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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Feb 6, 2008

Talking sense about deer

We were filming a television documentary in the mountains of Hokkaido. It was winter, and bitterly cold. Through the trees, bare of leaves, we could see floe ice, dotted with eagles, gulls, crows and a few ravens. Then a raucous gathering of crows ahead drew our attention and we trudged through the crisp...
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2008

Nations swap papers limiting MSDF fuel use

Diplomatic notes were exchanged Tuesday in Tokyo between Japan and nations whose ships will receive fuel when the Maritime Self-Defense Force resumes its Indian Ocean support mission, with the understanding that the fuel will be used only for U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan....
EDITORIALS
Feb 5, 2008

Mother-and-child health care

In addition to the fight against global warning, Japan could exercise its leadership at July's Group of Eight summit to promote international cooperation in protecting the health of mothers and infants in developing countries. The Japanese government plans to propose an action guideline at the summit...
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2008

Whaling dates back centuries

In response to Lindsay Caffin's Jan. 27 letter, "If we're talking about tradition" (with regard to whaling), I would like to suggest doing research via a simple tool like the Internet. Records such as the Kojiki, Japan's oldest written document, state that whaling goes back to the eighth century, meaning...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 3, 2008

Journal of an uncommon traveler

WINDOWS ON JAPAN: A Walk Through Place and Perception, by Bruce Roscoe. Algora Publishing, 2007, 308 pp., $31.95 (paper) On the premise that speed blunts the mind, New Zealander Bruce Roscoe decided to make his journey on foot, following a route across the waist of Japan, from the port city of Niigata...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 3, 2008

'Pimp' my road — For bureaucrats, it's business as usual

It's that time of year again, when the highways and byways of Japan are suddenly filled with construction crews tearing up asphalt for repair and maintenance work. That's because the annual budgets of the crews' public-sector employers must be used up before the end of the fiscal year in March, regardless...
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2008

Making an impact on tourism

The government plans to inaugurate a Tourism Agency in October as an extra-ministerial bureau of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The new agency will be aimed at attracting overseas visitors to Japan as their tourist destination and to make tourism an important industry of the nation....
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2008

Condemned trio sent to the gallows

Three condemned convicts were hanged Friday and the government released their names and other details in line with the disclosure policy introduced by Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama with his Dec. 7 approval of three other executions.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 2, 2008

No sure bets on next BOJ chief

Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui's voice became slightly tense as he answered questions from reporters at a news conference last month about the upcoming appointments of his successor and two new deputy governors.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2008

Celebrating black Americans in Yamanashi

American diplomat Ayanna Hobbs is a dynamo of energy and enthusiasm. She's just finished her weekly Japanese class, and thinks it the most amazing coincidence that her wonderful teacher happens to be from Yamanashi, the prefecture that lies so close to her heart.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 31, 2008

Tilting the balance back to darkness

In the minds of casual observers, Japan is simple. Between lovers of tradition and those enraptured by Japan's quirky window into an urban future, it's either the former land of austere, honorable warriors or the current one of air-headed, emotionally overwrought manga characters.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2008

New approach for the DPJ

When the Lower House of the Diet passed the antiterror special measures law on Jan. 11, it became clear that the Democratic Party of Japan is not in control of the political situation. After briefly setting the agenda in the aftermath of the July 29 Upper House election by opposing the refueling mission...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2008

New agency will try to increase foreign tourists

The Cabinet adopted a bill Tuesday to create a new tourist agency under the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry to help increase the growing number of foreign tourists to Japan, particularly those from Asia.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2008

Asia's high stake in Persian Gulf stability

SINGAPORE — Could a radio operator, whose identity is unknown, cause a war between the United States, the world's most powerful nation, and energy-rich but radical Iran? Perhaps not. But it now appears that someone — maybe a prankster — almost triggered a shootout between the two sides earlier...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 29, 2008

G8: Meaningful or anachronistic forum?

Over the next six months, Japan will host a series of meetings of the Group of Eight countries, culminating in the Leaders' Summit at Lake Toya, Hokkaido, in July. Along with leaders of the G8 — Japan, the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia — the European Commission...
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2008

China isn't blazing a path for anybody

LOS ANGELES — All political systems are peculiar, each in its own way. This is true of democracy, however defined, as well as of communist systems, more easily defined.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 27, 2008

Modern Japanese women: dealing with sex, lies and the dried-flower syndrome

GOODBYE MADAME BUTTERFLY: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman, by Sumie Kawakami. Chin Music Press, 2007, 219 pp., $20 (cloth) Who wants to be a woman in Japan? Misery can't get much worse than the sexless relationships, dreary marriages, loneliness, patriarchal blues and stressed out women portrayed...
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

Citizens routinely denied legal rights

The contrasts between constitutional provisions for crime suspects in Japan and their actual treatment are stark, say critics of the system.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

Justice Minister talks in death-penalty riddles

What does Japan's justice minister, Kunio Hatoyama think of the looming introduction of citizens' juries, also known as the lay-judge system — which is potentially the most revolutionary change set to affect Japan's trial system since World War II?
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 26, 2008

Okada's second era begins against Chile

Japan goes back to the future on Saturday night as Takeshi Okada oversees his first match back in charge of the national side with a friendly at National Stadium against Chile.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2008

Foreigner registration system to be revised

The government plans to abolish the current registration system for foreigners living in Japan and introduce a new regime similar to that for Japanese residents that will manage them on a household basis, Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 26, 2008

Pair mutually strive to broaden their horizon, perspective

Alexander Bright and Akiko Yamada first met at Cambridge University in 1999, when Bright was a graduate student majoring in materials science and Yamada, then a high school teacher, was taking a year off to study education in England.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic