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COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2008

Ma pursues defense plus China's blessing

PARIS — Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who marked his first 100 days in office last week, has wrought major changes in Taiwan's relations with both China and the United States, mending relations damaged by his predecessor, the pro-independence Chen Shui-bian, who insisted on pushing the envelope at...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 31, 2008

New company casts light on power saving

The use of solar energy to generate power and to heat water is gradually spreading in Japan, but the most basic use of sunshine is yet to come out of the shadows — namely, for lighting.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 31, 2008

Why is Japan lagging in solar-energy field?

In the renewable energy industry, how does Japan compare with the rest of the world?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2008

Peddling influence with Fiji

SYDNEY — From dazzling the world at the Beijing Olympic Games, China now appears to be turning its attention to the South Pacific. Its chosen beachhead to begin island- hopping is Fiji.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2008

Faust

As leading figures in the 1970s German experimental rock scene, Faust are really the granddaddies of much modern electronic and noise music. Along with contemporaries such as Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, they helped to break the stranglehold that British and American musicians then had on rock — and in...
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2008

Bankruptcies to rise: Daiwa chief

The list of real estate companies filing for bankruptcy will grow this year as banks cut lending, said Takeo Higuchi, chairman of Daiwa House Industry Co., Japan's second-biggest home builder by market value.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2008

Temp era ending as rules change, workforce shrinks

Masahiko Tanabe's life has changed since home products retailer The Loft Co. made him a permanent employee and gave him a 10 percent pay raise.
EDITORIALS
Aug 27, 2008

Sumo career goes up in smoke

It appears that the Japan Sumo Association lacks the ability and determination to rid itself of scandals. Wakanoho has become not only the first active sekitori wrestler to be arrested, but also the first active wrestler to be dismissed in sumo history. His arrest on suspicion of possession of marijuana...
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2008

Kirin to buy Aussie dairy business

Kirin Holdings Co Ltd. said Monday it has agreed to buy Dairy Farmers for 910 million Australian dollars (¥88.5 billion) in cash and assumed debt to extend its position as Australia's largest seller of fresh milk.
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS: BASKETBALL
Aug 25, 2008

Team USA back on top of basketball

BEIJING — Chinese culture, it has been said, emphasizes group harmony over individual desires. Western culture is supposed to stress the opposite dynamic.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2008

Chinese 'oldies' who raised the bar for caring

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In the obsessive media heat of these youth-oriented Beijing Olympics, a once-famous Chinese political figure has died at the ripe young age of 87, and goes to the grave almost internationally unnoticed.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2008

Some lessons from Japan's burst bubble

HOLY GRAIL OF MACROECONOMICS: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession, by Richard C. Koo. John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd., 2008, 296 pp., $34.95 (cloth) Hit by a devastating housing slump, billions of dollars of subprime losses and rising oil prices, the U.S. economy appears headed for recession, taking...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 23, 2008

Communicating through the unsaid

Sculptor Gakushi Yamamoto arrives looking as if he tumbled out of bed — or rather rolled off his futon and into the nearest shirt and pair of jeans that came to hand. And that may be so, considering he has had to travel two hours to meet up in Moto-Azabu for 10 a.m.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 22, 2008

Champion 'turntablist' Kentaro gets mixed up

It's been a busy few years since DJ Kentaro won the 2002 DMC World DJ Championship and became the first Japanese to bring back the prize — a golden pair of Technics record decks (the turntable of choice in clubs around the world) — to the land where they were made.
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 21, 2008

China taking small steps to baseball success

BEIJING — Baseball is experiencing growing pains in China. In order to take a big step forward, China needs time to establish a foundation for the future.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2008

Betting on Beijing

In late April this year, two Tokyo galleries set up shop in Beijing just in time for the Olympic fervor, believing that Beijing, rather than Tokyo, was the place to bring contemporary Japanese art to an international audience. Sueo Mitsuma of Mizuma Gallery in Nakameguro opened Mizuma & One and Yumie...
CULTURE / Film
Aug 21, 2008

Christian Bale: a peek behind the Dark Knight's mask

EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2008

Prevention of suicides

The Diet in 2006 enacted a basic law to help prevent suicides. And in 2007 the Cabinet adopted the goal of reducing the number of suicides per 100,000 people by 20 percent by 2016 from the level of 2005.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Shirakawa moves to demystify BOJ

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa, after four months on the job, is making one of the world's most opaque major central banks more transparent.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2008

Kawasaki's Filipinos form support base

KAWASAKI — When Rosemarie Salvio began taking care of children at the Fureai-kan public welfare facility in Kawasaki in 1997, Filipino mothers started showing up to talk with her.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2008

Are '70s landmarks savable?

Standing along Tokyo's Omote-sando Dori leading up to Meiji Shrine, the glassy, glittering, five-story Hanae Mori Building has been a landmark in the swanky Aoyama shopping district for 30 years.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 19, 2008

Be prepared for the 'Big One'

'How can we be prepared?' BJ writes in the wake of the recent spate of earthquakes. "Our family is increasingly concerned about what we can do if an earthquake or some other calamity strikes. We live in an apartment. Will we be OK? What kind of resources are there and what should we do in case of a disaster?"...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 19, 2008

Rice flour on rise as substitute for wheat in sweets

The Swiss roll looks no different from any other at a cafe or patisserie. But take a bite and something in the texture — finer and chewier — proves looks can be deceiving. The difference? The roll is made from rice flour, not wheat.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami