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LIFE / Lifestyle / 2008 MEDIA ROUND-UP
Dec 28, 2008

Making sense of the strange changes of 2008

Every year, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation selects a "kanji of the year." This year's is "hen," meaning "change" or, equally, "strange, peculiar."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 26, 2008

'Paris'/'Funny Games'

Director Cedric Klapisch's breakthrough film was 1996's "Chacun Cherche Son Chat" ("When The Cat's Away"), a documentary-like trifle about a lost cat that nevertheless seemed to say something essential about life in the anonymity of a big city. Klapisch set his film in Paris' 11th arrondisement, and...
EDITORIALS
Dec 25, 2008

Populist eyes default

It was only a matter of time, really. President Rafael Correa declared a default on Ecuador's foreign sovereign bonds earlier this month, vowing to fight "monster" debt-holders who had "illegal," "immoral" and "illegitimate" claims against his country. The question now is whether this is a precursor...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 24, 2008

Realignment has added too many mediocre teams to playoffs

NEW YORK — The Arizona Cardinals have lost four of their last five games, allowing 37, 48, 35 and 47 points. Their only win during that period was over St. Louis, a 2-13 team. And if they don't beat 4-11 Seattle at home on Sunday, they will finish 8-8.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 23, 2008

DPJ has a foot in the door

As the odds grow that the No. 1 opposition Democratic Party of Japan will take the reigns of government after the next general elections, the focus in the Japanese political arena is shifting to the lineup of a Cabinet headed by DPJ leader Ichiro Ozawa, and to who would succeed him if he retired early...
SOCCER
Dec 23, 2008

Ferguson eyes further titles after CWC glory

YOKOHAMA — Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson believes his side can use its Club World Cup victory as a launchpad to success for the rest of the season.
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2008

Nail a North Korea deal by going to the top

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In a few months a former U.S. president — Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton — may be asked to travel to North Korea in pursuit of military denuclearization. Or it will be new President Barack Obama.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 21, 2008

To conform at times is neither a Japanese diktat nor a sellout of self

Let's talk education.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 21, 2008

Japan fired up for '09 WBC to start

It remains to be seen if Japan can score back-to-back victories in the World Baseball Classic, but there is no doubt the attitude of the Japanese side is a complete reversal from 2006 when the first WBC was played.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2008

Obama may press Japan

Japan's ruling establishment hoped that John McCain, surrounded by "friends of Japan," would win the race to the White House. Conservative commentators fear that President-elect Barack Obama will neglect Japan while paying too much attention to China.
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2008

Goldman agrees to sell Sanyo stake

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed to sell its stake in Sanyo Electric Co. to Panasonic Corp., ending weeks of resistance after accepting an increase of less than 1 percent, two sources said.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2008

What can be done to protect Zimbabweans

WATERLOO, Ontario — The responsibility to protect (R2P) norm, embraced universally at the world summit in New York in 2005, remains operationally elusive. Calls are growing for international intervention to lift the shroud of Robert Mugabe's ruinous reign from Zimbabwe's body politic.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Dec 16, 2008

Manhole covers

Dear Alice,
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2008

Human rights require stronger institutions

PARIS — On Dec. 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first international proclamation of the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people. To this day, the UDHR remains the single most important reference point for discussion of ethical values...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / BEST OF BOOKS: 2008
Dec 14, 2008

Ready for a little Yuletide reading?

BAT-MANGA!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan, by Chip Kidd (Pantheon Books)
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 14, 2008

Aso the donkey plods on

Last week, when poll results showed public support for the current Cabinet at an all-time low, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party tried to move past the bad news by focusing attention on what it believes is really important. Chief Cabinent Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters that the LDP shouldn't...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Dec 14, 2008

Mystery shrouds the ancient Oshoro circle

In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle — a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made....
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2008

Japan must offer more than free gas

The Friday extension of the special law to continue the Maritime Self-Defense Force refueling mission in the Indian Ocean will prolong Japan's involvement in global antiterrorism efforts but both supporters and critics of the action agree the nation still has little to show for its efforts on the world...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 12, 2008

'Shine a Light'

So Martin Scorsese has made two concert films now — 1978's "The Last Waltz" and 2008's "Shine a Light," — and it's interesting to compare the two.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Dec 11, 2008

Mao faces big challenge from Kim at star-studded Grand Prix Final

Mao Asada silenced her critics — at least temporarily — with her decisive victory in the NHK Trophy on Nov. 29.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2008

Managing the international economic crisis

"After the Storm?" was the main title of the editorial of Economic Outlook 83 published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris last May. Developments since then have been such that it would have been a disaster for OECD forecasters if the question mark had not been...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 9, 2008

Benefiting from a dream market

HONG KONG — As the world economy reels from bad to worse, and economists go from talking of recession to swapping stories of the Great Depression of the 1930s, eyes turn to China and to what it might, can and should do in its newly emerging role as a global player both economically and politically....
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 9, 2008

At the heart of Japan rests the ‘reverent middle'

Elsewhere in the world, the heart lies pretty much in its correct anatomical place. But in Japan, it has traditionally been located mid-torso, or more precisely in the hara(腹, belly). For the Japanese, the belly has always been the vessel of emotions. It's where rage festers, love burns or fades away;...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 7, 2008

Slugger Woods hoping for one more chance in Japan

The Chunichi Sports is reporting former Chunichi Dragons first baseman Tyrone Woods wants to continue playing in Japan.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Dec 7, 2008

Miura's decision to remain with struggling BayStars admirable

The Yokohama BayStars reached the Nippon Professional Baseball summit in 1998 behind 12-game winner Daisuke Miura.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight