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JAPAN
Mar 7, 2007

LDP, DPJ ranks hear Nanjing denial lecture

About 30 lawmakers from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan gathered Tuesday to hear a controversial historian talk about why he figures the Nanjing Massacre is a "complete fabrication."
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2007

Hardship born of an anachronism

An outmoded provision in the Civil Code is causing many remarried women and their children hardship concerning the children's family registry. Article 772 of the Civil Code, which took effect in 1898, stipulates that a baby born to a woman within 300 days of her divorce must be regarded as having been...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 28, 2007

Bird's memories of D.J.

NEW YORK -- How wretchedly ironic Dennis Johnson, 52, dropped dead from a heart attack on the day of the NBA's trading deadline.
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....
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Jan 22, 2007

Demographics, wisdom push Japan's overseas M&A deals

Last month Japan Tobacco, perhaps as a kind of Christmas present to itself, announced it was going to buy Gallaher Plc of the United Kingdom. The quoted figure for the deal was 2.25 trillion yen (14.5 billion euro), making it the largest-ever foreign takeover by a Japanese company.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Dec 5, 2006

"Bad Kitty," "Junie B. Jones ... is on Her Way!"

"Bad Kitty," Michele Jaffe, Puffin Books; 2006; 294 pp. It's ha-ha-hard being a teenager, particularly if you're Jas Callihan, all of 17, half-Jamaican half-Irish, with a height to rival King Kong's and a nonexistent chest. In author Michele Jaffe's hands, nothing could be more hysterical than the gaffes...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 28, 2006

Will changes to the education law foster nationalism in classrooms?

EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2006

Britons bridle over veil

The phrase "straw poll" has acquired some nuance in Britain this month. It used to mean asking people what they think about an issue -- any issue. Suddenly it seems to mean asking people what they think about Straw -- Jack Straw, that is, the former British foreign secretary -- and in particular his...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2006

Is Labour's Gordon Brown electable?

LONDON -- British Finance Minister Gordon Brown obviously wants to succeed Tony Blair as British prime minister. But it is less obvious that he is willing to do what is necessary to lead the Labour Party to victory in the next general election. In some critical sense, he must repudiate Blair's legacy,...
COMMENTARY
Oct 14, 2006

Get tough with Pyongyang

HONOLULU -- Virtually every statement issued in response to North Korea's apparent first-ever nuclear-weapons test has included an admonition (or plea) for Pyongyang to return to the moribund six-party talks. But, are all parties prepared to take "yes" for an answer?
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2006

Fitting memorial for war dead

With the governing Liberal Democratic Party set to elect its new leader in September -- when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi step downs as LDP president (and hence as prime minister) some LDP lawmakers are proposing ways to solve the ongoing row over Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine. Visits...
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2006

Ghosn denies yearning to merge with, rule over GM

Nissan Motor Co. President Carlos Ghosn denied speculation Friday that he intends to become General Motors Corp.'s chief executive officer but did not rule out the possibility of joining its board of directors if and when Nissan, GM and Renault agree to form an alliance.
EDITORIALS
Jun 27, 2006

Think about it and vote again

One year after French and Dutch voters rejected the proposed European Union constitution in referendums, EU leaders have agreed to extend the "period of reflection," setting the second half of 2008 as a deadline for deciding what to do about the bloc's moribund document. The conclusion of the EU leaders'...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 25, 2006

A love forbidden can never be forgotten

KAWADA RYOKICHI -- JEANNIE EADIE'S SAMURAI: The Life and Times of a Meiji Entrepreneur and Agricultural Pioneer, by Andrew Cobbing and Masataro Itami. Global Oriental, 2006, 288 pp., £35 (cloth). FALLING BLOSSOM: A British Officer's Enduring Love for a Japanese Woman, by Peter Pagnamenta and Momoko...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 9, 2006

Eye looks to tranquillity after his contrived chaos

"I don't really think I have any musicianship. I can't play any instruments. I have no technique. I really can't do anything. I have no professional skill at all. I'm also a crap DJ. I'm really not very deft! Really I'm crap . . . and I've been doing it for 10 years!" says Yamataka Eye, leader of the...
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2006

Australia's dirty little secret

SYDNEY -- A dirty little secret in Australian society has been exposed, and federal and state governments are maneuvering to clean up the mess or face international condemnation for allegedly allowing the violation of human rights.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 23, 2006

What is your opinion on boycotting "The Da Vinci Code"?

Colin Swainson Teacher, 34 There must be something in it if they have upset the Catholic Church so much. I'm sure they have lots of secrets in the vaults. By boycotting they are saying people will find out something they don't want them to know.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2006

Give Assembly more say in picking secretary general

NEW YORK -- The United Nations is torn apart by internal tensions. No sooner was the controversy over the creation of a Human Rights Council resolved than a new battle erupted. The United States is pressing for administrative reforms and threatening to cut off funding if the reforms are not forthcoming....
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2006

Okinawa base issue not cut and dried with locals

NAGO, Okinawa Pref. -- It's a chilly, rainy evening in late January, but more than 1,000 people pack the center of town to hear a speech by Yoshikazu Shimabukuro, the head of the Nago Municipal Assembly.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / ASEAN-JAPAN SYMPOSIUM
Dec 13, 2005

Political power plays cloud East Asian economic community vision

See main story: Japan can help ASEAN integration
COMMENTARY
Dec 8, 2005

Crisis behind Arroyo, for now

MANILA -- Some observers of Philippine affairs view political crises in this country as a permanent phenomenon. Just the other day, I joined a group of foreign correspondents for a meeting with a visiting American reporter who has covered the Philippines since the late '60s. While this journalist, who...
JAPAN
Oct 22, 2005

U.S. realignment talks in danger

Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono said Friday that Japan and the United States might not hold realignment talks next week if the two sides fail to agree on where to move the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Oct 18, 2005

Water pumps

Dear Alice:
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 4, 2005

Hidden wisdom of 'the guv,' Shintaro Ishihara

Adored by large sections of the Japanese public, reviled in equal measure by the foreign community and courted tirelessly by the domestic media: There are few more divisive figures in Japan today than Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2005

U.N.'s 'Einstein' moment

The optimists had hoped for a "San Francisco moment" in New York, as decisive and momentous as the signing of the U.N. Charter 60 years earlier in the city by the bay. Critics might well conclude that instead the United Nations had an Einstein moment, recalling his definition of madness as doing something...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 2, 2005

The looking glass of Chinese history

MIRRORING THE PAST: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China, by On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 307 pp., $50 (cloth). It was the 19th-century English historian E.A. Freeman who observed that "history is past politics, and politics is present history."...
BUSINESS
Oct 1, 2005

Japan, China grope for way to share drilling for gas

Japan and China kicked off a two-day working-level meeting Friday on contentious gas projects in the East China Sea with hopes that they can agree to jointly tap the resources.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2005

Downsized, quickly built Nago offshore base eyed

Japan and the United States are considering downsizing a planned military-civilian airport off Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, for relocating the U.S. Marine Corps Futenma Air Station in Ginowan, sources close to bilateral relations said Thursday.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan