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EDITORIALS
Mar 22, 2006

Addressing China's challenges

The world has watched China's rise with awe and trepidation. Yet, the focus on how China will use its new power and influence has obscured the many problems the country faces as it continues to develop. Good Marxists that they are, Chinese leaders have long fretted over the contradictions within their...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 22, 2006

Ichiro calls victory 'greatest moment'

SAN DIEGO -- For Team Japan to be No. 1, Ichiro Suzuki had to bat No. 3.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 22, 2006

Self-interest and those Greenland pigs

Why do some societies last for hundreds, even thousands, of years, while others soar, dazzle but then fizzle like short-lived summer fireworks?
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2006

Two die, one critical in apparent suicide bid

Police found two women dead and one man in critical condition Monday afternoon inside a car in a mountainous part of Awaji, Hyogo Prefecture, apparently victims of a group suicide attempt.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 21, 2006

The doomsday doctor

Japan is officially shrinking. Last October's census found 19,000 fewer Japanese than the previous year; the first time, barring the catastrophic year of 1945 that the population has dropped since censuses began in 1920.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2006

Colonization obstructs peace

PLAINS, Georgia -- For more than a quarter century, Israeli policy has been in conflict with that of the United States and the international community. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory has obstructed a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land, regardless of whether Palestinians had...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2006

Africa's clock ticking on bird flu virus

NEW YORK -- The spread of avian flu to Africa and Europe, although expected, is unwelcome news. In the last few weeks the disease has reached several states in northern Nigeria and Niger. Together with other countries in West Africa, they are on the bird migratory route from Central Asia and the Middle...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 19, 2006

Wrapping paper that influenced l'art japonais of Paris

HOTEI ENCYCLOPEDIA OF JAPANESE WOODBLOCK PRINTS; edited by Amy Reigle Newland; specialist advisers: Julie Nelson Davis, Oikawa Shigeru, Ellis Tinios, Chris Uhlenbeck; foreword by Suzuki Juzo. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005, two volumes in slipcase, 528 pp., 140 color and 140 b/w illustrations, $249...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 19, 2006

Popular TV hosts weep in TBS's "Tokumitsu & Azumi's Moving Reunions" and more

Some TV presenters are famous for their voices, others for their piquant opinions or sense of humor. Veteran Kazuo Tokumitsu and relative newcomer Shinichiro Azumi are vastly different in terms of vocal timbre and personality, but they share one unusual trait: they can weep at the drop of a hat.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006

Is this really just good fun?

You couldn't miss him if you tried: The guy in the skintight black vest and hotpants is popping up wherever you look in Japan these days, thrusting his pelvis on television, striking his signature "Y" pose on magazine covers and boasting about his beefy workouts in subway ads.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 19, 2006

Myths behind the rise of the mobile

PERSONAL, PORTABLE, PEDESTRIAN: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe, and Misa Matsuda. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 357 pp., $39 (cloth). Consider the refrigerator. The changes this appliance brought in its wake are monumental. Thanks to that big humming machine in the kitchen,...
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 18, 2006

JFA chief to make appeal to FIFA

Japan Football Association President Saburo Kawabuchi said Friday he will call on FIFA to reverse its latest decision to allow only one person to give instructions from the technical zone during matches at this summer's World Cup finals in Germany.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2006

Envoy gets U.N. disarmament post

Japanese Ambassador to Pakistan Nobuaki Tanaka will assume the post of United Nations undersecretary general for disarmament affairs, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Friday.
BUSINESS
Mar 18, 2006

Softbank will buy Vodafone K.K.

Softbank Corp. said Friday it has reached an agreement with Vodafone Group PLC to buy 97.7 percent of its Japanese unit for 1.75 trillion yen in a move that will allow it to acquire Vodafone K.K.'s 15 million users and its nationwide mobile communications network.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 18, 2006

O-Higan: a time for prayer and Elvis

Today begins o-Higan, the week of the spring equinox, which is a national holiday in Japan. It is also traditionally a time to visit grave sites. However, unlike Bon, when everyone and their dog returns to their ancestral home to visit family graves, Higan is practiced mostly by those living near the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 18, 2006

Speaking Circles sets natural tone for open arms

It is Saturday afternoon, and we are in a pleasantly peaceful meeting room in Tokyo's Minami-Aoyama.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 17, 2006

S. Korea stifles Japan

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Not even prayer could help Team Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2006

Prime minister's airplane to get face-lift

The government aircraft used for overseas state visits will undergo in fiscal 2006 its first full-scale renovation since it was put into service in 1993 to turn it into more of a prime minister's office in the air.
EDITORIALS
Mar 17, 2006

Foreign Ministry mind game

Mr. Bunroku Yoshino, 87, director general of the Foreign Ministry's American Bureau from January 1971 to May 1972, was in charge of negotiations with the United States on the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese control. In recent media interviews, Mr. Yoshino admitted that Japan secretly shouldered $4 million...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 17, 2006

Heating up dance floors

The Latin boom continues unabated in Tokyo. There are Latin dance lessons aplenty, spicy eateries and specialty cigar and rum bars; the latest bands from Cuba tour to full houses; and a Japanese-language free magazine, Salsa 120%, lists all things Latin. No longer just a fad, Latin culture has become...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 17, 2006

Bellydance partywith feast of sound

Tokyo band Tabla Kwaiesa will be injecting the plush Club Heights in Shinjuku with a whole lot of Arabic soul for "Tokyo Ihtifaal," an event taking place March 21. Some of Japan's top bellydancers, including Suran Negishi -- competition winner at Armani's Oriental Festival in Lebanon last year -- and...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 16, 2006

Protest peters out after disputed call

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Nippon Professional Baseball's formal protest was dead in the water before it left Japan.
EDITORIALS
Mar 16, 2006

Justice for Milosevic's victims

In death as in life, former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic was contemptuous of the world. The heart attack that claimed his life while being tried for war crimes may have kept a tribunal from declaring him guilty, but there was no doubt about the eventual outcome. Mr. Milosevic was wrong -- and on...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 16, 2006

Ump Davidson works game; fans still unhappy over decision

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The biggest contributor to the United States' win over Japan on Sunday was there again for Japan's 6-1 win over Mexico.
JAPAN
Mar 16, 2006

Photo show portrays life of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea leprosy patients

Photographer Nobuyuki Yaegashi has opened an exhibition in Tokyo chronicling the struggle of Hansen's disease patients in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan during the past decade.

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