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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Oct 23, 2007

Ships out at sea or troops in a war zone?

The special antiterrorism law that expires Nov. 1 is the hottest dispute in domestic politics and could even determine the fate of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and his administration.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Oct 23, 2007

Kazuhiko Hashiguchi

JUDIT KAWAGUCHI
Reader Mail
Oct 21, 2007

Human tragedies amid the gloss

Regarding Yuri Tomikawa's Oct. 16 Zeit Gist article, "The faces behind the numbers: A day feeding Tokyo's hungry": Thank you for bringing this story to the hearts of readers. I had nearly given up on the promise of "news without fear or favor." Hopefully the article will foster change that leads to action....
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 21, 2007

EU as Mideast player, not just a payer

PRAGUE — The European Union's policy in the Middle East is the litmus test of its common foreign and security policy. Many Europeans share this belief, but as the EU considers entering the fray of Middle East peace talks, it must respond to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's jibe that in...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 20, 2007

Haruko Komura

Haruko Komura said, "I don't want to be in the forefront of politics. I do want to continue working for peace."
COMMENTARY
Oct 19, 2007

Brown-out week in Britain

LONDON — British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently had a long, bad week, but he has only himself to blame.
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2007

From awareness to action

It was almost anticlimactic when Mr. Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last week won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Climate change has steadily climbed the global public policy agenda, and is now the first action item at most international gatherings. Some would call this...
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2007

The long shadow over Turkey

Domestic politics once again threatens to roil U.S. relations with a key ally. This time the offended nation is Turkey, which is angered and insulted by a U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee vote to label as genocide the deaths of Armenians killed in Turkey nearly a century ago. More...
Reader Mail
Oct 14, 2007

Koizumi deserves more credit

Regarding Gregory Clark's Oct. 8 article, "Getting Japan's politics wrong": Clark makes some good points and he may well be right that the press consistently misrepresents the true character of Japanese prime ministers. But he is more than a little unfair to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 14, 2007

To embrace political renewal or cling to continuity

Every four years Americans want to believe they can reinvent themselves. Elections for the presidency offer them the opportunity, as they faithfully see it, to renounce the past and "get this country moving again."
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 13, 2007

Trip to Euro 2008 on the line for McClaren, England

LONDON — By Wednesday evening England will either have one foot in the Euro 2008 finals and Steve McClaren will have most of the nation eating humble pie or the national team will be on the brink of a European Championship exit with the head coach's job hanging by the most slender of threads.
COMMENTARY
Oct 13, 2007

Democracies' double standard

NEW DELHI — The repression let loose by Burma's (Myanmar) military junta has fittingly drawn international outrage. But the indignation and new wave of U.S.-led sanctions also obscure an inconvenient truth: Promotion of freedom has become a diplomatic instrument to target not China — the world's...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 9, 2007

Smoldering J-love lacks yesteryear's gumption

The question, "What has happened to love these days?" is every bit as serious as the question why diets never work in this country. I'm very distressed to have to report that Japanese love, like Japanese politics and the not-so-quite-lovely outlook of the economy, is unwell. It suffers from low blood...
Reader Mail
Oct 7, 2007

Ammunition against Japan

Regarding the Sept. 30 article "110,000 protest history text revision order": It surprises me that in a democratic country like Japan a single ministry (education) is able to affect internal and international politics so negatively. Okinawans are not the only ones who have criticized past and present...
Reader Mail
Oct 7, 2007

Poor example for educators

Regarding the Sept. 28 article "Tokai tasked with continuing education reforms": Increasing the number of teachers in the schools is not the solution. Improving the attitudes and integrity of everyone concerned -- from the education minister to the classroom teachers -- can help a lot.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 7, 2007

The first and last foreigner to see Laotians as they were

TRAVELS IN LAOS: The Fate of the Sup Song Pana and the Muong Sing (1894-1896), by Dr. E. Lefevre, translated with an introduction by Walter Tips. Bangkok: White Lotus Press, 1995 (orig. edition), 224 pp., with contemporary photos and map, 725 Bahts (paper) During that late 19th-century feeding frenzy...
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2007

Farm ministry busts Wikipedia 'otaku'

adults. "The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry is not in charge of 'Gundam,' " ministry official Tsutomu Shimomura said.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2007

Believers make good rebels

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, New York — It has become fashionable in certain smart circles to regard atheism as a sign of superior education, of a more highly evolved civilization, of enlightenment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2007

De Niro back in the chair

Robert De Niro had always been an actor's actor, the kind of performer whose work is dissected and analyzed in acting classes, held as a prime example of how it should be done. So it's little wonder that he managed to assemble an incredible and impressive A-list cast for "The Good Shepherd" — Matt...
Reader Mail
Oct 4, 2007

Sudden turnabout for Japan

Why did it take last week's murder of a Japanese photojournalist during demonstrations in Myanmar (also known as Burma) for the Japanese government to take the repressive regime in that country seriously?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 4, 2007

The camera and the truth

With his fake documentary purporting to show serving President George W. Bush's assassination, director Gabriel Range has made this year's most controversial movie
Reader Mail
Oct 2, 2007

Japanese politics baffles

To me, the results of the July 29 Upper House elections were a clear signal that the Japanese people were fed up not only with Shinzo Abe as prime minister but also with the governing Liberal Democratic Party and its policies as a whole.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2007

Scholars split over sanctions

Despite their long-standing good relations, the violence recently used to quell demonstrations in Myanmar that caused the death of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai has upped the pressure on Tokyo to impose sanctions on the military junta, experts say.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 27, 2007

Danger in distorted views of terrorism

WARSAW — A distorted view of the present is the worst way to prepare for the challenges of the future. To describe the struggle against international terrorism as "World War IV," as the leading American neoconservative Norman Podhoretz does in his new book, is wrongheaded in any number of ways.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2007

Fukuda elected prime minister in Diet faceoff

New Liberal Democratic Party President Yasuo Fukuda was elected prime minister by a divided Diet on Tuesday afternoon amid the political turmoil stemming from Shinzo Abe's sudden resignation announcement two weeks ago.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2007

LDP appointments illustrate Fukuda's isolation

The appointments of four executives of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party highlight a weakness of Yasuo Fukuda — the lack of close allies within his own party.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2007

'Last samurai' still has support in thankful Japan

The stage may be set for former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to be tried for human rights violations and corruption charges in Peru, but many Japanese still see him as a hero.

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