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EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2007

Mr. Bush's next Mideast gamble

The United States is gambling that the time is right for a new peace initiative between Israel and Palestinians and that a two-state solution to the seemingly intractable conflict can finally be realized. Earlier this week, U.S. President George W. Bush called for a Middle East peace conference of nations...
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2007

Gambling on a show of strength

The weeklong siege against militant Islamists holed up in Islamabad's Red Mosque ended Tuesday when security forces stormed it in a fierce battle that left more than 50 militants and eight soldiers dead. If those killed since street battles between security forces and militants began July 3 are included,...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 3, 2007

Anticipation tarnished by tragedy before Nagoya basho

At a time when sumo fans were excitedly anticipating the first tournament since late 2003 that boasts two yokozuna, tragedy struck: In late June, a 17-year-old rikishi died after a training session.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 23, 2007

'Rub hotels': Vegas in a box

I made a recent discovery: love hotels! Not dirty, sleazy hotels on the other side of the tracks, but hotels that are cleaner than a "minshuku," cheaper than a business hotel and located near the main shopping district. What's love got to do with it? Nothing, necessarily.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 15, 2007

Losing his head on Rachmaninov

Russian piano virtuoso Boris Berezovsky is on the phone and he's very excited, though not as excited as he should be when he plays the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo this summer. There, Berezovsky will be performing Rachmaninov's Concerto No. 3 in D minor Op. 30, a work he considers "infamous" because...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 4, 2007

Coaching carousel likely to be especially busy in offseason

NEW YORK -- An always informed source tells me Sam Mitchell may decide to leave Toronto when his contract expires at season's end and sign on with the Bobcats.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 29, 2007

New postal giant raises competition fears as birth approaches

The planned privatization of the postal system, which doubles as the world's biggest savings bank, was hailed around the globe as a watershed free-market reform that would streamline the world's No. 2 economy.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2007

Nakasone claims his 'ian-jo' was for R&R

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Friday denied he set up a military brothel during World War II when he was a naval officer, claiming the facility he built was only for "rest and recreation" for the engineering corps he led.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2007

State mum on Nakasone's war brothel

started assaulting (indigenous) women and others started to indulge in gambling. I took great pains to set up a comfort station for them," Nakasone recalled in "Owarinaki Kaigun" ("The Navy Without End"), a collection of memoirs written by navy veterans, published in 1978. "Comfort station" was the government's...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007

From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted

The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 30, 2007

Yoko Yamada

Yoko Yamada, 27, nicknamed Iron Beauty, is the 2005 women's arm wrestling world champion in the 45-kg weight class and has won more than 35 gold medals, in both the Left- and Right-Handed Divisions. Yamada failed to qualify for the 2006 world championship because the minimum weight was raised to 50 kg,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 21, 2007

The media merry-go-round fueled by sensational murders

On Jan. 5, 21-year-old Yuki Muto was arrested for murdering his sister, Azumi, on Dec. 30 at their home in Shibuya, Tokyo. He reportedly told police that he killed Azumi because she criticized his unsuccessful attempts to get into dental college and belittled his ambitions, later adding that he was under...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2007

'Marie Antoinette'

A recurring scene in "Marie Antoinette" shows the young princess (or "Dauphine" as she was referred to in the Versailles Court) with her head leaning against the window of her carriage, looking out at the passing scenery, or craning her neck to look at the sky. She doesn't speak, and the soundtrack is...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2007

Laying a retirement lifeline for the poor

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Most people believe that the world of finance has no concern for the little guy -- for all the low- and middle-income people who, after all, contribute little to the bottom line.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 12, 2007

'Lucky Number Slevin'

"Lucky Number Slevin" is slick and frosty: nice to look at but you don't want to get too close. Like that effortlessly attractive, straight-A guy in high school, "Lucky" seemingly has no bumps or flaws and ultimately no soul -- it impresses the hell out of you and leaves it at that. After the oohing...
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2006

Law schools grope to create better lawyers

and his Criminal Case Clinic students at Omiya Law School in Saitama Prefecture have a discussion earlier this year. PHOTO COURTESY OF OMIYA LAW SCHOOL
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2006

Commentator advises savers to stay cautious

With the Bank of Japan lifting its nearly six-year-old "zero-interest-rate policy," the days of rock-bottom interest rates are finally over.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2006

Photographer captures essence of elderly full of life, near death

As a freelance photo journalist, Munesuke Yamamoto has witnessed numerous deaths in war zones around the world, but he is now focusing on the living, specifically elderly people in Japan.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 23, 2006

36th year of "Mito Komon" starts at TBS and more

Japan's longest-running TV drama series, 'Mito Komon' (TBS), will begin its 36th year Monday night at 8 p.m.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 25, 2006

TV Asahi's "Takeshi's Really Scary Home Medicine" 3-hour special and more

This week, Beat Takeshi's medical horror series, "Takeshi's Really Scary Home Medicine" (TV Asahi, Tuesday, 7 p.m.), expands to three hours for a special look at eating habits.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 23, 2006

Two theaters of the Asian absurd

THIRTY-THREE TEETH by Colin Cotterill. New York: Soho Press, 2005, 238 pp., $24 (cloth). FAN-TAN by Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 249 pp., $23.95 (cloth). Novels set in Asia that combine crime and detection with touches of humor are not especially numerous, but the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 1, 2006

A few gestures of renown -- really

A non-Japanese-speaking friend of mine was telling me a story of how he once tried to talk his way onto a dinner cruise, even though he knew all the seats were booked. Persistence, he figured, plus his clumsiness with the language would work its "gaijin" spell on the English-burdened clerk, who he just...
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2006

Soccer lottery ticket seller betting it can reverse fortunes

The National Agency for the Advancement of Sports and Health, an independent administrative corporation that sells soccer lottery tickets, has its back against the wall due to sluggish sales and hopes to sow the seeds of recovery in the next fiscal year.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2006

It's not right for the West and Israel to isolate Hamas, the Palestinians' best hope

NEW YORK -- As the son of a Lebanese pacifist, I am dismayed by the widening gap between Palestinians and Israelis that make a possible solution to the con- flict between them seem even more distant.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Feb 14, 2006

Nobuko Mitsumori

Nobuko Mitsumori, 37, works with her mother in their small accounting office in Tokyo's Chuo Ward. With one assistant and myriad clients, the three are always happily overworked. Nobuko studied classical literature and didn't think that math was her strength, but thanks to her talent, the numbers somehow...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 8, 2006

The ups and downs and ins and outs of Japan's media in 2005

* Media persons of the year: Takafumi Horie and Taizo Sugimura.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb