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JAPAN
Nov 20, 2008

Tamogami views no secret

Unsworn testimony before an Upper House committee last week shed light on axed Air Self-Defense Force Chief of Staff Gen. Toshio Tamogami's nationalist views, but questions persist over how such a vocal revisionist was appointed ASDF chief to begin with.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2008

Coaxing a turnabout in our 'animal spirits'

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The world's fundamental economic problem today is a staggering loss of business confidence. Commercial banks, investment banks and hedge funds all owe their ongoing trouble to its decline, which in turn is jeopardizing the plans of companies and entrepreneurs to launch enterprises...
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2008

Health as a bridge to Middle East peace

NEW YORK — For more than two decades several projects have been carried out between conflicting sides in several regions around the world that have improved public health as a common denominator in the search for peace.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 18, 2008

Dancing babies get mom out of the house

In the last year, my son and I have seen concerts by Bob Dylan, Spoon, Alice Cooper, The Raconteurs, The Roots (twice) and Cheap Trick. He worships Ray Charles but is anxiously waiting for The Zutons and AC/DC to tour. His iPod spins a similarly eclectic mix. His younger sister is already showing a marked...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 18, 2008

Prejudice among obstacles facing non-Japanese tenants

With a falling population, a shrinking tax base and a shortage of carers for its increasing number of elderly, calls are growing for Japan to allow in a large influx of foreign workers to plug the gap. The question is: When they come, will they be able to find a place to stay?
BUSINESS
Nov 18, 2008

Merrill to exit Japan electricity business

U.S. securities firm Merrill Lynch & Co. said Monday it will cease to trade electricity in Japan in January after failing to meet its expansion targets for the business.
EDITORIALS
Nov 17, 2008

Heavy burden for disabled people

Twenty-nine disabled people and one parent of a disabled person from eight prefectures — Tokyo, Saitama, Shiga, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo, Hiroshima and Fukuoka — filed lawsuits Oct. 31 with district courts in their prefectural capitals contending that a law designed to help disabled people violates the...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 17, 2008

Asia falls to mighty Lions

The Uni-President Lions kept the Seibu Lions caged for 8 2/3 innings.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / WEEK 3
Nov 16, 2008

Google reveals trends in Japan

The Japanese are more interested in iTunes than in ring-tones, ramen rather than sushi, the economy more than sex, and dogs win out over cats (but only just). That's what Google Trends, the keyword-tracking tool launched in Japan last month, would have us believe.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 15, 2008

Taking a structural stance on culture

It was at the groundbreaking ceremony of Osaka's Breeze Tower in the spring of 2006 that architect Yuichiro Edagawa met a German woman by the name of Sybille Fanelsa and happened to tell her about his cherished plan to publish a photo book that would introduce the splendor of Japanese culture and tradition...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2008

A doctor in the house? Do you feel lucky?

After being turned away by eight Tokyo hospitals last month, a 36-year-old woman died of brain hemorrhage after giving premature birth by Caesarian section. A month before, a 32-year-old pregnant stroke victim was bounced among six hospitals before one finally accepted her for treatment. She is currently...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Nov 14, 2008

Apache facing test against major foes

Coming off a bye week, the Tokyo Apache now face a tough stretch of games.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2008

Getting scrappy with jazz-punks Midori

"I don't really listen to punk or know too much about what constitutes Japanese punk," declares Mariko Goto. "That said, if we're going to categorize ourselves, I'd say we're a punk band. But the sort of punk we make is nostalgic and lonely. It's like a four-tatami room with just one door and one window;...
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2008

Enabling decentralization

Prime Minister Taro Aso has instructed Cabinet ministers to push for the abolition and integration of their ministries' regional offices. His instruction is in line with the call by the government's devolution panel for drastic reform of such regional offices. Since the reform is a main pillar of overall...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2008

Tokyo's Rokku laughs it up again at film festival

The objectives of the First Old Town Taito International Comedy Film Festival, which runs Nov. 21 to 24 in the Tokyo districts of Asakusa and Ueno, sound ambitious. Noting on the festival's English-language Web site that "there are innumerable film festivals held throughout the world," the executive...
Japan Times
CULTURE
Nov 13, 2008

Understanding Ueto, Japan's reluctant star

"I never wished to become an actress or a star who performs on TV," explains Aya Ueto, the prominent model and actress. "I took this role because my management gave it to me."
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2008

New territorial row brewing

In the latest territorial flap between South Korea and Japan, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voiced concern Wednesday over growing South Korean capital investment in Nagasaki Prefecture's Tsushima, an island city only 50 km from the Korean Peninsula.
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2008

Aso's ¥2 trillion plan will have no effect: Ota

Prime Minister Taro Aso's ¥2 trillion plan to aid households won't be enough to help the economy, according to former economy minister Hiroko Ota.
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2008

Keeping sex offenders close

In late September, South Korea joined a group of nations where the movements of released sex-crime offenders are electronically monitored. Such offenders have to wear electronic anklets and additional communication devices all the time. Fifty-three convicted offenders have become the first group to wear...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 9, 2008

Life in Burma: an expatriate's point of view

BURMA CHRONICLES by Guy Delisle. Quebec, Canada: Drawn and Quarterly, 2008, 208 pp., $19.95 (cloth) Over the past 20 years Burma has sunk ever further into an abyss of political oppression and economic malaise under a brutal military junta that shot monks on the streets of Yangon during the Saffron Revolution...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Nov 9, 2008

Wrestling with a guilty verdict

Kazuhiko Togo, a retired career official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and former Ambassador to the Netherlands, is the grandson of Shigenori Togo, Japan's foreign minister at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Nov 9, 2008

From heroes to zero, and lasting scars

Nov. 12 marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), commonly known as the Tokyo Trial, which in terms of judicial procedures is now widely regarded as having been fundamentally flawed and biased against the defendants.

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