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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.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Jul 11, 2008

NBA hires a general, NFL signs a colonel to tackle credibility crisis

NEW YORK — David Stern was deep in the bowels of Staples Center, holding an impromptu press conference next to the loading dock when he should have been in a luxury suite upstairs getting ready to enjoy Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 11, 2008

Sympathy for the Maries

All the boys are in their birthday suits and beautiful long-haired Ryohei Shima is mincing up toward me. Just think of a naked Mick Jagger — a 26-year-old one, that is — entering stage right on the set of a gay porn flick and you'll get the picture. Ryohei theatrically swivels his hips upon approach,...
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 10, 2008

Fukuda seeks Hu's help on abduction row

TOYAKO, Hokkaido — Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda asked Chinese President Hu Jintao on Wednesday to urge North Korea to resolve the abduction dispute, a senior Japanese official said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jul 8, 2008

Cherry farmers Mitsuyo and Shunji Ono

Shunji Ono, 71, and his wife Mitsuyo, 70, are farmers in Yamagata Prefecture's Sagae City. Besides taking care of the rice paddies their ancestors have tended for hundreds of years, the Onos are famous for growing Sato Nishiki, the sweetest and most expensive Japanese cherries. Developed about 90 years...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2008

Thickheadedness on African debt

ACCRA, Ghana — In the runup to the Group of Eight meeting in Japan last week, activists of all stripes were working hard to ensure that their issue would be on the agenda. While the agenda changes from year to year, one item has become a mainstay: debt relief. The fact that this issue repeatedly resurfaces...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 8, 2008

Beware the foreigner as guinea pig

Anywhere in the world, noncitizens have fewer legal rights than citizens. Japan's Supreme Court would agree: On June 2, in a landmark case granting citizenship to Japanese children of unmarried Philippines mothers, judges ruled that Japanese citizenship is necessary "for the protection of basic human...
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
Jul 8, 2008

Ainu artist, activist has spent a lifetime fighting prejudice

Shizue Ukaji was born in March 1933 in a small southern coastal area of Hokkaido known as Urakawa.
BUSINESS
Jul 8, 2008

Ministry urges nation take steps to woo sovereign funds

Japan should adopt measures aimed at attracting more of the almost $3 trillion managed by sovereign wealth funds, a trade ministry report said.
Reader Mail
Jul 6, 2008

Refute opinions, don't ban them

The intolerant attitude displayed in Bruce Collins' June 26 letter, "A name for indentured servitude," is unfortunately fairly commonplace among Americans. This is no doubt why they have a Patriot Act, have continued to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay for years without either indictment or trial, and...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 6, 2008

The shrine of controversy

YASUKUNI: The War Dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past, edited by John Breen. London: Hurst Publishers, 2007, 202 pp., £25 (cloth) Yasukuni Shrine resonates powerfully in contemporary Asia, dividing Japanese and alienating regional neighbors. In April, some conservative Japanese politicians' criticisms...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 6, 2008

Peace follows turbulent times

"It was a nightmare," laughs Tokyo-based author David Peace of a recent trip to Paris to promote the French version of his most successful novel, "The Damned Utd."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 6, 2008

Was the Japanese language influenced by Tamil? The war goes on

For years I have been watching from the sidelines as the opponents battle it out. For the players this fight will go on and on, and the theater of war is right here.
EDITORIALS
Jul 6, 2008

Tough tasks on G8's agenda

Japan hosts a summit of the advanced industrialized nations' leaders for the fifth time from Monday to Wednesday. Leaders of the Group of Eight nations who gather in Toyako, Hokkaido, will discuss how to overcome major problems troubling the international community, such as global warming, steep rises...
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2008

Still 'efficient' G8 faces new realities

The 19th-century historian and political analyst Walter Bagehot divided affairs of state between what he called the dignified and the efficient. In the dignified category were great formal meetings of state, the pomp and ceremony surrounding heads of state and monarchs, and all the symbolic parades and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2008

Exorcising Musharraf's ghost

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Following its recent free elections, Pakistan is rebounding politically. But the euphoria that came with the end of the Musharraf era is wearing off, as the new government faces stark choices.
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2008

New pension errors found

Another example of sloppy work by the Social Insurance Agency has come to the fore. Sampling of pension-related records on original paper registers and in computers shows errors in 1.4 percent of matched records that relate to pensions for company-employed workers or kosei nenkin. As health and welfare...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 2, 2008

The hollow heart of the West

WARSAW — It is tempting to compare NATO and the European Union to the French and Italian football teams in this year's Euro 2008 competition. What unites them, above all, is a process of "competitive decadence." The EU and NATO may see themselves as potential rivals or complementary partners in the...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jul 2, 2008

Knicks roll the dice with selection of Gallinari

NEW YORK — When you're the Knicks and picking sixth in a top-heavy freshman draft, and your isolated asset (David Lee) and the slot weren't ample inducement (assuming another obscene contract was out of the question) to move up to harvest Derrick Rose, O. J. Mayo or Kevin Love, the inevitable conclusion...
JAPAN
Jul 1, 2008

Prime ministers should serve four-year terms, Nakagawa says

The prime minister should serve a four-year term instead of the current situation in which the post sometimes seems like a revolving door, Hidenao Nakagawa, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, said Monday.
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jul 1, 2008

¥60 billion G8 budget draws flak

Japan plans to spend more than ¥60 billion in taxpayer money to host next week's Group of Eight summit in Hokkaido and related events, prompting some to question if that sum could better be used to alleviate the national health-care and social welfare crises.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 30, 2008

Eishin Deputy scores Takarazuka Kinen win

HYOGO PREF. — Eishin Deputy knocked off some of the more fancied runners with an all-the-way win in the 49th Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin racecourse on Sunday afternoon.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 29, 2008

Getting high and then horizontal in Langkawi

Ask any question you want in Langkawi and you will get a friendly response. But you may not get an answer. Take the following exchange I had with a musician who was leaving the Beach Garden restaurant as I was strolling in there in search of a late supper on my first night in the hot spot of Pantai Cenang:...

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