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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2011

India finds its second wind with Afghanistan

With strategic realities in South Asia radically shifting in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden's death, India's prime minister lost no time in reaching out to Afghanistan during a recent two-day visit to Kabul, where he announced a fresh commitment of $500 million toward Afghanistan's development —...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2011

India's show of strategic autonomy flouts Washington's 'investment' in building ties

Finally, the Indian government seems to have convinced its domestic detractors that it is indeed "nonaligned" and that its foreign policy is not being crafted in Washington.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

One of a kind: Bob Dylan at 70

Bob Dylan, the single most important artist in the history of popular music, will be 70 years old on Tuesday, May 24.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

Up close and personal: Why Dylan is so big in Japan

It was the fall of 1963, when — in what seemed like a flash of lightning — I became a fan of Bob Dylan the moment I heard "Blowin' in the Wind" on the radio. I was in my first year of high school.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 19, 2011

8otto lively up themselves again

Osaka's 8otto have a new album, a new label and a new mindset.
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
May 4, 2011

The quake hits Nintendo while hackers shake Sony

For much of March, regular television advertising was all but replaced by public service announcements. Understandable really: Who wants to be the official sponsor of the biggest tragedy to hit Japan since the war? But what if you had just rolled out a new product and wanted to promote it?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 26, 2011

English mags approach milestone, crossroads

Those members of the expat community in Japan who are addicted to their weekly or monthly fix of English-language magazines will have surely noticed all the changes going on lately. These are troubled and exciting times and, just as it has in the past, the local media world is trying to rise to the challenge...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 24, 2011

Office ladies, our fresh-faced saviors

Slowly the nation wakes from its nightmare. Tokyo Disneyland reopens. A semblance of normality returns, at least to areas outside the stricken zone.
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2011

Carmaker's Miyagi investments stand

Toyota Motor Corp., the automaker most affected by the March 11 disaster, plans to build a new engine plant in devastated Miyagi Prefecture and will transfer a subsidiary's production operations to the region.
JAPAN
Mar 31, 2011

DPJ withdraws child allowance bill as opposition digs its heels in

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government withdrew a bill Wednesday to provide monthly child allowances for the fiscal year that starts Friday, including increasing payments for children under 3, amid criticism from opposition parties that the money should be used to reconstruct the March 11 disaster...
BUSINESS
Mar 30, 2011

N.Z. veggie exports may rise on fears

WELLINGTON (Bloomberg) Vegetable exports from New Zealand to Japan and other Asian markets may increase as buyers shun Japanese products on concern they may be tainted with radiation from the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant, according to industry groups.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 5, 2011

Harmonia Opera marks milestone

Emiko Iinuma's voice has a distinctive sugared drawl, a sweet residue from her early years as a student at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. It is more than the drawl that attracts — her voice dances, leaps across decades, travels up and down pitch, whispers hardship and rises in forthright determination....
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 5, 2011

Grampus favored to repeat as J. League champions

The following is the second of a two-part J. League preview for the upcoming season. Team-by-team previews of the nine top-ranked teams competing in the first division are listed.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2011

English big business, and growing

When it comes to preparing for the April launch of compulsory English classes in elementary schools, the private sector appears to have a clear lead over public school teachers.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 27, 2011

Indefensible costs of military one-upmanship

NEW YORK — I was recently surprised to learn that Singapore has 72,500 troops on active duty and plans to double the number of "combat-ready aircraft" to more than 200. It also plans to have 10 more submarines to add to the four it has today. Or so the Wall Street Journal reported ("Asia's New Arms...
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2011

Toll system is seriously flawed

Under a system introduced by the former Liberal Democrat Party-Komeito coalition government, set to expire at the end of March, vehicles using the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system enjoy a variety of expressway toll discounts, including a ¥1,000 ceiling on weekends and holidays.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2011

Red Devils and moneyed 'untouchables' of soccer

HONG KONG — The front cover of the report by the respected audit and consulting concern Deloitte is dramatic and eye-catching: It consists of just a picture of a fedora hat reminiscent of the 1930s and, above it, a stark headline, "The Untouchables."
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2011

Another DPJ metamorphosis

Japan and the United States signed an agreement last month on a five-year extension of Japan's host-nation financial support to help cover part of the costs of stationing U.S. forces in Japan under the bilateral security arrangement.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 6, 2011

Yang Sok Gil: Writing about wrongs at home and abroad

Yang Sok Gil is renowned for his novels describing, with remarkable humanity and humor, people's wanton desires and the problems they cause, often from the viewpoint of minorities in Japan or elsewhere.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 2, 2011

Handheld wars redux

For more than a decade, Nintendo ruled handheld gaming. Challengers, such as the Atari Lynx and the Sega Game Gear appeared, but Nintendo batted them away one by one. Only Sony and its PlayStation Portable could withstand the Nintendo onslaught. And Sony isn't going away anytime soon — launching a...
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 24, 2011

Nelsinho vows to take resurgent Reysol to next level

KASHIWA, Chiba Pref. — Kashiwa Reysol manager Nelsinho is eager to see how far his team's momentum can take it on returning to the J. League first division after only one season in the second tier.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 23, 2011

Is 'Galapagos-thinking' Japan back at its evolutionary dead end?

There are expressions that buzz like busy little bees and ones that don't buzz anymore. One of the dead-bee buzzwords in Japan is shimaguni konjo, meaning "island mentality." As for a buzzword for 2011, you'd be hard put to find one more busily doing the rounds than garapagosu, which references the Galapagos...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 21, 2011

A shot of Ardbeg in temple grounds

There's a faint scent of incense as you crawl through a knee-high door into a pebble-filled corridor that leads into a white igloo-like space, just big enough to fit three people. "This is my meditation room," says Akiyoshi Taniguchi, the curator who is introducing Kurenboh, a tiny modern gallery located...
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2011

China 'reasonably' pre-empting N.Z. justice

HONG KONG — Last October, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace prize to imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, official Chinese spokesmen waxed indignant. A spokesperson for the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, which had sentenced Liu to 11 years in prison on a...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 15, 2011

Authentic slice of Japan preserved in South Florida

The first two weeks of the new year are over, and Tom Gregersen, 61, is putting away the kine and usu, the traditional wooden mallets and mortars used in the mochitsuki (rice-cake pounding) event held as part of the O-shogatsu Festival at The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo