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Japan Times
JAPAN
May 22, 2009

Grand jury system comes to Japan

Eight years ago, Seiji Shimomura could only watch as his 2-year-old son Tomohito was crushed to death by crowds at a fireworks show in Hyogo Prefecture. Ever since, he has campaigned for high-ranking police officials to be indicted over their role in the matter.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 22, 2009

Tattoo you — Mika's call to arms

"I believe in my voice as a singer," declares Mika Nakashima, alluding to the three words tattooed in English around her right wrist. " 'Trust your voice,' in a broad sense, means we should accept everything and believe in many things. I learned this in New York and developed myself in many ways that...
Reader Mail
May 21, 2009

Tension between men and women

I found the May 10 Timeout feature, "Blurring the boundaries," very interesting as this is something I've been watching over the last several years. It was interesting that the natural question in response to men's change toward becoming "soushokukei (herbivorous)" was whether women should become "nikushokukei...
Reader Mail
May 21, 2009

Contriving a social trend in Japan

For the most part I enjoyed Tomoko Otake's well-researched story about "herbivorous" men. Overall, though, I felt that the topics of the related Timeout stories (May 10) were quite dubious as they were trying to pound a round peg into a square hole. For example, a survey by toilet-seat makers shows that...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
May 21, 2009

Wild orchids

Dear Alice, Can you please find out what the heck I saw on Mount Takao on the outskirts of Tokyo? Last spring, about this time of year, I was on a trail with a lot of other hikers lugging cameras and tripods. All of a sudden everyone got very excited. Not knowing Japanese, I had no idea what they were...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 19, 2009

IC you: bugging the alien

When the Japanese government first issued alien registration cards (aka gaijin cards) in 1952, it had one basic aim in mind: to track "foreigners" (at that time, mostly Korean and Taiwanese stripped of Japanese colonial citizenship) who decided to stay in postwar Japan.
BUSINESS
May 16, 2009

Panasonic joins list of makers in red

Panasonic Corp. said Friday it logged a ¥378.96 billion group net loss for the business year that ended in March, drowning in red ink for the first time in six years due to rapidly slowing worldwide demand and the yen's rise against other major currencies.
JAPAN
May 15, 2009

DPJ members slam rush poll

The Democratic Party of Japan's decision to hold the presidential election Saturday is prompting members to question why it must be held so soon and why the voting is being restricted to those with Diet seats.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CITIZEN JUSTICE
May 15, 2009

Media fret risk of biasing lay judges

Fourth in a series
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 15, 2009

'Angels & Demons'

How much work can you get done in five hours? That's the crucial question in "Angels & Demons," the sequel to the 2006 global megahit "The Da Vinci Code."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 15, 2009

Gauguin: 'I shall never do anything better'

Was he just a "Sunday painter" who abandoned his wife and five children for a bohemian life in a distant island paradise — where he died of syphilis and poverty in the arms of a teenage mistress?
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2009

Toward economic growth

Along with the ¥14 trillion supplementary budget for fiscal 2009 designed to stimulate the Japanese economy, the government has a long-term strategy to attain economic growth. It envisages increasing the nation's gross domestic product by ¥120 trillion and creating 4 million jobs by 2020. For the fiscal...
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2009

Military insiders threaten Pakistan's nuclear assets

DELHI — Without naming the United States as his source, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said recently: "We have been assured that Pakistan's nuclear weapons are in safe hands as of now. And I have no reason to disbelieve the assurance."
JAPAN
May 14, 2009

Nuclear energy deal not welcomed by all

OSAKA — The nuclear energy cooperation agreement signed Tuesday by Japan and Russia is expected to be a great boon to firms like Toshiba that are seeking new international markets for their atomic power technology, as well as ensuring Japan a steady supply of enriched uranium for its own electricity...
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2009

Petty torture rules played on sense of duty

PARIS — The top-secret memorandums released by the Obama administration concerning torture practices in CIA prisons shed new light on a fundamental question: How is it that people acting in the name of the United States government could so easily accept the idea of torturing detainees in their charge?...
Reader Mail
May 10, 2009

Hardly enough to get out of town

Regarding the question in the April 7 edition, "What would you do if you were given ¥300,000 to get out of Japan?": This amount would barely cover the cost of sending personal effects home. In addition, I have two cats, but I'm sure Japanese immigration authorities would simply suggest killing them...
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2009

The audacity of optimism in the Middle East

SINGAPORE — The world will be enveloped in a heavy cloud of gloom and doom this year. Economies will sputter, governments will fall and companies will fail. But the biggest danger of all is a sense of hopelessness. Preventing this requires resolving some large and apparently intractable problem. Closing...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 10, 2009

Gained in translation: bringing Asian poetry to the English language

SONGS OF LOVE, MOON AND WIND: Poems From the Chinese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth, selected by Eliot Weinberger. New York: New Directions, 2009, 90 pp., $12.95 (paper)
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2009

Troubling signs in Nepal

A standoff between Nepal's prime minister and its president has brought the country to the brink of crisis. The resignation of Maoist Prime Minister Prachanda threatens the survival of a peace agreement between Maoist rebels and the government that ended a decade-long civil war. The Maoists say they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 8, 2009

Pop impresario turns Arab dance belly up

There surely aren't too many people out there who can talk about hanging out with The Sex Pistols in one breath and taking calls from then-United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the next. Miles Copeland, however, is one such person.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 8, 2009

Issey Miyake's "U-Tsu-Wa" filled with character and inspiration

In Japanese, the word utsuwa literally means "vessel" or "container," but it can also be used to describe a person's character. Someone said to have a "large utsuwa" ("utsuwa ga ookii") is a person of high caliber or someone with tremendous capacity or generosity. When celebrated Japanese fashion designer...
JAPAN
May 6, 2009

Calls to revise organ law grow as lawmakers debate various plans

When Yasuto Katagiri asked New York's Columbia University in February to perform a heart transplant on Hoku, his 2-year-old son suffering from a rare form of heart disease called restrictive cardiomyopathy, the university had to turn him down because its 5 percent limit for accepting foreign transplant...
COMMENTARY
May 2, 2009

Mideast and cheaper oil

LONDON — Back in the golden bubble days when stock markets were riding high and a barrel of crude oil sold for more than $140, there was no doubt which countries were getting richest quickest.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2009

SMFG to buy Nikko Cordial

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. has agreed to buy Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. and part of Nikko Citigroup Ltd. from troubled U.S. financial giant Citigroup Inc. for ¥545 billion, the two sides reported Friday.
EDITORIALS
May 1, 2009

South Africa votes for Mr. Zuma

There was never any doubt about who would win parliamentary elections held in South Africa last week. The African National Congress (ANC), which has dominated the country's politics since the apartheid era ended, was certain to prevail. The only question was the ANC's margin of victory and whether it...
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
May 1, 2009

Playoff tiebreaker in bj-league becomes point of contention

Every sports league has a right to create its own set of rules. And it's only natural for a new league to face greater scrutiny for the way it operates than a league with a long established tradition, a way of doing things that won't change very easily.
BUSINESS
Apr 30, 2009

Rengo-staged May Day rally draws 36,000

Expressing solidarity at a time of employment crisis, nearly 36,000 regular and temporary workers turned out Wednesday for the 80th annual May Day rally organized by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 29, 2009

Rumors about Mullin joining Knicks intensify

NEW YORK — Despite an upsurge of chatter claiming Donnie Walsh only has eyes for Chris Mullin — a couple of NBA observers assert the apparently departing Warriors VP has been promised the GM job — this is untrue, according to the Knicks president.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan