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JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Jul 30, 2007

Getting bills through Diet will be a lot tougher for the LDP

The clear message of dissatisfaction that voters sent Sunday to the Liberal Democratic Party will lead to a lengthy period of political instability and legislative gridlock, analysts say.
Reader Mail
Jul 29, 2007

The blame for nonacceptance

Roger Pulvers makes some valid points in his July 22 article, "Outsiders or not, that is the question," but misses the main one, which is that foreigners are excluded from the core workforce. In 10 years of living in Japan, I never met a gaijin salaryman. All...
Reader Mail
Jul 29, 2007

Brazen demand for apology

Regarding Kiroku Hanai's article: I don't know whether he is aware of how offensive it is from an American point of view for people in Japan to ask that the United States apologize for using the atomic bomb to end the war with Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 29, 2007

Not all nonsense is silly

Erotic Grotesque Nonsense: The Mass Culture of Japanese Modern Times, by Miriam Silverberg. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 370 pp., with many illustrations $49.95 (cloth) From the late 1920s on, the impact of the modern on traditional Japan had become so noticeable that some new terminology...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 29, 2007

Erring voyager roots for Japanese courtesy that can't be beat

Has anything like this ever happened to you?
BUSINESS
Jul 29, 2007

Kansai opens second runway, hopes 1.6 trillion yen was well spent

OSAKA — A formal ceremony was held Saturday morning to commemorate the opening of Kansai International Airport's controversial second runway, which will start operations Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 28, 2007

Marine Day sets off startling new theory on global terrorism

As you know, the national holiday on July 16, called Marine Day, has come and gone. Or, to be more correct, it came in on the typhoon and left on the typhoon.
BUSINESS
Jul 28, 2007

Consumer prices drop, defying BOJ projection

Consumer prices declined in June for the fifth month in a row, undermining the Bank of Japan's case that inflation will take hold and interest rates need to be raised.
BUSINESS
Jul 28, 2007

Inflow of U.S. beef just trickle now

One year after the lifting of Japan's latest ban on U.S. beef over mad cow concerns, imports of the meat remain far below the levels seen before the first ban was imposed in 2003, an official said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2007

Fight over preferential treatment

A panel of knowledgeable people organized by the Japan High School Baseball Association has begun discussions on what to do about preferential treatment — such as exemptions of admission and dormitory fees and tuition — offered to talented baseball players. It is hoped that the panel will find a...
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2007

BOJ yet to decide timing of rate increase, Noda says

The Bank of Japan has yet to decide when it will next raise interest rates, BOJ Policy Board member Tadao Noda said Thursday, declining to be drawn into speculating on whether the bank will increase borrowing costs next month.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 26, 2007

Demented in NY

It's almost counterintuitive — in the midst of the glorious chaos that is China as it modernizes itself, Chinese painters are technically spotless. In their hands, paint has been tamed, a tool with which they slickly create canvases with flawless surfaces that almost hide their workmanship.
JAPAN / UPPER HOUSE SHOWDOWN
Jul 26, 2007

Once unthinkable, farmers may vote DPJ

KUMAMOTO — The city of Yamaga, at the northern edge of Kumamoto Prefecture, is a landscape marked with rice paddies. The farmers who tend them are a socially conservative lot — a loyal source of support for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2007

Honda raises forecast on strong U.S. sales, weak yen

Honda Motor Co., Japan's second-largest carmaker, said Wednesday it raised its full-year profit forecast after demand for fuel-efficient models in the U.S. and a weaker yen boosted first-quarter profit 16 percent.
Reader Mail
Jul 25, 2007

More garbage seen off the trail

An article last month regarding trash on the trail to Mount Fuji quoted a 20-year-old volunteer university student as saying, "I'd hate for people to see the trash around here and think it means Japan is a culture of garbage."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2007

Unseated champ Takeru Kobayashi practices whole dog

Takeru Kobayashi prepares for the annual Nathan's International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest the same way an Olympic athlete would prep for a track meet.
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jul 25, 2007

Takahara confident in scoring skills

HANOI — Well, you can't accuse Naohiro Takahara of being short on confidence.
Reader Mail
Jul 25, 2007

Few signs of price inflation

I read that the Bank for International Settlements has recommended that the Bank of Japan raise the discount rate to head off inflation. But I must say that a price spike in the volatile energy sector hardly amounts to inflation. Consumer prices are actually deflating, only less than before. Also remember...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Jul 24, 2007

'Silver workers' a gold mine for temp agency entrepreneur

When Shigeo Hirano set up Mystar60 Corp., a staffing agency specializing in finding jobs for people age 60 and over, he was a man on a mission.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 24, 2007

Emergency appeal: Operation Niigata

The Japan Emergency Team, a nongovernmental disaster relief group — in its 77th mission since its founding in 1987 — is currently carrying out "Operation Niigata" at sites affected by the 6.8-magnitude quake on June 16.
JAPAN
Jul 23, 2007

Nuclear power expansion takes direct hit

Japan's nuclear power industry is among the world's most ambitious. Spurred by fears of global warming, planners envision a rapid expansion of plants, capacity and cutting-edge technologies.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 23, 2007

U.S. growers launch offensive to promote Calrose rice here

Creamy risotto in a fluffy seafood souffle and gelato sprinkled with crunchy topping were among the delicacies concocted by master chefs in a cooking contest in Tokyo for American rice — a product that is struggling to crack a nation notorious for protecting its rice farmers.
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2007

Progress toward denuclearization

The latest round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs failed to set a deadline for the North's completion of next-phase commitments in its denuclearization process, specified in a Feb. 13 deal. Although the parties confirmed that they will indeed proceed from the initial to the...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 22, 2007

Ex-patriot returns home, samurai classic revived, inventor-farmer special

On Monday at 9 p.m., TBS will present a new drama by noted scriptwriter Taiichi Yamada called "Toi Kuni kara Kita Otoko (The Man from a Faraway Country)."
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2007

Cultist loses final appeal, must hang for gas attack

The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence against a doomsday cult member who played a direct role in the fatal 1995 gassing of the Tokyo subway system, a court official said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 21, 2007

Mitsuya Goto

Mitsuya Goto can tell any aspiring student how to learn English. "You really have to want to," he might say, and "you must use any tool available to you."

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