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Japan Times
BUSINESS / ASIA-JAPAN-U.S. SYMPOSIUM
Nov 24, 2007

Changing world asks more of Japan

Japan is an "underachiever" that needs to play a larger international role commensurate with its resources and capacity, the head of an influential U.S. think tank told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 22, 2007

A taste for blood, arts and culture

One haunting image that lingers in the mind after seeing the exhibition "Legacy of the Tokugawa — The Glories and Treasures of the Last Samurai Dynasty" at the Tokyo National Museum is a carved-wood statue of Ieyasu (1543-1616), the first of the Tokugawa shoguns, now the deity of the Shiba Tosho-gu...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2007

U.S. envoys involved in '60s secret nuke arms pact

Diet for their own purposes," Johnson quoted himself as telling the officials. The Japanese officials mentioned were Vice Foreign Minister Nobuhiko Ushiba and Fumihiko Togo, head of the American Affairs Bureau.
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2007

A symbolic summit

The trip had to be made. It is traditional for a Japanese prime minister to make his first overseas trip to the United States, to affirm relations with the country's only ally. With reports of tensions growing in the bilateral security relationship, Mr. Yasuo Fukuda's visit to Washington last week took...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2007

Containing the Mideast fires of reform

LONDON — The recent meeting in the Vatican between "Custodian of the Holy Places" King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and Pope Benedict XVI was a seminal event, particularly as it comes at a time when radical Muslims are decrying the role of "Crusaders" in Middle East politics. It was also the clearest sign...
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2007

Stoking democracy in a Muslim giant

BALI, Indonesia — Do you like big-time success stories? There may be a quiet one in the making here that almost no one knows about, aside from the neighbors. And it's an important story at this early stage, even if the political tale's ending cannot honestly be forecast.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2007

Grand security plans for a stronger Japan

Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, by Richard J. Samuels. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2007, 320 pp., $29.95 (cloth) The security debate is heating up in Japan, revealing more cleavages and anxieties than strategic thinking. Hence, this stimulating and...
Reader Mail
Nov 18, 2007

Overweening pride that baffles

Bravo to Roger Pulvers for his Oct. 21 Counterpoint article, "The power of telling tales versus making apologies." The last paragraphs were expressed beautifully. I always think it's prejudiced of Americans to think that their democracy and system are the best in the world and, whenever they go to another...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 18, 2007

Serial slayer's victims dressed to be killed

Red Mandarin Dress: An Inspector Chen Novel, by Qiu Xiaolong. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2007, 320 pp., $24.95 (cloth) In the latest saga of Police Chief Inspector Chen Cao, Shanghai is abuzz over the shocking murder of a young woman, whose suffocated corpse is found in a public place clad in a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 16, 2007

A one-time hardcore polemicist changes his tune

Alec Empire has never been the kind of guy you'd take home to meet your mother. While other musicians played at being scary, he was the real deal: dour, fiercely political and forever unwilling to let a good time get in the way of some antifascist polemic and white noise.
Reader Mail
Nov 15, 2007

Exemptions not based on nationality

In his Nov 11 letter, Donald Seekins wonders "Why exempt Korean residents (from biometric screening at ports of entry)?" The short answer is that "Korean residents" are not< /I> exempt. There is no such category in Japanese law, and Special Permanent Residents (SPRs) are not defined by nationality. ...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 14, 2007

Online music store helps Japanese music go global

You've heard the stories: The music industry is in crisis, CD sales are dropping year on year, iTunes is taking over the world, the future is digital, the revolution is here. While a lot of this may be true, music fans could be forgiven for some cynicism when all about them the music industry seeks to...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 11, 2007

Trapped between borders

Frontier Mosaic: Voices of Burma from the Lands In Between, by Richard Humphries. Orchid Press, 2007, 180 pp., $29.95 (paper) "A man on a motorbike comes by and we then follow him through the streets of Mae Sot." So begins one of the narrative vignettes from "Frontier Mosaic." Based on extensive travel...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 9, 2007

From trailer park to catwalk

"Sorry, I'm having pure chaos!"
COMMENTARY
Nov 7, 2007

Time for Musharraf to go

Waterloo, ONTARIO — For outsiders as for Pakistanis, the choice is between worse and worst: a militantly Islamic, 160 million strong, nuclear-armed failed state at the strategic crossroads of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. Pakistan's fate has rested historically on the three A's: Allah,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 7, 2007

Bizarre offer to quit

Mr. Ichiro Ozawa's announcement of his offer to resign as head of the Democratic Party of Japan, which controls the Upper House together with other opposition forces, was too abrupt and bizarre. His behavior was irresponsible, especially in light of his party's strength in the Upper House. He had the...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2007

Sympathy for Bhutto surpasses support

PRAGUE — As the initial shock of the terrorist attacks last month against Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto fade, it is becoming clear that they were a political boon for her, triggering a wave of public sympathy that extends well beyond her local Sindh stronghold.
Reader Mail
Nov 4, 2007

Discrimination against Okinawans

Regarding the Oct. 23 Views From the Street question "Which minority groups face the worst discrimination in Japan?": As a nisei and former resident of Japan and Okinawa, I find it telling that there is no mention about the continued institutional discrimination against Ryukyuans.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 4, 2007

Rural living of an old man who does as he pleases

Late Poems Of Lu You, The Old Man Who Does As He Pleases: New Translations by Burton Watson. Burlington, Ontario: Ahadada Books, 2007, 74 pp., $12, ¥2,000 (paper) Lu You (Yu) (1125-1210), often referred to by his literary name of Lu Fangweng ("The Old Man Who Does as He Pleases"), is one of China's...
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2007

A blow to the budding India-U.S. alliance

LONDON — Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's response made perfectly good sense. If his allies in Parliament were willing to bring the government down to block the nuclear deal with the United States that he had spent two years negotiating, he would drop the deal. "One has to live with certain disappointments,"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 1, 2007

Skin goes only so deep

Nothing has changed since Aristotle noted a couple of thousand years ago that "it is not possible without considerable disgust to look upon the blood, flesh and similar parts of which the human body is constructed." Much here in "Skin of/in Contemporary Art," at the National Museum of Art, Osaka, until...
EDITORIALS
Oct 31, 2007

A deal in Manila

As an action film star, Mr. Joseph Estrada was constantly dodging perils. Last week, he made another escape; this time for real. The former president of the Philippines walked out of jail after being amnestied by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. This act of clemency may be more than it seems: It looks...
EDITORIALS
Oct 29, 2007

China and Japan

Despite recent statistics, China may not ever dominate Japan in the way many alarmists fear, but the balance of power between the two countries will undoubtedly continue to shift in the near future. The readjustment in relations, though, may occur in unexpected ways that are less obvious than government...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2007

Ozawa's main goal still to boot LDP out

DPJ members." Then there is Ozawa's posture on Japan's participation in U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping forces.
BUSINESS
Oct 24, 2007

BOJ must act independently: Yosano

The Bank of Japan has "normalized" interest rates without hurting financial markets and should keep doing so without interference from politicians, said Kaoru Yosano, head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's fiscal reform panel.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 24, 2007

Turkey's army won't invade

PRAGUE — Just when the smoke from Turkey's domestic political conflicts of the past year had begun to clear, another deadly attack by Kurdish separatists on Turkish soldiers has the government threatening military attacks inside northern Iraq. That prospect raises risks for Turkey, Iraq and the United...

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