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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 31, 2008

Hopes for next president

LONDON — Around the world, America's presidential election campaign has attracted as much attention as domestic political controversies in each of our countries. The interest the world has taken in America's vote is the best example of America's soft power, and a lesson in democracy from the world's...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 29, 2008

TMS can reach parts of the brain conventional treatments may not

I am in a windowless basement in central London with two men I've only just met. It sounds like this story could veer toward the salacious, but bear with me.
EDITORIALS
Oct 28, 2008

Giving peace many chances

The Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2008 to Finland's former president, Martti Ahtisaari, shows that the committee has restored the tradition of honoring people who have played important roles in helping to solve conflicts between nations and between ethnic groups....
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 28, 2008

Take the first step to writing home in kanji

A friend in North Carolina recently showed me a yellowing nengajō (年賀状, New Year's card) I had sent her soon after first arriving in Japan back in the early 1980s. The return address, penciled in my best effort at the time — a childlike, uneven scrawl of kanji — reminded me of the intense...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 28, 2008

Foreign students to fill the halls

Rie Yoshinaga had a wide range of colleges to choose from.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 28, 2008

A peep at video parlors

In the predawn hours of Oct. 1, a fire broke out at an Osaka video parlor, killing 15 people and injuring nearly a dozen others, including one who died later. Kazuhiro Ogawa, a 46-year-old unemployed man who had been in the parlor, was arrested on suspicion of arson and murder.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2008

The great Beijing-Moscow Central Asia game

HONG KONG — Although most world attention during the August Russia-Georgia crisis was on the reactions of the United States and Europe, China's response also made headlines. With China and Russia enjoying a strategic partnership, and sharing a distaste for U.S. "hegemony," Chinese support for Russia's...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 26, 2008

Memoirs of a modern-day geisha

BAR FLOWER: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess, by Lea Jacobson. St. Martin's Press, 2008, 352 pp., $24.95 (cloth) There will never be a lack of visitors to Japan who want to share their impressions in print; and the stream of tears from confessional memoirs will never...
BUSINESS
Oct 26, 2008

Japan Post sets eyes on real estate development

Japan Post Holdings Co., with $30 billion' worth of properties across the nation, will redevelop sites in central Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as it turns to real estate as a new source of profit, a company official said.
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2008

Aso simmers down, defends glitzy nightlife

Prime Minister Taro Aso countered growing criticism Thursday about his wining and dining at high-end hotels and restaurants by saying his haunts are public places open to anyone.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / GRAND OLD HOTELS
Oct 24, 2008

Jogashima: Awash with thousands of cherry blossoms

The escalator at the Keikyu Line's Misakiguchi Station transported me to a windswept hilltop where a booth provided information on places to pick mikan (tangerines) and shops sold tuna, toasted laver bread and horse mackerel seasoned with mirin (a rice wine). I boarded a bus. As it descended between...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 24, 2008

Film fest offers the Himalayas

The stunning snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas are certainly a joy to behold — or, for some, to climb. For those not up to the cost or exertion of such an endeavor, the Himalaya Film Festival from Nov. 1 to 3 offers an experience in armchair mountaineering.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 24, 2008

The Neville Brothers

Three years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, the city is still struggling to get back on its feet. Many residents who fled, especially the poorer ones, have not returned and probably never will. However, according to Art Neville, the musicians who provided New Orleans with its unique...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 23, 2008

It's North Korea's choice to make

NEW YORK — When the Republic of Korea was established in 1948, Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world. GDP per capita was $67 in 1953, immediately following the Korean War, and rose to only $79 in 1960. At that time, North Korea's economy was much stronger than that of the South. Natural...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 23, 2008

Inukai ready to face new challenges as president of JFA

On July 12, Motoaki Inukai became president of the Japan Football Association, bypassing four JFA vice presidents and one general secretary to land the most powerful job in Japanese soccer.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 22, 2008

A plea for the wetlands

Representatives of 158 nations will converge next week on Changwon in South Korea, where they will spend nine days, from Oct. 27 to Nov. 4, talking about how to save the world's wetlands.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Oct 18, 2008

Couple conquer national, religious divide

Before Tetsuya Kato met Widya of Indonesia, an international marriage would probably have seemed highly unlikely to him. He only speaks Japanese and the farthest place he has ever been to is Hokkaido.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2008

Cigarette price of ¥1,000 a pack would save 190,000 lives, health studies say

Cigarettes should cost at least ¥1,000 to discourage young people from smoking — a price that would also help sharply reduce deaths caused by the public nuisance, according to two research groups funded by the health ministry.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Oct 17, 2008

Why is ousted Wakanoho dishing the dirt now?

In recent weeks, sumo has been taking hits left, right and center.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2008

'Makiguri no Ana'

Japanese horror once struck a lot of fans in the West as fresh because it was less about fantastical creatures — say, flesh-eating zombies — than everyday dread. Instead of popping up out of nowhere, fear crept up like sinister fog from apparently mundane places and things — a moldy apartment,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 17, 2008

In the realm of fall's senses

With autumn nipping at the air, deciduous trees are primed to put on a color display known in Japanese as koyo. Though usually written with Japanese characters for "crimson" and "leaves," koyo can also be written with the characters for "yellow" and "leaves" when describing varieties of trees such as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2008

Muslim-Hindu relations explored in PIFF selections

In terms of box office, India has always been the best market for movies, though with its plethora of languages and regional tastes in entertainment, the country has been impervious to imports. In recent months, however, there have been deals struck between Hollywood and Bollywood that allow for movement...
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Oct 13, 2008

Will Japan emerge from crisis as a real financial center?

The events of the past weeks and days have dominated headlines and are threatening the world economy. Like so many dominoes, share prices and banks, big and small, have fallen in the United States and Europe, wiping out massive amounts of capital — about $21 trillion as of the end of September.
Reader Mail
Oct 12, 2008

Keeping public parks safe

Regarding the Oct. 9 letter "Kids don't feel right in park," B.K. Cottle says his daughter has told him she doesn't enjoy the park because of "these people" -- who, according to Cottle, are "the prostitutes, their clients, the drunks, smokers and pedophiles." While the drunks might be obvious, I previously...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 12, 2008

Ryu Murakami mistakes consumption for labor

A friend used to call TV Tokyo the "ramen and golf channel." He was referring to the station's penchant for programming centered on food shows and sponsored sports events, which don't cost as much to produce as drama series or celebrity- laden variety shows. However, the station's tightwad image was...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami