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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 10, 2010

Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani

Toru Iwatani, 55, is the designer of Pac-Man, the classic video game that virtually kick-started the world market for the video-gaming industry. Released by Namco in Tokyo on May 22, 1980, Pac-Man made history as the first video game that appealed to both genders and to all age groups. Idea-man Iwatani,...
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2010

Internet leveling the news field

SEATTLE — The debate is no longer confined to a few academics in distant universities. It is now a mainstream topic of discussion: How will the news of the future be distributed?
SOCCER / World cup
May 26, 2010

Okada denies he offered to resign

National team manager Takeshi Okada insists he did not offer to resign in the immediate aftermath of Japan's 2-0 defeat to South Korea on Monday night.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 22, 2010

Betrayal of Triesman an absolute disgrace

LONDON — Imagine having dinner with a friend you trusted. You talk freely about your marriage . . . maybe your job . . . perhaps discussing a future business deal.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 9, 2010

To realize its cultural potential, Japan must celebrate its strengths

Europe received a cultural shock of major proportions during the last quarter of the 19th century. The exquisite shikisai kankaku (sense of color), the startling spatial and compositional elements and the sublime craftsmanship of the Japanese arts took the continent by storm. Many well-known collectors...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 9, 2010

Children of Japan

Childhood. We all know it, we've all been through it, we've all lost it. Memory retains traces of it. We recall facts, incidents, fragments — but not what it felt like to be a child. Childish feelings are nameable to the adult, but not recoverable. They are on the other side of an impassable boundary...
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2010

War epics on screen skip mass slaughter of civilians

SAN FRANCISCO — Does the history diet fed to Americans by Hollywood promote an unhealthy national memory? The latest screen epic about American heroism in World War II — the HBO miniseries "The Pacific" — is clouded by an unintended irony.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2010

Unlike China, wariness marks India's ascent

PARIS — Some countries are naturally at ease with the concept and the reality of strategic power. Such was clearly the case of France under Louis XIV, the Sun King in the 17th century, and such is the case today of China, whose leadership is comfortable with the balance-of-power games of classical...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 11, 2010

NPB commissioner Kato has big plans for game

Nippon Professional Baseball commissioner Ryozo Kato has a vision for Japanese baseball that stretches far beyond the nation's borders.
COMMENTARY
Apr 7, 2010

Getting along with China

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, delivering a government work report at the third session of the 11th National People's Congress in March, claimed that China was "first in the world to realize economic recovery and positive turnaround" following the international financial crisis, and that its strategies...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2010

The rising stars can walk proudly with giants

PARIS — In the aftermath of the G20 Pittsburgh Summit last year, European and American officials insisted that G20 membership was imposing "new responsibilities." They invited policymakers from the emerging giants to become more involved in designing a new global economic framework — implicitly suggesting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 30, 2010

A foreigner-friendly field of dreams?

In the 1989 Oscar-nominated fantasy-drama film "Field of Dreams," the main character, a farmer played by Kevin Costner, heard a voice that kept whispering the phrase "If you build it, he will come." The Voice urged Costner's character to take a leap of faith and build a baseball diamond in the middle...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2010

Let the clean water flow

LONDON — The 18th annual World Water Day (March 22) offers the same old problems and rejects the practical solutions. On Monday, 1 billion people will, as usual, spend the day without clean water and a third of humanity without adequate sanitation. As usual, some 3.5 million men, women and children...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2010

'Cove' mind-set harms Japan

HONG KONG — The ballyhoo, glitz and glamour of the annual Oscars awards had many people in the world waiting with baited breath to see if they could make even a tangential claim to knowing one of the winners. Newspapers cleared their front pages if someone from their town, sometimes even their country,...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 14, 2010

In the land of the kami

"In some rural areas even today, elderly villagers face the rising sun each morning, clap their hands together, and hail the appearance of the sun over the peaks of the nearby mountains as 'the coming of the kami,' " — so wrote historian Takeshi Matsumae in "The Cambridge History of Japan," published...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 7, 2010

Yoshiharu Fukuhara: 'Mr. Shiseido' blends beauty and business

In July 1942, seven months after the attack on Pearl Harbor that started the Pacific War, Tokyo hosted one of the most ambitious exhibitions of art the world had ever seen. "Leonardo da Vinci," staged in an exhibition hall in the central district of Ueno, featured 600 exhibits by and related to the Italian...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Feb 12, 2010

Skating Hall of Fame set to welcome Sato

Veteran coach Nobuo Sato, a 10-time Japan champion who competed in two Olympics and six world championships, has been elected to the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, the organization announced on Wednesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 9, 2010

Watson to whalers: We will never surrender

Despite speaking on a bad line from somewhere off Antarctica, the message from Paul Watson was loud and clear:
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 2, 2010

Yankees, Giants combine might

There isn't a global world series yet, though that didn't stop the Yomiuri Giants and New York Yankees from throwing a party anyway.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Jan 31, 2010

Sato's commitment earns Hall of Fame nomination

In a development that hasn't even been acknowledged by the Japanese media, longtime coach Nobuo Sato was quietly nominated for the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame earlier this month.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2010

Rebuilding Haiti from Davos

ROME — When the captains of business and industry meet in Davos for the World Economic Forum this month, the devastation caused by the recent earthquake in Haiti will be near the top of their agenda. It should be, for there is much they can do to help.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2010

Poverty remains endemic

NEW YORK — Last year the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization announced that the number of hungry people in the world increased over the last decade. In 2008, the World Bank announced a significant decline in the number of poor people up to 2005.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2010

Latin America holds more clout, less doubt

WASHINGTON — What a difference a decade can make. Ten years ago, Latin America and the Caribbean received the new century in the midst of tremendous uncertainty. The Asian financial crisis and the Russian default had thrown the region into a tailspin with countries facing recessions in varying degrees....
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 10, 2010

First Snow

"Tamaki-kun! It's you, isn't it?" Startled, the man looked up from the book he'd been perusing. He stared at the woman in bewilderment. "Yes, my name is Tamaki . . . "
EDITORIALS
Jan 3, 2010

Looking ahead with hope

We did not see the back of 2009 soon enough. In fact, it will be good to be done with the entire first decade of this century. "Double Aught" is more revealing than it might seem. Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman opines that the last 10 years should be called "the...
JAPAN / LOOMING CHALLENGES
Jan 1, 2010

Diplomatic retooling needed in face of China

First in a series
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 27, 2009

Thank God the year's over

History has seen worse years than 2009. All the same, this Year of the Ox has been more than most of us born after World War II in the relatively privileged regions of the Earth were conditioned to cope with.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2009

Rice prices rock a buoyant economic boat

SINGAPORE — Asia is leading the world economy out of recession. The region's most populous nations — China, India and Indonesia — appear to doing particularly well, setting the pace for renewed growth in Northeast Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 2009

People and climate change

The U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen has failed to reach a deal on the reduction targets of industrialized and emerging nations for greenhouse-gas emissions, although it set a goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius over the coming years and developed nations made a financial...
EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2009

Toward fewer nuclear arms

The United States and Russia failed to reach a new arms control agreement as the START 1 pact expired earlier this month. The two governments remain committed to a new agreement; reportedly only a few issues kept negotiators from meeting the Dec. 5 deadline.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji