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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 7, 2008

A new kind of ambassador

I recently woke up to my cat staring me down. "Hello, kitty," I said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 7, 2008

Anyone for a game of curling?

Here we stand, on the lip of the frying pan that is Japanese summer, with the humidity soon to be so thick that people will dog paddle to work instead of walk.
BUSINESS
Jun 7, 2008

Citigroup to pull out of consumer finance

Citigroup Inc., the biggest U.S. bank by assets, said Friday it will withdraw from the consumer finance business in Japan to transfer capital to more profitable areas.
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2008

Giving children their due

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a Nationality Law clause that denies Japanese nationality to a child born out of wedlock to a foreign woman and Japanese man even if the man recognizes his paternity following the birth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 6, 2008

'27 Dresses'

One hesitates to say, but there's something slightly creepy about a superorganized, superefficient planner of other people's weddings who still lugs around a bulging filofax to sort out her many matrimonial tasks. Unlike a long-ago J-Lo (see "The Wedding Planner"), she doesn't do this for a living, either....
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2008

Tokyo makes final round for Olympics

Tokyo has been picked as one of the four candidate cities to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, receiving the top rating in the preliminary selection round, the International Olympic Committee announced Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / GRAND OLD HOTELS
Jun 6, 2008

A grande dame on the waterfront

Urban planning can be a zero-sum game. A case in point is Yokohama. The city redeveloped the waterfront to create Minato Mirai (Port of the Future), where visitors shop in boutiques, revolve on a Ferris wheel and whoosh in one of the world's fastest elevators to the top of Japan's tallest building, the...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 6, 2008

Festival explores artistic side of Thai cinema

The realm of Thai cinema goes well beyond martial arts movies such as "Ong-bak" (titled "Mach!" in Japan), which was a hit here in 2004. Movie fans in Japan unfortunately rarely ever get a chance to experience much else from Thailand's vibrant film industry, which has more to offer that is surprisingly...
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 2008

Historic meeting in Beijing

The march toward reconciliation across the Taiwan Strait continues. Last month, Chinese President Hu Jintao met Wu Poh-hsiung, chairman of the KMT (Nationalist Party), Taiwan's ruling party. Coming on the heels of the inauguration of Taiwan's new president, Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, who has promised to stabilize...
Reader Mail
Jun 5, 2008

Where East could meet West

Concerning the ongoing discussion about the existence of God, I agree with William Johnston's May 25 letter, "The reconciliation of opposites," for the simple reason that in the Zen Buddhism tradition, Peter Singer (with his doubts expressed in his May 19 article, "If there is a god, then why is there...
Reader Mail
Jun 5, 2008

Dedicate a TV channel to English

I would like to propose that the Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) add an English channel to its current general and education channels. The channel would no doubt contribute to improving the English ability of Japanese people, young and old.
BUSINESS / UK JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Jun 5, 2008

Japan's renewable energy drive runs out of steam

Japan could be left behind in renewable energy innovation unless it creates a large domestic market in this field, Ashley Seager, economics correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, warned in the May 23 symposium.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2008

Cluster bomb ban is a good start

The British armed forces clung to their cluster bombs like a baby to its rattle, and some suspected that they were trying to sabotage the treaty on behalf of their American friends. But Prime Minister Gordon Brown overruled them, in the end, and Britain was among the hundred countries that agreed to...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2008

U.S. helps search for Japanese dead on Attu

Searchers digging for days recently found the remains of two Japanese soldiers buried in mass graves on the Aleutian island of Attu, victims of one of the harshest battles of World War II.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2008

Matsushita, Vietnam strikers talking

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Tuesday it is in talks with striking workers at a unit in Vietnam.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 3, 2008

Good news from grass roots

Reader Rodney in Vancouver recently e-mailed: "I've often found your articles informative and useful, but they tend to take a tone of complaint. Please tell us about some face-to-face, grassroots efforts that have helped make Japanese more considerate and respectful of those who are different."
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2008

Shaking Japan to the very core

Singapore — As aftershocks from China's devastating earthquake continue to cause havoc, atomic safety experts from around the world are preparing to meet in Japan this month to scrutinize seismic standards at nuclear plants. Because they contain lethal sources of radiation, the plants are designed...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 3, 2008

Auto sales drop by 220,000 units

Nissan Motor Co. led a drop in domestic auto sales in May as higher taxes and fuel costs cut demand for new vehicles, an industry body said Monday.
Reader Mail
Jun 1, 2008

Steps to encourage immigration

Recent news tells us that the Japanese government is finally waking up to the fact that we need more immigrants. Great. But how about encouraging more people to come to Japan by establishing laws that explicitly make discrimination on the basis of race and nationality a crime.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 1, 2008

Rivalry in Asia upsets the balance of power

RIVALS: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade, by Bill Emmott. London: Allen Lane, 2008, 314 pp., £20 (cloth) The United States and Europe are coming to understand that the rise of China and India means that there will be increasingly less scope for the status...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell