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EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2011

Rebellion within the DPJ

Sixteen Democratic Party of Japan members of the Lower House on Thursday threatened to leave the DPJ's parliamentary group in the chamber. The lawmakers, supporters of former party chief Ichiro Ozawa, submitted a written statement of their intent to the DPJ, but they say that they won't leave the party...
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2011

Makeover of local government

Several governors and mayors are calling for the creation of new, powerful local governments that differ from existing structures at the prefectural and city level. These officials are apparently frustrated over the slow progress of devolution as well as the overlapping administrative functions between...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2011

Best Coast / Wavves

Early in his career, Wavves' Nathan Williams earned almost as much attention for his erratic behavior as he did for his lo-fi, noisy pop and punk songs. In 2009, the guitarist for the California trio infamously had an onstage meltdown during a performance at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2011

Guardsman fast-tracks book, calls video leak 'civic duty'

The decision to leak classified footage of the Japan Coast Guard's run-in last year with a Chinese trawler wasn't an easy one to make, but ended up being a matter of civic duty, former coast guardsman Masaharu Isshiki says in his new book on the Senkaku Islands clash, in which he wasn't a participant....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 18, 2011

'Gakko wo Tsukuro (Let's Create a School)'

The Japanese audience has long loved period dramas, including ones based on the lives of real people, generally men wearing topknots. And usually, at some point, the swords come out, as in the story of the 47 ronin (masterless samurai) who in 1703 attacked a shogunate official in revenge for his role...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 18, 2011

Plan for 36-team league rejected by JBA board

It's back to the drawing board for the Japan Basketball Association.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2011

Oil prices and social unrest

HONG KONG — The resignation of Hosni Mubarak after a 30-year reign as modern-day pharaoh of Egypt has demonstrated the nervous and potentially combustible connection between oil and politics in the Middle East. As soon as Mubarak quit after weeks of demonstrations, oil prices dropped, but quickly rose...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2011

Visit Tokyo's 'Frontline' for Japan's contemporary art

Shigeo Goto, director of Tokyo Frontline, a new art fair to start in Tokyo this year, calls himself an "outsider," meaning he considers himself not quite inside Tokyo's commercial "art scene."
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Feb 18, 2011

Plum-viewing season marks start of spring

With freezing weather hopefully a thing of the past, it's easier to plan outings now — and viewing plum blossoms are a great way to get in the mood for spring.
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

Adults feed that 'shoganai' feeling

Regarding Kevin Rafferty's Feb. 9 article, " 'Shoganai' won't save Japan": I know Japan's economic situation is difficult. But I don't buy the Osaka endodontologist's claim, cited in the article, that this "shoganai" attitude is somehow connected with teenagers' taking to wearing flu masks. How many...
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

Cabal got in way over their heads

It is impossible not to remark on the unmitigated gall of former British Chancellor of the Exchequer and former Prime Minister Gordon Brown to suggest, in his Feb. 8 article, "The growth bargain in Asian consumption," how to put the financial world to rights. It is in the nature of politicians that they...
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2011

Breaching of social problems

I would like to respond to the Jan. 30 letters "Cultural generalizations dangerous" by Gregory Hutchinson and "'Gender equality' not universal" by Bryan Hunt.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Feb 17, 2011

Kan in budget vote, Ozawa bind

Already beset by opposition attacks, Prime Minister Naoto Kan is facing another threat to his leadership: a deepening rift within his Democratic Party of Japan over how to punish scandal-ridden party don Ichiro Ozawa.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2011

Tokyo assures Seoul amid peninsula tensions

Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara and his Seoul counterpart, Kim Sung Hwan, reaffirmed Wednesday that Tokyo and Seoul will cooperate closely amid ongoing tension on the Korean Peninsula following Pyongyang's deadly shelling of a South Korean island and its continuing nuclear threat.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2011

Sumo will change or die

"Please hit hard at the faceoff and then go with the flow.''
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Feb 17, 2011

Bloomers

Dear Alice,
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Feb 16, 2011

Chefs rise to rice-flour roll cake challenge

The popularity of rice flour and Sanyo's Gopan home bakery keeps going strong.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2011

Kan vows to repatriate all dead soldiers from Battle of Iwojima

Prime Minister Naoto Kan pledged Tuesday to recover the remains of Japanese soldiers who died in the Battle of Iwojima, the majority of which remain unretrieved after more than 65 years.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2011

Women sue to keep surnames in marriage

A group of people has filed a lawsuit challenging a civil law that effectively stops women from keeping their surnames when they marry.
COMMENTARY
Feb 16, 2011

Asia's fragile oil dependence on the Mideast

SINGAPORE — The prospect of continuing Mideast political instability is widely portrayed as a geostrategic problem for the West, particularly the United States. For years, the U.S. has worked with a de facto coalition of authoritarian Arab regimes to contain Iran and protect Israel. The "people power"...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2011

The world needs more elephant mothers

MELBOURNE — Many years ago, my wife and I were driving somewhere with our three young daughters in the back, when one of them suddenly asked: "Would you rather that we were clever or that we were happy?"
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 16, 2011

Sloan went out on his own terms after 22 years

NEW YORK — Apparently, there was a pact all along . . . Jerry Sloan came in around the same time with Hosni Mubarak, and damned if he isn't going out with him.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes