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November 14, 2025
 

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SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Feb 14, 2007

How to weed out a wrestling wizard

Centuries ago, the Europeans and, in some cases, Americans liked nothing better than a spot of witch-hunting on a quiet news day.
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...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2007

Lucky feeling helps to prop up U.S. dollar

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Many people have been asking why the dollar hasn't crashed yet. Will the United States ever face a bill for the string of massive trade deficits that it has been running for more than a decade?
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 12, 2007

Mum's the word, Mr. Yanagisawa

Keeping mum has never been a strong point of politicians. Hakuo Yanagisawa, the beleaguered health, labor and welfare minister, seems especially bad at keeping mum on the subject of mums. In his world, mums are machines. Their sole function is to breed.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

The price of stalemate

One of the most controversial elements of Japan's campaign to overturn the International Whaling Commission's 1986 commercial whaling ban is the alleged use of official Overseas Development Aid to "buy" the votes of poorer IWC member-countries. That is an allegation vehemently denied by fisheries bureaucrats....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 10, 2007

Time custom-designed for that unique experience

It takes Charlie Spreckley no time at all to leave his apartment in Ebisu and meet at the station. He is tall, smiling, and very droll. Nicole Fall, his business partner, falls in not far behind, looking brisk and wearing wrist weights. "I've no time to go the gym these days. These help keep my upper...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 8, 2007

Funny and dark, the Mori laughs

Known for its unique fare of thought-provoking and comprehensive exhibitions that give you the "greatest hits" of a theme or period, the Mori Art Museum is now tackling the complex topic of humor in a two-part exhibition running till May 6.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2007

Close Europe's gender gap

NEW YORK -- Last spring, The Economist trumpeted "womanpower" as the driving force for the world economy. But if Europe's economy is to become more competitive and innovative, it is not enough that women enter the labor market in droves. To reap the full fruits of women's talents, they must be in more...
COMMENTARY
Feb 5, 2007

Gaffes dog Abe's leadership

A series of inept remarks made by ministers of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet have undermined public support for his administration. Opinion polls show that public approval ratings for his Cabinet continue to fall.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 4, 2007

Super temp worker who saves day is a nonconformist heroine

Prior to the start of the current Diet session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the ruling coalition would not submit previously announced bills to revise the Labor Standards Law. The move was seen as being cautionary, since there will be an Upper House election in July and the bills would have contained...
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2007

New hope for Nepal

The Himalayan kingdom of Nepal is undergoing a transformation that could lead to its rebirth as a peaceful nation. But the country's path will not be an easy one. Assistance from the international community for reconstruction will be indispensable.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2007

DPJ, allies boycott over Yanagisawa

Opposition parties boycotted the Thursday opening session of the House of Representative's powerful Budget Committee, saying they will not participate in Diet deliberations until health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa steps down for calling women "child-bearing machines."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 31, 2007

England's white Africans cast ironic new light on reality TV's racism row

Reality TV shows, genetic research papers, politics, Hollywood and Bollywood rarely get mentioned in the same article. This week, though, in a maneuver akin to an astronomical alignment that only comes around once in a generation, I will attempt to achieve just that.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2007

NHK stung by censorship suit appeal

The Tokyo High Court on Monday expanded on a lower court ruling and ordered NHK and two production companies to pay damages to a women's rights group for altering the content of a documentary on a mock tribunal over Japan's wartime sexual slavery.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2007

Ozawa challenges Abe on office outlays

Lawmakers in key positions should disclose details of their office expenses to regain public trust, Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa said Monday in a challenge to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
EDITORIALS
Jan 28, 2007

Mr. Abe's pitch to the Diet

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a policy speech in his first regular Diet session as prime minister, pitched his top political goal -- changing Japan's postwar regime and revising the Constitution. But just what kind of nation he wants to build through such endeavors is not necessarily clear. In the short...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 28, 2007

Why apologize profusely as a woman, when you can insult like a man?

