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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 12, 2006

Hosting is ghosting in as respectable profession

The reported improvement in the ratio of jobs to job seekers is good news for the nation's leaders, and not just because it indicates better economic health.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 12, 2006

Quiz show 'Nep-League' on Fuji TV, Jo Odagiri in TV Asahi's 'Jiko Keisatsu' and more

One of the most popular new game shows is "Nep-League" (Fuji, Monday, 7 p.m.), starring the comedy trio Neptunes. The quizzes are based on word games that test knowledge of Chinese characters and arcane vocabulary. The show is also famous for its game-arcade atmosphere. The tests are time-intensive and...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2006

Indian 'New Deal' invokes bad, old idea

UBUD, Indonesia -- Recently Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a startling revelation: He pointed out that the urban-rural gap has widened over the past 50 years. By itself, this was neither a remarkable nor surprising conclusion. After all, with the poverty rate for India at about 26 percent...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 9, 2006

Burke Collection : An eye and taste for Japanese art

Among the major collections of Japanese art in the United States, the Mary Griggs Burke Collection of New York excels not only for its peerless quality but also for reflecting the eye of a connoisseuse with a deep love of Japan's traditional culture.
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2006

Enough of make-believe bidding

The arrests last week of senior officials of the Defense Facilities Administration Agency (DFAA) confirmed that bid-rigging on public-works projects remains an entrenched practice in Japan. What happens, basically, is that a contract is awarded at a price higher than if it were put out to bid through...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 6, 2006

To improve Japan's finances, reform drive must stay alive

In fiscal 2006, the government will issue under 30 trillion yen in bonds for the first time in eight years, leaving the nation 11.2 trillion yen short of achieving a primary balance -- the condition where expenditures, excluding interest payments and debt redemptions, are covered by revenues excluding...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 5, 2006

When building bridges becomes a fruitless endeavor

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi prides himself on his plain-spoken approach to politics. His popularity guarantees that people listen to everything he says, and because what he says tends to be simple it has the power of a pronouncement, regardless of whether or not it makes any sense.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 5, 2006

Solve your neighborhood problem with NHK's "Nanmon Kaiketsu" and more

As everyone knows, Japan is no longer a haven of safety. No statistic supports this sad development better than the fact that more than 440,000 bicycles are stolen every year, so don't get angry when a policeman stops you on the street to check your registration. He's only doing his job.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 3, 2006

Jim Hall and Geoffrey Keezer

Jim Hall is the preeminent jazz guitarist. His tone, technique and style have put him above all partisan guitar and traditional jazz controversies -- everyone likes him, and no one minds crediting him as an elder. At 75, Hall has influenced a generation of guitarists, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Pat...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 3, 2006

Kuro-hitsuji: Ghengis Khan gets hip

Until recently, the distinctive style of cooking mutton known as jingisukan -- the Japanese transliteration of the name of a well known Mongolian butcher -- was thought far too uncouth to be considered seriously. So how did this coarse, blue-collar dish, so long a staple of smoky grills in the godless...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 31, 2006

Rail passes, donor card, pawnshops

Rail pass wisdom Pam and Jacob's inquiry about the economic sense of buying a 7-day Japan Rail Pass (Lifelines; Jan. 9) when only moving around Kanto brought a flurry of useful information and advice from readers.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jan 30, 2006

Alchemist or apprentice: a guide to Livedoor hype

Takafumi Horie, aka Horiemon, is in disgrace. He and other senior executives of Livedoor, the Internet company, have been arrested on suspicion of violating securities laws.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2006

Professor faked enzyme test: Todai panel

A University of Tokyo investigative panel said Friday that results from 12 experiments on human enzymes conducted by one of its academic teams have not been reproduced so far, suggesting a biochemistry engineering professor may have fabricated results published in scientific papers on the research.
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 27, 2006

Provocative dance

Led by choreographer Angelin Preljocaj, Ballet Preljocaj has become one of the best-known contemporary dance troupes in France. Preljocaj studied classical ballet before turning to contemporary dance under Merce Cunningham, and also spent a year in Japan studying Noh theater.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 24, 2006

Can Japan absorb foreign influx?

When discussing the recent ethnic riots in France, The Economist newsmagazine ("Minority Reports," Nov. 10, 2005) posed an important question: How come some countries assimilate immigrants more peacefully than others?
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 22, 2006

Roster of foreign players nearly complete for 2006 season

Spring camps begin for the 12 Japan pro baseball teams in just 10 days, and there has been a flurry of activity in the past week with the Central and Pacific League clubs signing new-and second-hand-foreign players and finalizing rosters for the coming season. Following is a team-by-team update on the...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2006

Something wiki this way comes

'W ikipedia": Anyone looking for information online in the last few years is bound to have come across this funny word. Type any search term into Google, and a Wikipedia entry will probably pop up somewhere on the first page or two. On "Japan," for example, the Wikipedia entry comes in an impressive...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 22, 2006

Yokohama: model city for the nation?

'Change Japan -- from Yokohama."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 22, 2006

When notoriety helps sell books

TOPPAMONO: Outlaw. Radical. Suspect. My Life in Japan's Underworld, by Manabu Miyazaki. Tokyo: Kotan Publishing, 2005, 460 pp., $26.95 (cloth). THE APPRENTICE by Lewis Libby. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, St. Martin edition, 2005, 265 pp., $12.95 (paper). Japan's student movement ended with a whimper...
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2006

Rakuten pushes ahead with bold move into finance

Rakuten Inc., one of the country's fastest growing Internet startups, said Thursday it has formed business alliances with three entities, as it works to expand its Internet shopping mall business into comprehensive financial services.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2006

Infamous English word is just an import

HONG KONG -- Apart from Thatcherism and the creation of the modern game of soccer, some cynics say that the major English contribution to modern international life has been the widespread promulgation of the dreadful "F" word.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 15, 2006

Spreading the word on popular literature

THE BAMBOO SWORD AND OTHER SAMURAI TALES by Shuhei Fujisawa, translated by Gavin Frew. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 254 pp., 2,400 yen (cloth). Japanese critics have long made a distinction between taishu bungaku, "popular literature," which is simple entertainment, and jun bungaku, "pure literature,"...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2006

Full of the fittest intentions

I nervously typed the numbers onto the Web site -- first my height, then my weight. I held my breath and clicked "Calculate."

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?