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

City gone wild

In June this year I took a group of Japanese friends and members of our Afan Woodland Trust up here in the Nagano hills on a trip to Britain. We went on an All Nippon Airways tour designed for people with an interest in ecology and nature restoration, and we visited our "twin" forest, the Afan Argoed...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / JAPAN NATIONAL BASEBALL TEAM
Aug 5, 2008

'Hoshino Japan' shakes off injury concerns as preparations heat up

The Olympics haven't started yet, but "Hoshino Japan" has already dodged a bullet.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2008

Ibuki tells LDP to draft tax hike scenarios

Finance Minister Bunmei Ibuki said Saturday the ruling Liberal Democratic Party needs to propose a scenario on how and when to ask for a tax hike before it starts campaigning for the next general election.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2008

The new language of translated films

CINEMA BABEL: Translating Global Cinema, by Abe Mark Nornes. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008, 304 pp.,$22.50 (paper) Though foreign film is now seen by all, we are still dependent on translation to discover what is going on up on the big screen or on the little tube. This translation of dialogue can be...
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2008

High-rise concrete pour hits man

A man was seriously injured Friday afternoon after a continuous stream of wet concrete splattered him from eight stories above at a building under construction in Minato Ward, Tokyo, police said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 2, 2008

Martial and marital arts

"So. . . Do you, like, do karate? Or what?"
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2008

New team to seek tax hikes

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda brought in a new economic team Friday to show his commitment to reconstruct debt-ridden finances through higher taxes, but economists warn it will not be easy for the government to raise taxes when consumer sentiment is already on the skids.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2008

Fukuda reshuffles Cabinet, LDP leaders

To boost his acutely low popularity, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda reshuffled his Cabinet and Liberal Democratic Party executives Friday, replacing 13 of his 17 ministers.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2008

Group of Three or G-13?

The Toyako, Hokkaido, summit witnessed moves to expand the Group of Eight forum of leading industrial nations through the addition of China, India and other new members.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2008

'Yami no Kodomotachi'

In our anything-goes age, pedophilia remains one subject that makes everyone from film industry executives to ordinary fans nervous, to put it mildly. In "Lolita," Stanley Kubrick made the title character older than the 12-year-old in Vladimir Nabokov's notorious novel, while suggesting the sex rather...
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Aug 1, 2008

Sorimachi's squad faces big challenge

With its constantly changing cast and seemingly endless running time, Japan's Olympic soccer team has begun to resemble a TV soap opera.
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2008

Paying up to be promoted

A corruption scandal involving the Oita prefectural board of education is expanding. At first, the corruption concerned teacher recruitment: Five educators, including a former No. 2 board official, have been indicted in this connection. Now it is also known that teachers who wanted to be promoted to...
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.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji