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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 12, 2008

Climbing Mount Misen

I recently took a group of tourists on a sail through the Seto Inland Sea for three days. Our destination was Miyajima, home of the Great Torii Gate and Itsukushima Shrine (built in A.D. 593), a World Heritage site since 1996.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 11, 2008

Market for mobile 'manga' taking off

A wave of digital and mobile phone technology is sweeping through the Japanese publishing industry as the market for electronic publishing continues to take off.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 11, 2008

Scott Murphy

"I didn't know anything about Japanese, or Japan at all, and I spoke English on stage and no one understood what I was saying."
BUSINESS
Jul 11, 2008

Japan caves to gadget makers on 'iPod tax'

Japan will stop pushing for legislation to charge royalties on the sales of iPods and other portable digital music players, giving in to opposition from electronics makers, officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2008

Confectioners spice things up with hot chili, soy sauce sweets

The Japanese sweets scene is heating up and getting salty to boot.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 10, 2008

G8 trying to have it both ways on nukes

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — On July 1, 1968, world leaders signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, in which nonnuclear weapons states agreed to never produce or acquire such arms while countries possessing them agreed to eventually scrap their arsenals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 10, 2008

Island chanteuse Hajime finds tranquillity on Saturn

It wouldn't be the obvious place to look. And yet singer Hajime Chitose was seeking a new peace of mind when, 1.3 billion km away, she found what she was looking for.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2008

Nature stifling wind power in Japan

CHOSHI, Chiba Pref. — About a 2 1/2-hour drive east of central Tokyo, on the edge of the Kanto plain, stands one of the closest wind farms to the capital, whirring away as it generates up to 25,500 kw of clean electricity.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 9, 2008

Toyako businesses seek long-term benefit

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Takuji Okamoto, 69, has run a tiny noodle shop with his wife, Chieko, for 23 years at the Lake Toya hot springs resort area.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 9, 2008

Summit aiming to offset all its CO2 emissions

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Debate on global warming can heat up sometimes, but the Group of Eight summit shouldn't be contributing to climate change.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 8, 2008

Japan's last frontier took time to tame, cultivate image

Hokkaido, where the Group of Eight summit is taking place in Toyako, is known for its hot springs, ski resorts, seafood and magnificent scenery.
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2008

Nursing care in trouble

Nursing care establishments are suffering from a severe labor shortage as many workers quit each year because of low wages and harsh working conditions. The government should realize that if this trend continues, the nation's nursing care system could collapse. Improving the wages and working conditions...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2008

Thickheadedness on African debt

ACCRA, Ghana — In the runup to the Group of Eight meeting in Japan last week, activists of all stripes were working hard to ensure that their issue would be on the agenda. While the agenda changes from year to year, one item has become a mainstay: debt relief. The fact that this issue repeatedly resurfaces...
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 8, 2008

Food crisis, Africa aid at center stage

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — The three-day Group of Eight summit kicked off Monday in Toyako with Japan's leadership of the G8 being tested by a raft of new global challenges.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 8, 2008

G8 leaders cast Tanabata wishes

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Everyone has hopes for the future, a reflection of their past experiences. The world leaders gathered for the Group of Eight summit are no exception — as evidenced by what they wrote on pieces of paper hung Monday from bamboo trees in the Japanese wish-making tradition of the July...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 6, 2008

Hillman aims for Sapporo-like success in K.C.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Last November at his sayonara party in Tokyo, I semi-promised outgoing Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters manager Trey Hillman I would travel to Kansas City in 2008 to see him in action as skipper of the American League Royals. Last month, I made good on that promise.
EDITORIALS
Jul 6, 2008

Tough tasks on G8's agenda

Japan hosts a summit of the advanced industrialized nations' leaders for the fifth time from Monday to Wednesday. Leaders of the Group of Eight nations who gather in Toyako, Hokkaido, will discuss how to overcome major problems troubling the international community, such as global warming, steep rises...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 6, 2008

Fearless bluestockings in Japan

THE BLUESTOCKINGS OF JAPAN: New Woman Essays and Fiction From Seito, 1911-16, edited by Jan Bardsley. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2007; xii + 308 pp., $70 (cloth), $26 (paper) In 1911 a new publication appeared in Japan. It was singular in that it was written, edited...
BASKETBALL
Jul 5, 2008

Munakata named Alvark coach

Koju Munakata is the Toyota Motors Alvark's new head coach, replacing German Torsten Loibl, who coached the JBL team for the past two seasons. The Alvark made a formal announcement earlier this week.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jul 4, 2008

NGOs worried Africa will get short shrift

When the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Yokohama drew to a close May 30, Sayaka Funada-Classen, leader of a Tokyo-based nongovernmental organization, felt the years of engagement with the government had partly paid off.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2008

'Hana Yori Dango: Final'

Japanese TV networks and other makers of films for the masses have developed a formula for megasuccess: Produce a movie that is essentially a superspecial of a popular TV drama series. "Hero," which revived a smash-hit 2001 series about a punkish public prosecutor, was of this mold — and become the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 4, 2008

Fans raise $50,000 for Japanese band

To most bands, it sounds like a dream come true: $50,000 with no strings attached; the opportunity to record an album with one of the world's top engineers; and the freedom to make any kind of record you want, unhindered by interfering labels just waiting to drop you at the first sniff of commercial...
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2008

Tokyo's emission controls

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly has enacted a by-law that will start imposing limits in fiscal 2010 on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by large business establishments. This is the first move in Japan to impose compulsory limits on COティ emissions.
BASKETBALL
Jul 2, 2008

Six groups officially apply to join bj-league

The bj-league received 10 offers from groups interested in being part of the league's next wave of expansion, beginning on Nov. 1, 2007, and ending on Monday.

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