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COMMENTARY
Jun 10, 2008

A shift in priority to 'happiness'

Per capita gross domestic product is a highly valued as yardstick for measuring the degree of "affluence" enjoyed by the citizens of each nation. The figures of various countries are usually converted into U.S. dollars to determine how countries rank internationally.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 10, 2008

Where did all the babies go?

Last Wednesday, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare announced that Japan's total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of babies born to women during their reproductive years — rose slightly to 1.34 for 2007, even though about 3,000 fewer children were born last year than in 2006. Two years...
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2008

Expansion may be at end, data show

Japan's longest postwar expansion may be over, as record crude oil and raw material costs discourage companies from hiring and spending, according to a government report Monday.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 10, 2008

Investigating the linguistic allure of hard-boiled detectives

In Japan as elsewhere, there's an enormous demand for detective fiction, especially in the realm of terebi dorama (TV serials) (テレビドラマ). A well-made keiji-mono (police detective story) (刑事モノ) always soars to the top of the ratings list, partly because viewers can never seem to get...
MORE SPORTS
Jun 8, 2008

Kitajima shatters another record

Double Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima set another national record on Saturday in the Speedo LZR Racer, raising more concerns about contractual obligations for Japan's swimmers to use domestically produced suits at the Beijing Olympics.
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

Relevant values for everyone

Regarding the article "Bad public manners irk Bushido proponent": I am happy to see that somebody is taking up the cause for what should be obvious to people who enjoy the benefits of living in a civilized society yet do not contribute so much as common courtesy.
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

For Africa's sake, stop money aid

My answer to the problem of alleviating poverty in Africa is to stop offering monetary assistance. Rock star Paul Hewson (Bono) very proactively advocates debt cancellation. He did so again last month in Yokohama at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development. I want to suggest that forgiving...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 8, 2008

Politician on variety show, pop-culture music special, Chinese medical special

Grouchy, grizzled former Liberal Democratic Party star Koichi Hamada refuses to move gently into retirement. He continues to show up on whatever variety show will have him and bellow about what's wrong in the government and elsewhere. And apparently this attitude still attracts new fans, including "sexy...
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 7, 2008

The case for the 'sectoral approach'

As hosts of this weekend's Group of Eight energy minister's meeting in Aomori Prefecture, delegates from Japan will be actively promoting the "sectoral approach" to curbing global warming.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2008

2050 greenhouse goals will be too late: EPI head

Pitches to cut worldwide greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 are too leisurely and must be brought forward by decades, Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, said Friday at a symposium in Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2008

Toyota's new fuel-cell car goes twice the distance

Toyota Motor Corp. said Friday it has developed a new fuel-cell hybrid, a car powered by hydrogen and electricity that can travel more than twice the distance of its predecessor model without filling up.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 7, 2008

A new kind of ambassador

I recently woke up to my cat staring me down. "Hello, kitty," I said.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2008

Nissan building new India factory

Nissan Motor Co. and its parent, Renault SA, have begun building a factory in India to challenge Suzuki Motor Corp.'s dominance in the country. The $1.1 billion factory will begin production in 2010 and have a capacity to make 400,000 cars annually for local and export markets, the automakers said in...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 6, 2008

Noguchi should carry flag for Japan at Beijing Games

Koji Murofushi is a gifted athlete. The reigning Olympic champion in the men's hammer throw, he's achieved widespread notoriety in Japan just like his father, Shigenobu, the longtime national record-holder in the discipline, before him.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 6, 2008

Simian Mobile Disco

An 18-year-old with a passion for dance music these days was not much more than a toddler when Underworld released "Rez" and started to establish themselves as part of a new generation of dance acts that could hold their own on the festival circuit. Very few acts in the years since then have managed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2008

'Revolver'

Defying the laws of nature is rarely a good idea. Just look at genetically-modified food. Learned people assure us that it's perfectly safe, but consumers all around the globe refuse to buy. This is no mystery. On some deep, instinctive level, the idea of splicing, say, a fish gene into a plant, just...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2008

'27 Dresses'

One hesitates to say, but there's something slightly creepy about a superorganized, superefficient planner of other people's weddings who still lugs around a bulging filofax to sort out her many matrimonial tasks. Unlike a long-ago J-Lo (see "The Wedding Planner"), she doesn't do this for a living, either....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2008

'Johnen — Sada no Ai'

Rokuro Mochizuki was a leader of the Japanese New Wave of the 1990s, making films such as "Shin Kanashiki Hitman (Another Lonely Hitman)" and "Onibi (The Fire Within)" that redefined the yakuza genre. His tough guy heroes may have had a lonely nobility as they fought for their own vision of happiness,...
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2008

Tokyo makes final round for Olympics

Tokyo has been picked as one of the four candidate cities to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, receiving the top rating in the preliminary selection round, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 6, 2008

Star-studded cast imparts sparkle to Verdi spectacular

The New National Theatre Tokyo is currently staging the opera "La Traviata" for the first time in four years. Renowned Japanese conductor Toshiyuki Kamioka, making his first-ever appearance at the NNT, will lead a cast peppered with world-famous singers.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2008

Why Israel is engaging Syria

On May 15, U.S. President George W. Bush gave a speech before the Israeli parliament, decrying "radicals and terrorists." His archaic references to the "promised land" and "chosen people" certainly appealed to the equally outdated and exclusivist views of many, although not all Israeli Knesset members,...
Reader Mail
Jun 5, 2008

Where East could meet West

Concerning the ongoing discussion about the existence of God, I agree with William Johnston's May 25 letter, "The reconciliation of opposites," for the simple reason that in the Zen Buddhism tradition, Peter Singer (with his doubts expressed in his May 19 article, "If there is a god, then why is there...

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