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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2010

When does transparency start eating its tail?

PRINCETON, N.J. — Transparency seems to be the word of the day in a wide array of policy domains. But is greater transparency always good?
EDITORIALS
Aug 17, 2010

Salaries of public servants

The National Personnel Authority on Aug. 10 recommended cutting the salaries of national public servants by an average 1.5 percent, or ¥94,000 yearly, and reducing their annual bonuses to 3.95 months worth of salary from the current 4.15 months.
COMMENTARY
Aug 17, 2010

Saving Japan's universities

The consensus says Japanese university students are lazy and apathetic. Unfavorable comparisons are made with Chinese studying here. Yet those same students at their annual autumn festivals can show an enthusiasm, professionalism and attention to detail superior to anything at a Western university, or...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 17, 2010

Who would get your vote in Saturday's federal election?

Luke RiganoHigh school teacher, 33(Adelaide)I'd like to vote Labor but I'm disillusioned with their environmental policy. I'd like to see more investment in renewable energy. And I strongly disagree with their Internet filtering policy.
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2010

A mixed verdict in Rwanda

Rwanda's Paul Kagame has won a second term as president. Having ruled the war-torn country since 1994, and claiming — quite rightfully — to have ushered in a period of peace after civil war and genocide, he had been expected to win another election. But beneath the calm that prevails in Rwanda is...
Reader Mail
Aug 15, 2010

Don't tempt the U.S.-Israeli 'crazies'

Regarding Gwynne Dyer's Aug. 8 article, "Let's talk about an attack on Iran": The problem with Dyer's analysis is the assumption that most of the people of the United States and Israel are rational. The fact is that many Americans would welcome the use of nuclear weapons, especially the Christian fundamentalists...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 15, 2010

A nostalgic trip to Vladivostok, interview with Mikhail Gorbachev; CM of the week: Kirin Ichiban Shibori

Back in the 1960s, before the average Japanese had enough money to travel long haul, a popular foreign destination was the Soviet city of Vladivostok on the Pacific coast. Most of the Japanese who traveled there were young people with wanderlust who also had a romantic attachment to the socialist experiment....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 15, 2010

Opposite ends in poll scrabble wildly for Aussie middle ground

This is the winter of a discontented electorate in Australia. Less than a week before Aug. 21's general election, the voters are deeply disgruntled and proving decidedly hard to please, while the main parties appear to be heading for a close finish.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 15, 2010

Silent but deadly in the RAW ring

There is a saying among pro-wrestlers that your true opponent is not the person facing you in the ring, but everyone outside the ring — in other words, the spectators in the stadium and, for some bouts, the millions watching on television.
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2010

Tokyo elderly urged to gird against heatstroke

Of the 96 people found dead of heatstroke this summer in Tokyo's 23 wards, 87 were aged 65 or older, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said Thursday, urging the elderly to drink water and take salt before going to bed.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 14, 2010

Money not enough to give Manchester City the title

LONDON — When Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea in 2003, David Dein, the former Arsenal vice chairman, remarked that the new Stamford Bridge owner had "parked his Russian tanks on the lawn and is firing £50 notes at us."
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 14, 2010

Dairy farm output in Aichi hurt by heat

A heat wave is hitting dairy cows in Aichi Prefecture, where dairy farming is an important industry.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 14, 2010

Detroiter puts golf on his English, boosts students' lie

Detroit-born Bob White has been in love with golf since he picked up one of his father's clubs at the age of 8. There were no kids' size clubs in the late 1950s, he recalls. You just did the best you could with what you had.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2010

Hawaiian spreads its wings via Haneda debut

With the opening of a fourth runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport in late October, the head of Hawaiian Airlines, which will soon start a new Tokyo-Honolulu service, is already looking to further expand the carrier's business in Japan.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2010

Mikimoto clues kids in on pearl cultivation

MISAKI, Kanagawa Pref. — It was a long way from the high-class jewelry showrooms of Paris, London or Tokyo's Ginza, but on Thursday at Misaki, on the windswept tip of Kanagawa Prefecture's Miura Peninsula, 20 elementary school children were treated to a rare, hands-on look at pearls and how they form....
EDITORIALS
Aug 13, 2010

WikiLeaks makes a splash

Mr. Julian Assange is a child of the Internet age. A former hacker and software programmer, he helped found WikiLeaks in 2006, a Web site that publishes otherwise unavailable documents provided by anonymous sources. It calls itself "an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking." WikiLeaks...
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2010

Goldman, Morgan, Nomura units face increased scrutiny over risk

The Financial Services Agency picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Nomura Holdings Inc. as initial subjects of a new unit to scrutinize risk-taking among investment banks, a source said this week.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 13, 2010

Finding fun in Summer Sonic's odd lineup

In May, Japanese Web site Netallica reported that advance tickets for two of the big rock festivals, Fuji and Summer Sonic, were not moving. Both feature foreign artists, and Netallica implied that the latter added the grand old man of Japanese rock, Eikichi Yazawa, and best-selling J-pop hip-hop group...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Aug 13, 2010

East meets West at the dining table

Matching wine with Japanese food can be fraught with difficulty. A refined, oak-aged Bordeaux paired with a cool plate of sashimi, for example, can come across as brash and overbearing, completely drowning out the subtle spectrum of seafood flavors. But that's not to say great matches are impossible....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / ART BRIEF
Aug 13, 2010

'Innocence — Art Towards Life'

Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2010

Utada hits tabloid spin on timeout

Pop star Hikaru Utada, who announced Monday she will suspend musical activities for an indefinite period starting next year, complained in her blog Wednesday that a tabloid paper got wrong her reason for taking time off.
Reader Mail
Aug 12, 2010

America can atone for its mistake

I am dumbfounded by what Gene Tibbets (the son of the pilot of the B-29 aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945) says about the Hiroshima memorial ceremony in the Aug. 7 Kyodo article "Fox News: Tibbets' son likens U.S. presence to apology." He is quoted as saying: "I don't know what...
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2010

Organ transplants under new law

Under the revised Organ Transplant Law, which went into force July 17, organ transplants are now possible from a brain-dead person of any age if the person has not openly rejected becoming a donor and if his or her family members approve. Before the revision, organs could be taken, with family approval,...

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