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CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2006

Sticking to the invective is less effective

NUCLEAR SHOWDOWN: North Korea Takes on the World, by Gordon C. Chang. Random House, 2006, 327 pp., $25.95 (cloth). Gordon Chang really can pick 'em. In 2001, as the world awakened to China's incandescent rise, he made a stir with "The Coming Collapse of China." Earlier this year he published "Nuclear...
CULTURE / Books
Nov 12, 2006

No ordinary guide to China

SHENZHEN: A Travelogue From China, by Guy Delisle, translated by Helge Dascher. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2006, 152 pp., $19.95 (cloth). Surely those dinosaurs who believed that comics were suitable only for stories of men in tights have all died off. With the popularity of comics growing by leaps...
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2006

'Very happy, super horse'

It was an Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, who definitively captured in words the magic that attends a great horse race. In his poem "At Galway Races" (1909) he wrote:
Japan Times
JAPAN / ACCORD STILL IN LIMBO
Nov 10, 2006

Back to square one after Okinawa poll?

OSAKA -- In early 2005, senior U.S. officials had become fed up with Okinawa.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 10, 2006

Politics at heart of two 'new' plays

American-born Australian and long-term Japan resident Roger Pulvers presents a double-bill of his plays in Japanese at Theater X in Tokyo's Sumida Ward from Nov. 15-18.
JAPAN / ACCORD STILL IN LIMBO
Nov 9, 2006

Okinawa race again base-centric

First in a series on the Nov. 19 Okinawa gubernatorial election
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2006

Revolution in market values

LONDON -- "Economic reform" has been the banner slogan of Japanese governments for the last 10 years, and the new government promises more of it.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / POPULATION SYMPOSIUM
Nov 9, 2006

Low birthrate threatens Japan's future

See related stories: French values and child-care policies put family before work Environment, not career major hurdle to big families
EDITORIALS
Nov 8, 2006

Death sentence for Saddam Hussein

I raqi dictator Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death on Sunday. The trial was praised by some as justice long overdue, and dismissed by others as a political verdict that was pre-ordained, if not orchestrated, by outside powers. Some hope the execution of the former dictator will close the door on a...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2006

The nine lives of Nicaragua's Ortega

MANAGUA -- Once again, Nicaragua faces a possible Sandinista restoration. The country voted Sunday in an unprecedented presidential election with four competitive candidates, and the question on everyone's lips is whether Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega, who lost by more than 10 percent in each of the...
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2006

Outrage over simple truths

LONDON -- A "gaffe" is a true statement that outrages the hypocrites, who then mobilize to shut the truth-teller up. The most common gaffes are about politics and religion, because those are the areas where the level of hypocrisy is highest. Which explains former U.S. presidential candidate John Kerry's...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2006

Overcoming the finiteness of our world

PARIS -- No economy is a closed, autonomous universe, governed by rules independent from law, morals and politics. Indeed, the most interesting economic questions generally border neighboring disciplines. But nowhere is this clearer than in the interaction between economic processes and the natural environment....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 28, 2006

Morimoto caught up in moment

SAPPORO -- Hichori Morimoto is no Doug Mientkiewicz.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2006

The uncertain toll in Iraq

A new study has concluded that there have been hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The governments of Iraq, the United States and Great Britain have challenged the results.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 26, 2006

A change in gender for new political series

For more than two decades, Yasumasa Morimura, one of Japan's most internationally celebrated artists, has inserted his own face into iconic paintings by van Gogh, Manet and Rembrandt, as well as portraits of stars such as Marilyn Monroe and Vivian Leigh. With his elaborate, hilarious and often gender-bending...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 22, 2006

Plea to a TV comic: Take on the big boys and take on politics

To Hikari Ota, c/o Titan Talent Agency.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 20, 2006

Inventing his genres

'It's been insane," sighs Steve Reich, grinning as he settles down in his chair. Reich celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this month, and it's had him shuttling from New York to London and back for numerous concerts of his works. Now he is in Tokyo, where he spoke with The Japan Times, as a recipient...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 19, 2006

Playing with energy

Though on the surface it's easy to think everyone else has got it sorted out, things are not always what they seem. From time to time we all feel like a blip in the universe, trapped by things beyond our control -- whether unbending social powers, finicky laws, monetary limitations or annoying office...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2006

European politics swing right

BRUSSELS -- Europe is in danger of seeing its extreme-right parties move into the mainstream. The message has changed. Anti-Semitism has metamorphosed into "Islamophobia" since 9/11, finding a popular resonance with those bearing the consequences of the war on terror. Islamophobia has become the prejudice...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 17, 2006

Why is Japan kept in dark?

For tourists and residents alike, the quintessential image of Tokyo is of a city lit by artificial light. As soon as twilight gathers, the central shopping and entertainment districts of Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi are awash with neon, shining from each shop and office, even turning the night to a...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Oct 15, 2006

Intimacy crusader strives to rekindle Japan's fires of marital passion

At first glance, 46-year-old Mayumi Futamatsu looks like a regular housewife. But as someone who's "seen both heaven and hell" in her two marriages, she's a woman with a mission to help all women to be happy -- through having better sex lives.
EDITORIALS
Oct 12, 2006

A step up toward better ties

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has taken a successful first step toward more constructive relations between Japan, on the one hand, and China and South Korea, on the other, by visiting the capitals of both countries and holding summits with their leaders less than two weeks after he took office. By making...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2006

Beijing challenges the West in Africa

PRAGUE -- Ever since the Berlin conference of 1883, which Belgium's King Leopold II called "the sharing of Africa's cake," the West has assumed exclusive rights over sub-Saharan Africa. But, while centuries of struggle to end colonial rule and apartheid have not changed this much, now Western influence...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2006

Foley makes a Democratic victory likely

The Rev. Elmer Gantry was reading an illustrated pink periodical devoted to prize-fighters and chorus girls in his room at Elizabeth J. Schmutz Hall late of an afternoon when two large men walked in without knocking.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event would garner valuable worldwide media coverage...
COMMENTARY
Oct 7, 2006

Pyongyang's nuclear threat

HONOLULU -- North Korea announced on Tuesday that it "will, in the future, conduct a nuclear-weapons test," promising that it will be done under conditions where "safety is firmly guaranteed." While Pyongyang did not say when this test would occur, it made it clear that it felt compelled to take such...
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2006

When in China, just follow the power

WASHINGTON -- It's evident to the smart people here that there's a whole lot of shaking going on in China right now. It is hard to hear it or feel it above the desperate din of the tragic blunder of the Iraq invasion, but it is happening nonetheless. And when the shaking is over, China may not be quite...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2006

Repression belies rhetoric in Georgia

TBILISI -- In recent weeks, leaders of various opposition organizations in Georgia, such as Antisoros and Fairness, have been jailed on unfair accusations of plotting a coup on behalf of Russia. But the wave of political repression merely reflects President Mikhail Saakashvili's desperate effort to cling...

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