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JAPAN
Sep 30, 2009

Tanigaki opts for old guard to round out LDP leadership posts

Sadakazu Tanigaki, fresh off his election as president of the Liberal Democratic Party, chose veteran lawmakers Tuesday for the party's top posts, including former agriculture minister Tadamori Oshima as his No. 2 man.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 24, 2009

Asahi Breweries advisor Takanori Nakajo

Takanori Nakajo, 82, is the honorary adviser of Asahi Breweries Ltd., one of Japan's leading beer and beverage makers. From "boy Friday" in 1952, Nakajo worked seven days a week until his official retirement as chairman in 1994. He poured all of his energy into beer-making and miraculously dragged the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 24, 2009

Asahi Breweries advisor Takanori Nakajo

Takanori Nakajo, 82, is the honorary adviser of Asahi Breweries Ltd., one of Japan's leading beer and beverage makers. From "boy Friday" in 1952, Nakajo worked seven days a week until his official retirement as chairman in 1994. He poured all of his energy into beer-making and miraculously dragged the...
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2009

Is Earth's methane a time bomb?

SINGAPORE — Developed and developing countries continue to haggle over terms of a new pact to limit global warming gases. With only 15 full negotiating days scheduled before a climate change summit convenes in Copenhagen at the end of the year, the next round of negotiations in Bangkok (Sept. 28-Oct....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 19, 2009

Tokyo rabbi gives unconditionally

"Whatever we have, we give 100 percent," says Binyomin Edery, the 33-year-old chief rabbi at Chabad House in Tokyo. "Our bank account is at zero! If we have one, we give two; if we have two, we give four. That's what we do."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 18, 2009

'Infinite moments' brought to stage

Seminaked men, shaven-headed, their bodies covered in white makeup, move with intent slowness on the stage: Anyone who has ever seen Ankoku Butoh — Japan's most famous dance export — will recognize this description. But, as good as the likes of internationally acclaimed dance troupe Sankai Juku are,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 13, 2009

ANA looks to sky as JAL hangs head

In a TV commercial aired all last summer, airline passengers are shown relaxing when the pilot comes on the PA to make the usual announcement about travel times and weather. Nobody seems alarmed when they learn that the skipper is teen golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa, who isn't old enough to drive a car...
LIFE / Travel
Sep 13, 2009

Serving up soba and shrines

The lump of dough in the large mixing bowl in front of me doesn't look like much, but soba-making instructor Hatuko Tokutake isn't concerned.
SPORTS / BOOS AND BRAVOS
Sep 11, 2009

Matsui's August exploits prove he can still be a dependable hitter

BRAVO — Who says Godzilla has reached the point where he's no longer a valuable contributor on the baseball field?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 11, 2009

The eyes have it in this light show

When you have a venue that provides such ample exhibition space as the National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT), it can be quite a challenge to find a single contemporary artist worthy to fill it. Earlier this year, Hitoshi Nomura, with a long, varied career and many large installations to his name, just about...
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2009

Hatoyama tries to tread line between change, status quo

OSAKA — When Yukio Hatoyama makes his international debut as the new prime minister later this month at the United Nations and in Pittsburgh at the Group of 20 Leaders' Summit, he'll be discussing Japan's new policies on everything from the environment to the global economy with President Barack Obama...
COMMENTARY
Sep 9, 2009

A Spanish medical doctor's African epiphany

I was visiting Rio Muni, the continental half of Equatorial Guinea with some medical colleagues. We were assessing the health situation in the country and we had arrived at Niefang, a small, sparsely populated, neglected town in the interior. The high humidity made the heat even more oppressive.
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2009

Lay judges hear first case against foreigner

SAITAMA — The first lay judge trial with a non-Japanese defendant started Tuesday with a 20-year-old Filipino pleading guilty to attacking two men on separate occasions in December, when he was a minor, and taking their money and other belongings.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 6, 2009

Media plays down landmark rent ruling

On July 23, the Kyoto District Court reached a verdict in a landlord-tenant dispute that found contract renewal fees common in rental agreements to be illegal. Kyodo News called it "a landmark ruling" with far-reaching implications.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2009

