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COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 27, 2005

Finding a job after Japan

Rachel spent 3 1/2 years in Tokyo working for one of the big five conversation schools, before returning to the U.S. and working for the same company as a recruiter up and down the West Coast of the U.S.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 24, 2005

Mourinho alienating everyone but his players, Chelsea fans

LONDON -- Jose Mourinho seems to have found the 30-hour day.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2005

War memorial fails to make 2006 budget cut

The Finance Ministry's draft budget for fiscal 2006 does not include outlays for the proposed building of a new national war memorial.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 18, 2005

Artest, Brown reunion very unlikely

NEW YORK -- Before commencing with today's communique excuse me while I laugh in the faces of pretenders whose "sources" claim Isiah Thomas and Ron Artest had a solid relationship in Indiana . . . heckle the hoodwinked who fail to grasp the Knicks' president's phone call to Pacer CEO Donnie Walsh regarding...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 18, 2005

What did you read about Asia this year?

Donald Richie THE COLUMBIA ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE, edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel (Columbia University Press) This new take on Japanese modern classics -- old standbys and lots of recent writing as well -- is big (864 pages and it's only the first volume). It includes examples...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 17, 2005

Lee Colegrove

In 1965, his senior class was studying drama in Lee Colegrove's university English course. The students asked him, "Can we continue to read drama after we graduate?" Pleased, he set up for them a reading group to meet regularly in his Tokyo apartment.
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2005

Mideast's democracy dilemma

The surprise showing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt's national elections highlights the dilemma faced by democracy advocates in the West. The strong support for fundamentalist Islamic groups throughout the region directly challenges the assumption that free and open elections will lead to governments...
COMMENTARY
Dec 15, 2005

Iraq has been and will be a U.S. problem

WASHINGTON -- The debate in Washington over policy in Iraq remains contentious and even ugly, but one fact is certain: The United States will remain essentially alone. American policy must reflect the fact that no one is going to help Washington resolve the conflict into which it has blundered.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 13, 2005

Ritsuko "Ritzie" Kojima

Ritsuko "Ritzie" Kojima, 53, has worked as a hospital social worker and interpreter. Ten years ago, she quit her hospital job so she could take care of her ailing mother and her own family. A mother of three sons, she's a great chef who loves throwing big parties at her home in Kumamoto Prefecture in...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 10, 2005

Ferguson risks legacy being rise and fall of Man United

LONDON -- When your club has spent £65 million on four strikers, all of whom played in the 2-1 Champions League defeat by Benfica on Wednesday you have a right to expect better than the powder-puff display by Manchester United in the Stadium of Light -- none of which is at the end of the Old Trafford...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2005

Host-nation support pact pared

Japan and the United States agreed Friday to extend a bilateral special accord on host-nation support for U.S. forces in Japan for two years and not the usual five due to the ongoing U.S. military realignment talks between the two nations.
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2005

Silence isn't always golden

With the Dec. 31 deadline for compiling the fiscal 2006 budget approaching, the government recently made a series of decisions, including placing a heavier financial burden on people aged 70 years or older receiving medical service, the creation of a single public-lending institution out of the current...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 8, 2005

Inside the belly of the beast

Jennifer Abbott's entire career as a filmmaker and editor has been involved with challenging people's perceptions. Her first documentary, "A Cow at My Table," was on the horrors of factory farming, and Abbott met her co-director Mark Achbar while working as an editor on his documentary on lesbian marriages...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 6, 2005

Bush should do the right thing, and quit

NEW YORK -- By August 2003, California Gov. Gray Davis' approval rating had plunged to 22 percent. Two months later, he lost a special recall election.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 4, 2005

Read at your peril: Blair blasts Bush's al Jazeera 'joke'

On November 22, the Daily Mirror newspaper in Britain published an exclusive article headlined "Bush Plot to Bomb his Ally." A subsidiary headline said: "President Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a 'Top Secret' No. 10 memo reveals."
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2005

Influence of French violence

PARIS -- No use telling Japan Times' readers about Beaujolais. Most of them surely have had the opportunity of tasting this refreshing, though somewhat acidic, wine from France. The day in November when new production went on sale used to be celebrated in many places by popular feasts, as a tribute to...
EDITORIALS
Dec 1, 2005

Time to allow a female emperor

A government panel on imperial succession has issued a final proposal to revise the Imperial Household Law. It contains two main points. One is that females and their descendants should be allowed to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne. The second is that the emperor's firstborn child, regardless of gender,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 29, 2005

Grand coalition with hazy prospects

A grand coalition headed by Ms. Angela Merkel, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has taken over the reins of government in Germany from the seven-year-long administration of Mr. Gerhard Schroeder of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In the general election held in September, the center-right...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2005

Sharon's rebirth as 'centrist' overrated

KUALA LUMPUR -- Most of what has been written or said to depict Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's departure from the Likud party is parable to an "earthquake," or the "eruption of a volcano," and has, without a doubt, turned the Israeli political map "topsy-turvy," to borrow Ha'aretz Gideon Samet's...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 29, 2005

IC scheme gets frosty reception

Why the mistrust? I've lived in Japan for almost three years now, and I find the treatment of most foreigners in Japan is, in my opinion, fine. However, the potential damage of chipping, tracking, and who knows what else, will, I'm sure, deter people from traveling here.
COMMENTARY
Nov 27, 2005

Seoul not the ally that Washington deserves

WASHINGTON -- During his Asian trip, U.S. President George W. Bush met with South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun to highlight the two nations' alliance. The next day Roh's government announced that it was withdrawing a third of its soldiers from Iraq. Never mind.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 26, 2005

Richard Quest

Almost 20 years ago, viewers of the BBC World Service used to watch a British television reporter whose agile, distinctive style excited comment. "Unconventional," some said. "Quirky," said others, "original and mold-breaking."
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2005

Putin, Koizumi bolster economic ties, skip isles

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Monday to increase security and economic cooperation despite the 60-year territorial row over the four Russian-held islands off northern Hokkaido.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2005

Panel backs allowing women to ascend Imperial throne

A government panel discussing the Imperial succession decided Monday to propose allowing females and their descendants to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2005

Sino-Japanese relations continue to cool

SINGAPORE -- China appears to be in a political and diplomatic quagmire as it contends with a "new" Japan that is described by Chinese observers and analysts as growing increasingly conserva- tive, hawkish and nationalistic. Beijing is alarmed by Japan's so-called return to "normalcy" under the orchestration...
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2005

Myanmar goes deep

Capitals have moved before, but rarely so mysteriously. When Myanmar's military government began streaming out of the country's longtime capital city of Yangon on the morning of Nov. 6, headed for a fortified but unfinished compound in jungle-clad mountains 400 km to the north, people scratched their...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2005

Aussies preparing for worst

SYDNEY -- Tough new antiterrorist laws will soon give troops shoot-to-kill authority when patrolling Australian streets in anticipation of a terrorist attack. But the change will come only after the Australian public has agonized over a claimed loss of civil liberties.
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2005

Easing beef ban seen as missing chance to let consumers rule

Yoshinoya D&C Co. executives, intent on reviving the restaurant chain's trademark beef-on-rice bowls as quickly as possible, are calling U.S. meatpackers to find out how much beef they can get and at what price.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past