been highlighted by two incidents. One is the gaffe by health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa, who called women "birth-giving machines." The other is the prosecutors' decision not to indict the head of a Yokohama maternity clinic...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 4, 2007

Hope springs eternal as Japan pro teams start training rituals

The 12 Japan pro baseball teams opened their 2007 spring camps on Thursday. By rule, players are not allowed to work out in uniform until that date and, unlike major leaguers getting ready to go to Florida and Arizona, all the Central and Pacific League clubs break camp on the same day.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2007

Osaka plans another homeless eviction

OSAKA -- The Osaka Municipal Government is once again cracking down on the homeless, preparing to clear out a small group next week from a park that will be the site of a major international sporting event in August.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 3, 2007

Yamaha renews Rossi's contract

Yamaha Motor Co. has extended its contract with seven-time motorcycling world champion Valentino Rossi through 2008, the company announced Thursday.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 2, 2007

Sharapova sluggish in beating Schiavone

A verbal volley from her coach after a shaky second set gave Maria Sharapova the impetus needed to win a tough opening match at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2007

Freedom to edit

The Tokyo High Court has ordered NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corp.) and two production companies to pay 2 million yen in compensation to a women's rights group for altering the content of a documentary program on Japan's wartime military sex slaves. The ruling, which pointed out that NHK officials' excessive...

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