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JAPAN
Feb 28, 2007

U.N. special rapporteur challenges Ibuki's 'homogenous' claim

The U.N. special rapporteur on racism countered Education Minister Bunmei Ibuki's claim over the weekend that Japan is a homogenous country.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 27, 2007

JET set Go MAD globally to help children in need

It was late on Christmas night when the meditation finished. The energy from the hourlong dancing and Sanskrit chanting flowed into charged silence and was now dissipating into the darkness.
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2007

Sounding off on realignment

I appreciated the critical remarks that Japanese Cabinet ministers recently made about U.S. policy in Iraq, feeling that high-level Japanese officials had finally begun to express their honest opinions. But I was disappointed when the government scrambled to coordinate its views to eliminate any impressions...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2007

Telling the truth at Yasukuni

Since last summer, I have been engaged in the process of modifying exhibits at Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan history museum. The project is expected to be completed in July.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2007

Mag on foreigner crimes not racist: editor

"Now!! Bad foreigners are devouring Japan," screams the warning, surrounded by gruesome caricatures of foreigners who look like savages, with blood red eyes and evil faces.
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2007

Reaffirming a commitment

Nothing dramatic happened -- no new demands or agreements -- during U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's meetings with Japanese leaders this week. His visit should be interpreted as a U.S. effort to reaffirm its close ties with Japan and thus help enhance its image as a world leader as it faces difficult...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2007

SDF deploys perky mascot to boast cuddly image

Perky cartoon character Prince Pickles -- with saucer eyes, big dimples and tiny, booted feet -- poses in front of tanks, rappels from helicopters and shakes hands with smiling Iraqis.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 2007

The Samurai Dolphin Man

Ric O'Barry is one of the world's best-known environmentalists. A former U.S. Navy diver, he later trained the five dolphins that played Flipper in the hit 1960s TV series of that name, before turning against dolphin captivity in 1970.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Feb 19, 2007

Idle talk of 'unbundling' highlights EU's energy dependency woes

The EU Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council met in Brussels Feb. 15, and the chief item on the agenda was the "unbundling" of power networks.
EDITORIALS
Feb 19, 2007

A viable farming sector

This year will be important for Japan in developing policy for creating a viable agricultural sector without inviting criticism of protectionism from abroad. Among the reasons for tackling this issue is that, although the Doha Round of World Trade Organization negotiations has stalled, the liberalization...
COMMENTARY
Feb 19, 2007

Nuclear uncertainties linger

For the people of Japan, the world's only country to suffer atomic-bomb attacks, the existence of nuclear weapons in any form is unacceptable. Regrettably, however, nuclear proliferation is continuing outside the framework of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).
SOCCER / World cup
Feb 15, 2007

World Cup defender Nakazawa makes Osim's training-camp squad

Ivica Osim on Wednesday called up Yuji Nakazawa to his 28-man training-camp squad ahead of the Mar. 24 friendly against Peru.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2007

Tokyo positive but still cautious about new six-party deal

Senior government officials on Tuesday praised the landmark agreement reached in the six-party talks on the denuclearization of North Korea but were also cautious, saying Japan still has a long and difficult road ahead to keep the nation secure and resolve the abduction issue.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 14, 2007

From rackets to real estate, yakuza multifaceted

The yakuza have long played a powerful, if often unseen, role in society. Romanticized in literature and film as noble outcasts replete with punch-perms, extensive tattoos and severed pinkies, the underworld is one of archaic language and secretive rituals and customs as well as extreme violence and...
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2007

Still the clean-growth model

In terms of economic development, Japan, South Korea and China have achieved in two or three decades what it took Western countries more than a century to accomplish.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

The price of stalemate

One of the most controversial elements of Japan's campaign to overturn the International Whaling Commission's 1986 commercial whaling ban is the alleged use of official Overseas Development Aid to "buy" the votes of poorer IWC member-countries. That is an allegation vehemently denied by fisheries bureaucrats....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Siege mentality fuels 'sustainability' claims

At the government's Fisheries Agency in Tokyo, which drives the prowhaling campaign in Japan, there is thinly disguised contempt for the antiwhaling finger-wagging of New Zealand, a country with boundless rich farmland and a tiny population to support.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Deadlock is dominant in whaling's 'petty parlor game'

In light of the entrenched positions involved, the whaling issue appears hopelessly deadlocked as the prowhaling nations led by Japan, Iceland and Norway demand the right to return to commercial whaling from countries equally determined to resist them.
Reader Mail
Feb 7, 2007

Speak out and the U.S. will leave

Kiroku Hanai makes great leaps of logic in his Jan. 23 article, "U.S. presence vs. the public will." First he implies that U.S. submarines are operated in a "reckless" manner, then jumps to the conclusion that aircraft carriers are being operated recklessly, too. But let's get to the point.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 4, 2007

Princess Tenko: conjuror of pure mystery

The life of illusionist Tenko Hikita -- better
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2007

NHK stung by censorship suit appeal

The Tokyo High Court on Monday expanded on a lower court ruling and ordered NHK and two production companies to pay damages to a women's rights group for altering the content of a documentary on a mock tribunal over Japan's wartime sexual slavery.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 28, 2007

More than money was found wanting in 'the lost decade'

Last week in this column, in an attempt to trace the roots of the nationalism now becoming a mainstream political force in Japan, I discussed the currents that characterized this country in the 1980s. This week I will look at the 1990s, to see how the social euphoria of the '80s led to what has come...
Reader Mail
Jan 24, 2007

Plunder of Philippines continues

Japan has one of the strongest economies in the world. Obviously Japan can afford to build nursing colleges and train nurses. But it has chosen to drastically cut spending on health and other social services and instead spend the money on the military. And it has decided to import nurses from the...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jan 23, 2007

Cycling on sidewalks

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2007

North Korea talks should also discuss escapees, forum told

OSAKA -- The plight of Japanese citizens and Japanese-born Koreans who voluntarily went to North Korea in the 1960s but escaped to return to Japan is a human rights issue that needs to be included in the six-party talks on denuclearizing North Korea, a symposium in Osaka concluded Sunday.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 21, 2007

Burying the liberation myth

Asian Labor in the Wartime Japanese Empire: Unknown Histories, edited by Paul Kratoksa. Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2006, 440 pp., $35 (paper) The Japanese and Chinese governments have announced plans to come up with a mutually acceptable shared history. Prime Minister Shintaro Abe recognizes...

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