Search - question

 
 
COMMENTARY
Jul 29, 2008

New hope for overcoming autistic disorders

NEW YORK — Just published findings from Harvard Medical School and other U.S. institutions have shed new light on the genetic basis for autism.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 29, 2008

Asa might not have been all there, but Haku certainly was

When yokozuna Asashoryu withdrew from the July 13-27 Nagoya Basho on Day 6, public opinion was largely split.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 28, 2008

Failure to address climate change like spitting in the wind

The Toyako G8 Summit held from July 7 to 9 with the participation of leaders from 23 other countries exposed the wide rift between the developed and developing worlds and failed to reach concrete agreements on key issues ranging from climate change to surging oil and food prices and the weak dollar....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 28, 2008

The U.S. Supreme Court's risible reasoning

Laws are subject to interpretations, courts are official interpreters, and the Supreme Court has the last word. That is a fact of life, though it is also a fact of life that you sometimes wonder if there is anything "supreme" about the Supreme Court. Yes, you know that individual justices come with individual...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008

Was the 'Japanese Renaissance' lost at sea?

Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2008

Space and the city: experimenting in Japan

BURN YOUR BELONGINGS by David F. Hoenigman. SIX GALLERY PRESS, 2008, 201 pp., $24.99 (paper) In a letter to Charles Olson on June 5, 1950, the late Robert Creeley wrote that "form is never more than an extension of content." In her "How To Write" published in 1931, Gertrude Stein claimed "Sentences are...
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2008

Okada declares DPJ ready to take charge, reform the public sector

Long viewed as content to live in the shadow of the entrenched Liberal Democratic Party, the largest opposition force is now ready to seize the reins of power and carry out a thorough reform of the public sector, Democratic Party of Japan Vice President Katsuya Okada said Friday.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2008

High court zero-tolerance signal for stock scams said no surprise

Friday's high court ruling to uphold Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie's prison term is significant because the judiciary has restated its zero tolerance of activities that undermine fair stock market trading, experts said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2008

Jables steals the show

You could tell Jack Black was itching to act up. Sitting on the dais with four colleagues to promote their new animated film, "Kung Fu Panda," at a hotel in Shinjuku, the roly-poly actor looked — as he himself put it — like "the cat that ate the canary": face frozen in a self-satisfied grin except...
COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2008

Barack Obama's overseas tour

Barack Obama wants three things out of his tour of the Mideast and Europe. He wants people everywhere to think that he has the answers for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He wants U.S. Jews to believe that he is Israel's unquestioning supporter. And he wants Americans to notice that Europeans would vote...
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2008

Omar al-Bashir versus the ICC

All the opposition groups in Darfur celebrated when the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on July 14 that he was seeking the indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on the charge of genocide, but almost everybody else had a problem with it. They don't doubt that al-Bashir...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 23, 2008

There's still hope — despite our milquetoast* leaders

In the runup to the Group of Eight summit held this month in a stupendously policed corner of Japan's most remote northern island, there was widespread expectation that little would be achieved on the environmental agenda.
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2008

Diet member Fujita responds to reader's criticisms on 9/11

L ast week the Community Page published a selection of readers' responses to to John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article on Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Yukihisa Fujita. Following is Mr. Fujita's response to one reader's criticisms of the Diet member's stance on the Sept. 11 attacks.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2008

Euroskeptics, come out and have your say

BRUSSELS — The European Union has no coherent strategy on many issues. It has only sketchy economic policies toward Russia; ambitions, but no game plan, to become a player in the Middle East; and, despite its original leadership on the Kyoto Protocol, no successor program on climate change.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Nature of rights violations

Regarding the July 15 Zeit Gist article, "Human rights -- strictly personal, strictly Japanese?": Doshisa Law School professor Colin P.A. Jones suggests that the Justice Ministry would like us to think, at least where Japan is concerned, that "human rights violations are a problem caused by citizens...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 20, 2008

All this fuss over just a little drink at a . . . love hotel

The big tabloid scoop last week was snagged by the woman's weekly Josei Seven, which caught celebrity/announcer Mona Yamamoto and Yomiuri Giants shortstop Tomohiro Nioka in a love-hotel tryst. The reason the incident hit such a big nerve in the media is that the night the tryst took place was also the...
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

No mention of arrest immunity

In the July 16 article "High crime rate a 'misperception' ": Lt. Gen. Edward Rice, commander of U.S. Forces Japan, reiterates that the crime rate of American service members in Japan is lower than that of the Japanese in general. He does not say whether off-duty U.S. service members suspected of crimes...
OLYMPICS
Jul 20, 2008

Kobayashi chases Olympic dream

Yuriko Kobayashi is Beijing-bound, but that's not her terminal station.
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2008

Science fact or fiction?

Later this year, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is scheduled to go into operation outside Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists hope the LHC will enable them to better understand what happened when the universe was born. Some critics fear that the machine could trigger a catastrophe that ends life on Earth...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2008

Can Hu ease up to enjoy the world's wishes?

HONG KONG — With a little unexpected help from people who would not normally be considered its friends, China has recently taken important strides to improve regional relations and become a global political as well as economic player.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Crime statistics seem skewed

USFJ Commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice states in the July 16 article that the rate of off-base crimes committed by members of the U.S. military in Japan is much lower than that for Japanese in general: "We are able to keep the off-base serious crime rate for the U.S. service members to approximately half...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

What's that smell?

No one in Japan can avoid the sweat and smells of hot humid summer, regardless of sex, age or ethnicity. But a recent survey on body odor reeked of bad news for men.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

The rising middle classes want their wheels

BEIJING — W hat becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an affair with the car. The entire nation, it turns out, is in love with them, is...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 18, 2008

Tomita revels in veteran status ahead of second Olympics

Editor's note: As the countdown to the Summer Olympics draws closer, The Japan Times will provide more coverage of Japan's top medal hopefuls, as well as expanded coverage of international Olympians in the print and online editions.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 18, 2008

Unagi Akimoto: Tradition beats the summer heat

Squeezed in between towering modern neighbors, Akimoto's traditional low-rise architecture is so self-effacing you barely notice it. From the tiled eaves to the wood-slatted second-floor windows and the sliding door set back from the street, all is inscrutable.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2008

Ukraine's path will set the course for Russia

MOSCOW — Russia and the West are losing each other yet again. The magnetic attraction and repulsion between the two has been going on for centuries. Indeed, historians have counted as many as 25 such cycles since the reign of Czar Ivan III.
Reader Mail
Jul 13, 2008

Hit holdouts with a carbon tariff

I have a question for all of those who fuss and worry that some countries (specifically China, India and, possibly, the United States) will be unwilling to commit to specific carbon- reduction targets, because of fear that to do so would leave them at an economic disadvantage.

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