Search - travel

 
 
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2006

Koizumi off to Middle East amid Gaza conflict

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left for a five-day visit to the Middle East on Tuesday amid ongoing fighting in the Palestinian territories where Israel has been carrying out a military offensive and concerns back home that North Korea might test-launch more missiles.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2006

Uribe raises hope for Colombia's future

PRAGUE -- A leftwing tide has supposedly been sweeping Latin America. But President Alvaro Uribe's re-election in Colombia may not only have begun the process of reversing that tide; it has perhaps also shown conservative and liberal parties across the continent a way forward -- one that may soon be...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

No end is an end in itself

Endurance riding on the Yamanote Line soon gives you a numb bum.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 24, 2006

Geta fliers and Bo(y) Derek on a jet ski

The Moooo! Bar season has started on Shiraishi Island and I have to admit that I am a little disappointed. Now into our third season, not one cow has come to the Moooo! Bar, even though I advertise that cows drink for free.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 24, 2006

Irrepressible force raising funds for 3,000 kids

It seems ironic to find 30-year-old Sylvia Charczuk worrying about her biological clock when already she has 3,000 children. But her energy is so prodigious, her determination so single-minded, that it would take a very special kind of partner to fit into the scheme of things. She knows this, of course,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 23, 2006

She sticks the boot into a male world

There aren't a whole lot of women filmmakers and even fewer of them who choose to depict fighting, mayhem and group violence.
BUSINESS
Jun 22, 2006

Fitch keeps Hankyu ratings intact

Fitch Ratings said Wednesday it has decided to keep the credit ratings of Hankyu Holdings Inc. unchanged because the burden stemming from the tender offer for Hanshin Electric Railway Co. shares has stayed within the anticipated level.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

The radicalization of Western Muslims

LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?...
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2006

Tokyo's hard line slowing solution to abduction issue

Japan is understandably upset over past abductions of its citizens by North Korea. But rightwing pressure has made a solution almost impossible. It is a good example of how emotional nationalism and Tokyo's manipulations can damage sensible foreign policies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 15, 2006

Fuji Rocking 10 years on

Fuji Rock Festival is the biggest event on the calendar for many Japanese and foreign residents alike. Sure, it costs a stack of cash to go, but the festival is not your typical commercial venture. Word on the street is that it has been anything but a money spinner for concert promoter Smash Japan. Instead,...
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2006

JAL hijacker's daughter in Japan

The 27-year-old daughter of one of the Japanese men who hijacked a Japan Airlines airplane and defected to North Korea in 1970 arrived in Osaka on Tuesday, a supporter who promoted her return said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 13, 2006

Should Japan impose restrictions on non-Japanese-speaking-foreigners coming here to work?

Niels Hansen Business owner, 38 I just wonder if the Japanese would want the same standards applied to them if they went anywhere else. It would damage international business. I don't think it's a good path to go down when you start imposing borders.
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2006

Needed: new energy sources

LONDON -- Naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough used to be skeptical about how far climate change could be ascribed to human actions. He has now declared he is convinced that what we are doing or failing to do has had seriously damaging effects on the climate, and he has been demonstrating...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 11, 2006

Stick-thin, gay, or preferably both -- a television career awaits

Truth in advertising has never been strictly enforced in Japan, especially with regard to health-related claims. Breweries can get away with promoting "low-calorie" beers as weight-loss aids, while pharmaceutical makers sell vitamin supplements that claim to do everything from clear up your skin to help...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jun 9, 2006

Eye looks to tranquillity after his contrived chaos

"I don't really think I have any musicianship. I can't play any instruments. I have no technique. I really can't do anything. I have no professional skill at all. I'm also a crap DJ. I'm really not very deft! Really I'm crap . . . and I've been doing it for 10 years!" says Yamataka Eye, leader of the...
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 8, 2006

Eyes on Germany as show time nears for soccer's greatest

BONN -- Finally, the finals.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 4, 2006

Will ghostwriters face 'treachery' from post-Koizumi Japan?

A recent news item in The Japan Times really shocked me. It concerned what a former political heavyweight once said in private.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2006

Myanmar thumbs its nose

Myanmar's military government has decided to extend again the house arrest of prodemocracy activist and Nobel laureate Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. The decision is another sign of the contempt the Yangon government has for the international community. Ms. Suu Kyi should be released immediately and the government...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 28, 2006

Look back on the Vietnam War in NHK's "The Time That Moved History" and more

More than 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War, Americans are still debating whether or not it was right to intervene in a civil conflict that itself was a product of someone else's (i.e., France) colonial adventure.
CULTURE / Books
May 21, 2006

The search for a legendary sword

MISHIMA'S SWORD: Travels in Search of a Samurai Legend, by Christopher Ross. London: Fourth Estate-HarperCollins, 262 pp., £14.99 (cloth). On Nov. 25, 1970, Yukio Mishima committed seppuku or, to employ the term he preferred, hara-kiri. He did so with a great deal of fanfare (he had hoped to have the...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
May 21, 2006

Hopes and fears fuel soccer fans' far-flung parties

Walking up Gaien-Higashi Dori, the road that begins at Tokyo Tower and cuts through the Roppongi entertainment district, at 7 in the morning last Saturday there was more than the usual bags of garbage being torn at by crows, bleary-eyed hosts and hostesses knocking off work, or resting ticket touts and...
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2006

Revising the Organ Transplant Law

The Organ Transplant Law went into effect in 1997. Between February 1999 and March 2006, organs from 44 brain-dead people were used for 167 transplants, which involved hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, kidneys and small intestines. But the number is extremely small compared with the United States, where...
JAPAN
May 17, 2006

Bid to address Congress has Yasukuni proviso

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's contentious visits to Yasukuni Shrine are a matter of religious freedom, the government said Tuesday, rejecting criticism leveled by a powerful U.S. congressman.
CULTURE / Music
May 12, 2006

Omer Avital/Marlon Browden "The Omer Avital Marlon Browden Project"

Both bassist Omer Avital and drummer Marlon Browden are regulars at the New York club Small's, a hive of jazz creativity for young musicians. But on this album, the two travel to Avital's native Israel for a live recording of their funky, electric "project."
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2006

Readiness to enforce peace

Warring factions in Sudan's Darfur region last week concluded a peace agreement that is designed to end three years of vicious fighting. The deal is not perfect. Several of the warring factions are not signatories, and only concerted intervention by outside powers, including the African Union, the Arab...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 9, 2006

What do you think about 'death penalty'?

Daniel Airport rep., 27 In principle, I agree. However, because of the way it's applied, I believe it shouldn't exist. Judges are human and they can make mistakes. To judge someone wrongly and execute them is too big a mistake to make.
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2006

Bracing for a new level of oil prices

Oil prices hovering at a historically high level are threatening to destabilize the world economy. Domestically they could exert a cooling effect on the economy just as it appears to be emerging from a long period of deflation, thus undermining the foundation for economic recovery. The public is now...
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2006

For Golden Week this year, go to a spa and stay close to home

Golden Week may have arrived, but that doesn't mean everyone has elaborate travel plans -- some may be too busy, while others hate the crowds and shun the absurdly expensive air tickets during the holiday season.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 29, 2006

Elizabeth Oliver

"In June this year, 10 ARK dogs will go to find new homes through the famous Battersea Dogs Home in London. Although in the past ARK has sent individual dogs abroad for rehousing, this is the first time so many Japanese dogs have been sent from a shelter in Japan to find homes in another country. Why...

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