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EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 2008

Diet battle looming

With Friday's start of the ordinary Diet session, a fierce battle is expected to ensue between the ruling and opposition forces over the fiscal 2008 budget and related bills. As far as the budget is concerned, under the Constitution the Lower House's decision takes precedence over the Upper House's decision....
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Jan 18, 2008

Chinese New Year, Strawberry tea sets and Orca wine

Lunar New Year celebration To celebrate the Chinese New Year on Feb. 7, the Hilton Tokyo's Dynasty restaurant is preparing special lunch and dinner menus from Feb. 5 to 8.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 18, 2008

'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'

On many other actors Victorian period costumes would look like, well, costumes, but on Johnny Depp, they cover his physique like a second skin — merging with his persona as if he had a spent his life wearing lace cuffs and with his feet, encased in heavy boots, treading on nothing but mud and cobblestones....
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Jan 18, 2008

Nikkei plunge may continue if foreign investors flee market

Market participants voiced concern Thursday that the Nikkei stock average may fall below the 13,000 line as foreign investors flee the Japanese market and shift their cash to more attractive emerging economies instead.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2008

Paying North Korea to be nice

A mendicant hones his knife busily on the roadside, testing its sharpness from time to time, when five passersby come along. They tell him to stop honing the knife because it's scary and dangerous. The mendicant agrees to do so if they leave chips for him to live on for the next 50 years. The five...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 17, 2008

Gilberto wavers from the family script

Her albums of sultry, sunny bossa nova and pop have beguiled and seduced millions of listeners. But, woken by The Japan Times after a meager few hours' sleep, Brazilian singer Bebel Gilberto is struggling to put on a brave face.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2008

Accusations by soccer midfielder

Regarding the Jan. 13 article "Nakamura knocks racism in Italian soccer": I smiled at midfielder Shunsuke Nakamura's accusations of racism against Italian Football. I suggest that he come back to Japan, where foreigners are fingerprinted not only when they get a residence permit issuance but every time...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2008

Volunteer interpreters assist foreigners with disaster drill

Fifty volunteer interpreters speaking seven foreign languages took part in a disaster drill for foreign residents Wednesday in Tokyo, helping the roughly 60 participants communicate with their rescuers.
Reader Mail
Jan 17, 2008

Health care closer to U.S. system

Regarding the Jan. 12 article "U.S.-China ties worry Ishihara": Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara is right to worry about Japan following the American model of capitalism. Look at what has been done to the medical system here. Near universal health-care coverage of 90 percent was reduced to 70 percent. This...
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2008

Small-scale consolidation plan

The government has adopted a plan to consolidate and streamline its 102 independent administrative agencies. Six entities will be abolished or privatized and 16 others will be integrated into six entities. Many of the entities affected are small, like research institutes. The government should continue...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2008

Long-term residents may face language test

The government may require long-term foreign residents to have a certain level of Japanese proficiency, Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2008

Slowdown in housing starts

Repercussions from the fabrication of quake-resistance data by structural engineer Mr. Hidetsugu Aneha and other engineers continue two years after the scandal first surfaced. In the wake of the scandal, the Building Standards Law has been revised to make buildings safer. Since the revision took effect...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 16, 2008

Japan toughens up on Internet regulation

In a country with one of the world's most vibrant Internet cultures, rumblings of change in the way that online information is managed, controlled and regulated is causing concern for many.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2008

Fukuda again rejects calling early election

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reiterated on Tuesday his reluctance to dissolve the Lower House for a snap general election before the Group of Eight summit this July in Hokkaido.
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2008

Reviews of films set in Japan

In the Jan. 4 article "Once again, here comes the West to the Orient," writer Kaori Shoji labels the film "Silk" Orientalist, but fails to provide any convincing evidence for this pejorative. Her one relevant criticism is that a village lord speaking English in pre-Meiji Japan would have been "an impossible...
Reader Mail
Jan 15, 2008

Check on overseas phone charges

Are phone companies in the habit of failing to tell their customers about what charges they have to pay?
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2008

Taiwan votes for change

Legislative elections in Taiwan have given the opposition Nationalist (KMT) party a two-thirds majority and handed President Chen Shui-bian a stunning rejection. Voters turned their back on Mr. Chen's confrontational politics and his focus on national identity over practical measures to improve the lives...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2008

Canine style unleashed as dogs hit catwalks in Tokyo

These days, dogs want to be in fashion, too.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 13, 2008

Single parenting drama, variety commonplace talents, childbirth drama

SMAP band member Shingo Katori, whose last TV drama job was playing a monkey, gets to be more than human in the new series "Bara no Nai Hanaya (A Florist Without Roses)" (Fuji, Monday, 9 p.m.). Katori plays Eiji, a young widower with an 8-year-old daughter, Shizuku. He saves his money for years to fulfill...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 13, 2008

'The Third Party' is a charm

THE THIRD PARTY by Glenn Patterson, Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 2007, 169 pp., £7.99 (paper) An unnamed businessman and a well-known novelist, both from Belfast, meet while checking into a hotel in Hiroshima. The recognition of a shared home, so far away, is awkward and unwilling, but over the coming...
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2008

The year of sake

The Year of the Rat may also turn out to be the Year of Sake. Last year, exports of sake (Japanese rice wine), rose to the highest level since a passing miniboom 11 years ago. The just-finished Year of the Boar saw a 10 percent increase over 2006 and a 40 percent increase since 2001. All signs point...

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