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BUSINESS / CLIMATE CHANGE SYMPOSIUM
Feb 18, 2008

U.S. begins to count cost of global warming

The momentum to take action against global warming is finally rising in the United States, although the nation still has a long way to go before a political consensus is reached on specific domestic measures — much less making an international commitment for cuts in its emission of greenhouse gases,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Feb 17, 2008

Taking to the streets of tomorrow

Listen carefully and you might detect the slight whir of this car's motor, a little wind noise and a faint thrum from the tires. Could this be the sound of driving in the future? Will our streets one day be whisper-quiet even as they teem with traffic? Mitsubishi's electric mini-car, due on the market...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

Max Hastings' analysis in a bombshell

NEMESIS: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, by Max Hastings. HarperPress, 2007, £25, 699 pp., (cloth). (U.S. release is titled RETRIBUTION: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45. Knopf, 2008, $35) At Frankfurt airport, the insecurity police screening hand baggage discovered something in my bag that alarmed them....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 17, 2008

Japan's 'pouch curry' turns a tasty 40

Fancy a feast? Un petit peu du foie gras, perchance? A slice or three of the finest Aberdeen Angus roast beef, if you will — with lashings of horseradish, sans doute. Or, drop a plastic pouch of curry into boiling water, wait for 3 minutes, pour it over rice and — voila! — you have a meal fit for...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 17, 2008

A return to Japanese sensibility

SHAME IN THE BLOOD by Tetsuo Miura, translated by Andrew Driver. Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007, 216 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Of all the major postwar Japanese writers, Tetsuo Miura is the least translated. One or two of his short stories found print in English-language magazines during the 1970s, and my own version...
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2008

Another trauma for East Timor

The attempted assassination of East Timor's president and prime minister this week is a reminder of the plight of Asia's youngest and poorest country. President Jose Ramos-Horta will survive, but his country needs more than his return to health: It needs sustained attention and assistance from its neighbors...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008

Bangladesh tries to shake corrupt image

DHAKA — Ever since its hard-won independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has struggled to shake off something just as unwelcome as foreign rule: its image as an impoverished and politically corrupt backwater.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 16, 2008

In the land of the statistically speaking

Numbers don't lie. Not in Japan anyway. Here, they tend rather to flatter. Or "fibulate." Or nourish.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Feb 15, 2008

A Mediterranean buffet, Austrian food fair and half-price wines at Cardenas

Early birds stay longer in Hakone The Hyatt Regency Hakone Resort and Spa has introduced an early check-in accommodation plan that extends a one-night stay at the hotel to 26 hours.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2008

'Fast Food Nation'

Once upon a time, the spread of freedom and democracy was measured in the spread of hamburger franchises. Beaming network correspondents would report from places like Moscow or Beijing on how formerly gray and monolithic communist societies had opened their doors to the Golden Arches. This, truly, was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008

Chuck Brown is good to go-go

Chuck Brown doesn't know when to quit. That's not a character flaw — it's a trait that gave the world the musical equivalent of a marathon.
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2008

Crises cast light on China's problems

HONG KONG — More snow, even blizzards, are expected this week, but for the most part, China has weathered the crisis brought on by weeks of unusually bad weather, including severe snow and ice storms that affected most of the country, paralyzing transport systems just when millions of people were trying...
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2008

Violence in sumo training

The arrests of former sumo stable master Tokitsukaze and three sumo wrestlers in connection with the fatal beating of a 17-year-old wrestler before and during a training session last June should serve as a warning to the Japan Sumo Association about a culture characterized by tolerance of corporal punishment....
Reader Mail
Feb 14, 2008

Routine pastime of xenophobes

The timely response from the Feb. 11 editorial "Avoid hysteria over food" is a welcome antidote to the prevailing mass anti-Chinese hysteria in Japan fanned by a bigoted local media. From "second-rate toys" to every conceivable Chinese-made good, China is now the convenient bogeyman for any inferior...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2008

A question of intention

How valid is the distinction between crafts and arts? A number of recent exhibitions, most notably "Roppongi Crossing" at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum and "Space for Your Future" at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Tokyo, have confronted us with this question, one that is of great relevance to Japanese art....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2008

Let science empower you

The setting: The 350-year-old Royal Society in London, whose magnificent neo-Classical base overlooks the Mall, which has Buckingham Palace at one end of the boulevard and Trafalgar Square at the other. The speaker: Lord Rees of Oxford, the Astronomer Royal. Martin Rees is the current president of the...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2008

Daiwa SMBC to invest ¥200 billion more

Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. plans to invest about ¥200 billion of its own money in the coming year to restore profit that has been battered by a slump in underwriting fees.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2008

ASEAN's Pakistan problem

MANILA — Pakistan's near political chaos, the result of President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of martial law last year and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has had a tsunami-like impact across Southeast Asia. Should Musharraf's government backslide even more on its commitments...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji