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JAPAN
Jan 16, 2010

Funds scandals risk DPJ Diet plans

The Democratic Party of Japan-led government kicks off its first ordinary Diet session Monday focusing primarily on fighting the recession, but Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will also be forced to deal with DPJ money scandals.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 16, 2010

Calm reflections on a turbulent life

In a diminutive wooden house tucked behind the tile-topped white walls surrounding Tenryuji Temple, a World Heritage site in Kyoto's Arashiyama district, lives Henry "Seisen" Mittwer, 91, a Japanese-American Buddhist priest, author, ikebana and ceramic artist.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 16, 2010

How about a gaijin circus in gazelle land?

The other day, my husband bought a shirt at Uniqlo. "Wow, the sleeves are long enough!" he marveled. Clothes in Japan are getting bigger and even now foreigners can almost wear them. But there was still a problem. The arms of the shirt were too tight. This confirms a suspicion I have long had about the...
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2010

Port-au-Prince in ruins

Between 45,000 and 50,000 people are feared dead and 3 million people may have been injured or lost their homes, the International Federation of the Red Cross reports, from a powerful earthquake and aftershocks that hit the impoverished Caribbean nation of Haiti. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 15, 2010

Kan sets his sights on cutting government waste

Given the nation's snowballing deficit and sluggish growth, Deputy Prime Minister and now also Finance Minister Naoto Kan announced Thursday plans to review government spending to reduce waste and come up with policies to expand the economy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Jan 15, 2010

Reinventing the classics

"In Italy I already had a job and family. If I had come to Japan and everything finished, I could have easily gone back to Italy because I had a place there. Coming here was a bit like a game and it still is for me," says TV celebrity Girolamo Panzetta.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 15, 2010

Abingdon Boys School of rock is now in session

"Songs these days have become a lot shorter because people don't seem to have time to listen to whole songs anymore," laments Takanori Nishikawa, vocalist of Abingdon Boys School. "They just (listen to) their favorite part and then skip to another song."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 15, 2010

Habsburg treasures celebrate art history

It seems anachronistic and a little too culturally remote to call Rudolf II (1552-1612) a culture otaku, but that's how the catalog for the "Treasures of the Habsburg Monarchy," now in its second staging at Kyoto National Museum until March 14, describes him. The reclusive Rudolf had diverse interests...
BUSINESS / Q&A
Jan 14, 2010

What bankruptcy means for JAL

The government has effectively gotten Japan Airlines Corp.'s main creditor banks to agree to let JAL file for bankruptcy under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law, and the carrier may do so Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 13, 2010

Oneworld offers JAL $2 billion sweetener

American Airlines and other oneworld alliance partners said Tuesday that ailing Japan Airlines Corp. would make $2 billion in commercial benefits in the next three years if it stays in the fold.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2010

Bankruptcy won't scare U.S. riders

DALLAS (Bloomberg) A Japan Airlines Corp. bankruptcy probably won't diminish demand from U.S. passengers, who have grown accustomed to flying on carriers operating under court supervision.
COMMENTARY
Jan 12, 2010

Push begins to clear electric-car obstacles

SINGAPORE — Does 2010 mark the start of a new era in road transport as electricity increasingly takes over from petrol and diesel engines as the source of power for vehicles?
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 12, 2010

Left-behind parents receive short shrift from embassies

Two recent inquiries have come in from Canadian fathers who have suddenly lost contact with their children.
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2010

Devolution strategy

This year will be an important one for pushing devolution. Increasing the power of local governments was one of the Democratic Party of Japan's campaign promises. Its election manifesto calls for abolishing conditional subsidies to local governments, eliminating in principle the regional bureaus of government...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 10, 2010

'Stars seek reversal of fortune with multiple moves

Happy New Year, and 2010 may be a happy year for fans of the Yokohama BayStars, a team that deserves a lot of credit for a series of transactions during the offseason in an effort to improve the standing of the 2008 and 2009 Central League last-place team.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 10, 2010

Going to pot down Mashiko way

For the most part, visitors to Tochigi Prefecture hit the well-trodden tourist track to the rococo extravaganza of grandiose Toshogu shrine in Nikko. Yet those in search of a more refined showcasing of the Japanese aesthetic would be better directing themselves to a spot in the prefecture's southeast....
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 8, 2010

Coach says Phoenix players focus on team

With 20 games in the books and 17 victories to date, the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix are on pace to have the finest season in bj-league history. The Ryukyu Golden Kings went 41-11 in the 2008-09 season en route to the team's first championship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2010

Ghent's Das Pop goes overground

His upbringing pretty much ensured that the thought of being in a band was the farthest thing from Bent Van Looy's young mind.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2010

Okinawans frustrated by Futenma standoff

GINOWAN, Okinawa Pref. — When the U.S. took over the airfield here in the closing days of World War II, it was surrounded by sugar cane fields and the smoldering battlegrounds of Okinawa. It is now the focus of a deepening dispute that is testing Japan's security alliance with the United States and...
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2010

Obama on track in Asia

With one exception, U.S. relations with East Asian countries are better today than when the Obama administration took office. This is no small accomplishment since the Bush administration left Asia in good shape.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past