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF JAPANESE WOMEN'S LANGUAGE by Endo Orie. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Center for Japanese Studies, 2006, 140 pp., $38 (cloth) When I was first studying Japanese back in 1947, I went to a local language school where the teachers were mostly older ladies, born in the Meiji...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 28, 2007

More than money was found wanting in 'the lost decade'

Last week in this column, in an attempt to trace the roots of the nationalism now becoming a mainstream political force in Japan, I discussed the currents that characterized this country in the 1980s. This week I will look at the 1990s, to see how the social euphoria of the '80s led to what has come...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Jan 27, 2007

Tenor believes in power to generate new realities

Since making his operatic debut in 2001 in Mozart's "Die Zauberflote" in Paris, Dominique Moralez has received nothing but adulation throughout Europe and the Americas. His voice has been described as "shimmering -- with power and sweetness, perfect voix mixte and exquisitely refined pianissimo."
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2007

Tsunoda exits No. 2 Upper House post over funds scandal

," Tsunoda said. "But there were indications and criticism that (I) did not fulfill my duties of accountability." However, Kyodo News reported earlier in the day that a combined 23 individuals, firms and organizations have said they made political donations to Tsunoda's campaign office during the 2001...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 26, 2007

'An Inconvenient Truth'

Is the world getting warmer? All sorts of anecdotal and empirical evidence, as well as what our own senses tell us, would suggest "yes." The most advanced climatological research comes up with the same answer, and places the blame primarily with the burning of fossil fuels. Against this stand a few skeptics...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2007

The Good, The Bad and The Queen "The Good, The Bad and The Queen"

Just shy of 40, Blur/Gorillaz vocalist Damon Albarn has ticked most of the boxes of middle-age rock star cliches: He's done film scores ("Ravenous"), got "down" with ethnic music (2002's "Mali Music") and he's flirted with politics (he's a prominent antiwar activist). The Good, The Bad and The Queen...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2007

Latin America makes a left turn

Upon winning a third term in office, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made a sharp left turn in his policies. Pledging to "devote my days, nights and entire life to the construction of socialism in Venezuela," the fiery nationalist has called on the legislature to give him authority to rule by decree,...
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2007

U.S. presence vs. the public will

A tense atmosphere prevails in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, during its centennial this year due to the planned deployment of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at U.S. Yokosuka Naval Base.
Reader Mail
Jan 21, 2007

Ironic comparison of insurgencies

How should one deal with the mistakes, nonsense and non sequiturs in Barry Ward's Jan. 7 letter, "U.S. seems unable to learn"? First, I am not a citizen of the United States, as Ward wrongly assumes. Nor did I offer any view, let alone an "adolescent" one, on "Middle East politics," per se, in my Dec....
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2007

Come clean on political funds

Suspicions are growing over the use of political funds and the accuracy of mandatory reports on such funds. Specifically, the suspicions have been aroused by media reports that five Cabinet ministers and two Liberal Democratic Party executives had declared a combined 689 million yen as "office expenses"...
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 / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 14, 2007

Perish the thought that Japan may have god on its side

'The Japanese are, it is true, commonly said to be an irreligious people. They say so themselves. . . . The average, even educated European strikes the average educated Japanese as strangely superstitious, unaccountably occupied with supra-mundane matters. The Japanese simply cannot be brought to comprehend...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2007

South Africa has lessons for haunted states

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- South Africa is now beginning to contemplate the retirement of Thabo Mbeki, its second president since the end of the apartheid era. So this is a particularly opportune moment to look back and assess our achievements, note our failures and perhaps see what elements in our...
From France to Mali, a deportee's struggle far from home
Moussa Sacko, a Malian deported from France — where he had lived since he was a young child — stands on a street in Bamako, Mali, in December. Compared with his home in France, Bamako feels like a different planet, Sacko said.
Descendants in Philippines denied Japanese citizenship
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years
Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Government and bad actors are at the root of the foreign national issue
A maiko walks down a street crowded with tourists in Kyoto. Challenges that come with a massive influx of overseas visitors and foreign nationals buying up real estate are just some of the immigration problems that have become hot-button political issues in Japan.
Japan lawmakers eye firm response to Chinese envoy's threat to behead PM
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi speaks at a Lower House Budget Committee meeting on Friday.
Tatsuya Nakadai: A masterful leading man and postwar icon
Tatsuya Nakadai had the look of a leading man in his youth, but his large and searching eyes suggested the pain and loneliness of an old soul.
As Japan’s female leader rises, can she cross sumo’s sacred line?
Japan Sumo Association Chairman Hakkaku (front center) delivers a speech on the first day of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center on Sunday. Centuries of belief and tradition still underpin the all-male association's stance of excluding women.
Takaichi doesn’t mince words on Taiwan, but dramatic policy shift unlikely
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi responds to questions during a House of Representatives Budget Committee session in parliament on Tuesday.
Florist Nicolai Bergmann flourishes outside the box
Florist Nicolai Bergmann shops for fresh flowers at the Ota flower market in Tokyo on Friday.
China delivers warning to U.S. and Japan with third aircraft carrier
The Fujian, China's third aircraft carrier, carries out sea trials at an unknown location in May last year.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

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
By Yukana Inoue

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

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