A dose of common sense for the crisis in capitalism

HONG KONG — The global economic turmoil has sparked international debate over whether we are witnessing the death throes of capitalism or signs that a "new capitalism" needs to be devised. French commentators have gloated over the end of the Anglo-Saxon way of doing business, citing the need for the...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 30, 2009

Media connivance in walking the dogs of war

NEW YORK — For five days following Japan's surrender this month in 1945, the Mainichi Shimbun, by then reduced to a single sheet because of severe paper shortages, published editions with a good deal of blank space: on Aug. 16, Page 2 totally blank; on the 17th, not just Page 2 but also a third of...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 30, 2009

War over whaling takes to Japan's airwaves

In early August, director Louis Psihoyos told The Toronto Star that his documentary, "The Cove," had been submitted to the Tokyo International Film Festival and rejected. In the article he quoted an unnamed TIFF "director" who said that the festival receives funding from the Japanese government, which...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Aug 28, 2009

Crawling back down Center Gai

My Little Pony and Throbbing Gristle make strange bedfellows. No, not in that way. The plastic horse and a poster of the industrial noiseniks both decorate Shirokuma, a funny little bar on Shibuya's Center Gai.
Reader Mail
Aug 27, 2009

Bit too close to the mainstream

Regarding Grant Piper's Aug. 23 letter, "Letter from an alternate universe": While it is true we do not hear too much from "the far right" in Readers in Council, Piper's response to Satsuo Matsumoto's Aug. 20 letter ("Left keeps trying to disgrace Japan") has me wondering whether we live in the same...
Reader Mail
Aug 27, 2009

'Right' remarks do enough damage

Regarding Satsuo Matsumoto's Aug. 20 letter, "Left keeps trying to disgrace Japan": Let us assume that Matsumoto's arguments are correct and that Japan bore no culpability for World War II. Why stop there? Why not also admit as fact that the Japanese people are actually descended from the sun goddess...
JAPAN / ELECTION 2009
Aug 27, 2009

Political shift gives hope to gays

The possible power shift in Sunday's general election signals change for many, and one minority interest group is daring to hope it will bring about the biggest change yet.
BASEBALL / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 23, 2009

Several NPB managers in danger of losing jobs

As the NPB season begins to head into the stretch run, an unusually high number of mangers find themselves on the hot seat — or at least very warm ones — as the Climax Series races begin in earnest.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Aug 23, 2009

JBA leaders should resign following national team's poor showing

It's foolish to think the Japan Basketball Association understands what it takes to build a successful men's basketball program.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2009

Battery-boosted bikes a hit with moms, firms

Tokyo housewife Chie Igawa, 38, is part of a trend that's transforming the streets, zipping her kids around on a battery-boosted bicycle without breaking a sweat or having to worry about traffic rules.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2009

A dream venue for new artists

"I'm still a housewife so its amazing that an amateur can do something like this," says DanDans founder and organizer Kazuko Aso, now presenting the contemporary art cooperative's fifth exhibition titled "A Midsummer Dream" until Aug. 30 at Chinzan-so in Mejiro, Tokyo. "Maybe it's because I have such...
Reader Mail
Aug 20, 2009

Left keeps trying to disgrace Japan

Regarding the Aug. 15 editorial "Dangerous revisionist sentiment": Little did I imagine that I would come across such an odious article. I totally agree with Toshio Tamogami, who has been bravely trying his best to convince the mentally retarded aliens who read The Japan Times that Japan was not at all...
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2009

Some 'progress' not worth making

In his Aug. 13 letter, "So much ado over use of drugs," David Williams laments the fact that Japan is "50 years behind America when it comes to the 'evil of drugs.' " But I think that sometimes being behind the times is actually a good thing. It's a horrifying thought to imagine Japan "progressing" so...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 16, 2009

Back where they belong

High in the fork of a tall tree on a wooded slope close to narrow rice paddies on Sado Island in the Sea of Japan off Nigata Prefecture was a flimsy, ragged nest made of twigs.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years