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JAPAN
Oct 15, 2007

Ex-gangster shot by gunmen in Tokyo shopping area

Kyodo News A man was shot and later pronounced dead Sunday after several men opened fire on him with handguns on a street in a busy commercial district in Tokyo's Taito Ward, police said.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 14, 2007

Reappraising the Asian endgame in World War II

The End of the Pacific War: Reappraisals, edited by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007, 331 pp., $60 (cloth) Former Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma discovered to his regret that public discourse in Japan concerning the atomic bombings does not accommodate dissent or nuance. The...
JAPAN
Oct 13, 2007

Japan lauds U.N. Myanmar statement

Gambari and others, and that this will lead to the improvement in the democratization process and human rights conditions." Machimura, the government's top spokesman, acknowledged that the statement's wording was "softened" in order to coax China and Russia into signing the unanimous agreement. But he...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 13, 2007

Sentinels of the streets

Three years ago my family moved from within Tokyo to just across the border in Saitama. So close to that border, in fact, that I can open a window and almost spit across the line.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 12, 2007

9/11 through Japan's eyes

In the Japanese theater world, Rinkogun merits a special mention for its concern for socio-political issues and its focus on increasing audiences' awareness rather than merely eliciting laughter or tears as many other companies are content to do.
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2007

Forcing defeat from the jaws of victory

LONDON — This week is the sixth anniversary of the start of U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts in Afghanistan. It was a very clever political-military operation, and by December of 2001 all of Afghanistan was under the control of the United States and its local allies for a total...
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2007

The case for recording confessions

The National Police Agency has joined discussions with related offices about the types of criminal procedures to be used when the lay judge system is introduced in May 2009. The other offices are the Supreme Court, the Justice Ministry, the Supreme Public Prosecutors Office and the Japan Federation of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2007

'The Kingdom'

It seems impossible to make a movie about 9/11 or the "war on terror" without getting sucked into the political dogfight surrounding the mess America now finds itself in. Whether it's "The Road To Guantanamo," "United 97," or even the latest season of "24," it's hard to portray current events — even...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 12, 2007

MY PLAYLIST: Hot Chip

Hot Chip are leading the current British electro-indie crossover charge, having earned widespread acclaim for their second album "The Warning," released in Japan last month on Rough Trade.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 12, 2007

Cleansing your mind with a little creativity

Nasu Kogen is proudly promoted as a vacation spot of the Imperial family. Judging by the numerous pamphlets at the station's welcome center, the area, about an hour and a half north of Tokyo, certainly wants to offer something for the whole family — but not necessarily the royals.
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2007

Staggering blow to sumo

Regarding the Oct. 6 article "Sumo stable boss axed for death": The unanimous decision by the Japan Sumo Association executive committee to sack stable master Tokitsukaze (following the death of a teenage wrestler) has somewhat assuaged the heavy damage to the reputation of this traditional Japanese...
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2007

Darfur deteriorates

After years of genocidal attacks, many thought the situation in the Darfur region of Sudan could not get worse. But a raid on African Union (AU) peacekeepers was proof that things could indeed deteriorate further. The bold attack threatens to derail international efforts to bring peace to the shattered...
Reader Mail
Oct 11, 2007

'Capitalism' not the only recipe

(University of California professor) Gregory Clark, in his Oct. 3 article, "Wealth related to the culture of nations" provides a false economic history to justify his strange theory. Massive amounts of money coming to Britain due to colonization of Bengal in 1757, in addition to profits from the slave...
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2007

'Silly summit' produced serious results

LOS ANGELES — It sure opened up as one big oddball of a summit.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2007

Afghan SDF mission constitutional, Ozawa says

Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, said Wednesday the Self-Defense Forces' participation in NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan would not violate the Constitution, contrary to the claims of the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition, which...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 11, 2007

Zen direct to you

Perhaps the most celebrated of the late-Edo Period Zen artist-priests, Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) left a large number of ink paintings on Zen-related subjects, of which by far the largest collection is in the Idemitsu Museum opposite the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Oct 11, 2007

Ford, Mazda to spend $500 million on new plant in Thailand

Ford Motor Co. and its affiliate, Mazda Motor Corp., will spend more than $500 million to set up a plant in Thailand to expand in Southeast Asia.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Oct 10, 2007

Hellcat bent for leather — a navy flyboy's tale

From 26,000 feet he punched through a hole in the overcast over Tokyo early on a freezing Feb. 12, 1945, rolled into a roaring 60-degree dive and fired his rockets at a Mitsubishi engine plant.
BUSINESS
Oct 10, 2007

Pratt & Whitney picked by MHI for new jetliner

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. said Tuesday it has chosen Pratt & Whitney of the U.S. to supply the engines for its planned regional jets, taking Japan a step closer to building its first domestic commercial aircraft in about four decades.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2007

Disparate tale of two Asian dictatorships

PRAGUE — Myanmar and Pakistan are both Asian countries whose military rulers are in trouble. But they are heading in opposite directions, because, whereas Pakistan understands why Asia is rising, Myanmar does not.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Oct 10, 2007

Trash can's size adjusts to your trash; MP3 player one-fifth as thick as iPod

Trash suffers so much at our hands. We inflict the twin insults of scorn and apathy on it, despising our refuse and really not caring too much just how it is removed from our presence. Just think how many research grants are devoted to building the better mousetrap, while we just treat our trash cans...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 10, 2007

Not all of us know how to play fair

I remember, as a child, seeing in a museum the skeletons of birds, bats and apes, and someone pointing out to me that they all had the same bones in their arms. It was the first time I grasped that we all had a common evolutionary ancestor, though at the time I hardly thought about it in those terms...
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2007

Would Murakami agree?

Regarding the two book reviews on Sept. 30 about Japanese writer Haruki Murakami: Literary analysis is a game for professional academics. It may be interesting, but no writer consciously sets out to write a work embodying any of the concepts mentioned in articles about him or her.

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