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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Feb 6, 2008

Tokyo Jazz Site

Brooklyn-born James Catchpole runs Tokyo Jazz Site, a blog that documents the capital's extensive jazz scene.
Reader Mail
Feb 3, 2008

Policies discourage childbearing

Moving the birthrate up from its presently pitiful levels is a task for which every member and segment of Japan government, community, business has some degree of responsibility. From the point of view of the business world, it would be helpful if pricing policies made the participation of families in...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Feb 3, 2008

Nano's low price comes at a cost

It's hardly surprising that Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata chose the theme from the film "2001: A Space Odyssey" as the soundtrack to his unveiling of the Nano mini-car. Simply put, this car is epoch-making. It is the Ford Model T of India.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2008

Celebrating black Americans in Yamanashi

American diplomat Ayanna Hobbs is a dynamo of energy and enthusiasm. She's just finished her weekly Japanese class, and thinks it the most amazing coincidence that her wonderful teacher happens to be from Yamanashi, the prefecture that lies so close to her heart.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2008

Suharto puzzle still in play

HONG KONG — In death, Indonesia's former President Suharto was praised as a great and almost saintly ruler. At Suharto's state funeral Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono saluted the casket, one general to another, and declared "His service is an example to us."
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2008

New approach for the DPJ

When the Lower House of the Diet passed the antiterror special measures law on Jan. 11, it became clear that the Democratic Party of Japan is not in control of the political situation. After briefly setting the agenda in the aftermath of the July 29 Upper House election by opposing the refueling mission...
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2008

Substance now needed to bring real change

Lawyer and TV celebrity Toru Hashimoto, 38, became Japan's youngest governor Sunday, winning the Osaka gubernatorial election by more than 800,000 votes in a surprise landslide victory.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jan 29, 2008

Patricia Field

Patricia Field, whose boutique in New York City has been an inspiration for designers since opening in 1966, achieved worldwide fame dressing the characters for the HBO TV series "Sex and the City" and for the 2006 film "The Devil Wears Prada." The 65-year-old Field is an Academy Award-nominated, two-time...
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2008

The 'keitai' generation

Nearly 100 percent of high school students, 50 percent of junior high, and a third of those in grammar school now own cell phones. Even the word "cell phone" already sounds out of date, replaced even among foreign residents by "keitai," the shortened form of the Japanese word for portable phone.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jan 27, 2008

The other wild side of Zimbabwe

In recent years Zimbabwe has consistently made headlines for all the wrong reasons: despotism, the highest inflation rate in the world, human rights abuses. You name your classic African fiasco/atrocity/act of idiocy, President Robert Mugabe's has done it. In spades.
LIFE
Jan 27, 2008

Citizens routinely denied legal rights

The contrasts between constitutional provisions for crime suspects in Japan and their actual treatment are stark, say critics of the system.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2008

Democracy is not a panacea

LONDON — U.S. President George W. Bush has at times seemed to regard "democracy" as a panacea for all the problems of government throughout the world. It's far from clear, though, what exactly he means by "democracy." If a government is duly chosen by a majority of voters in a fair election, should...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2008

Hope for pacifying the strait

The following passage, which was not given wide press coverage, was included in a report that Chinese President Hu Jintao made to the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last fall:
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2008

Ambulance fiascoes become Osaka campaign issue

OSAKA — With just a few days to go until Osaka elects a new governor, the candidates are finding themselves facing an issue that is literally a life and death situation for all prefectural residents.
EDITORIALS
Jan 24, 2008

Need for thoughtful proposals

As Diet debates go into full swing, the Democratic Party of Japan has dubbed the current Diet session a "people's-lives-first-gasoline" session. The leading opposition party, which together with other opposition parties controls the Upper House, appears determined to scrap the "temporary" additional...
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2008

Prefectural lawmakers rally in praise of gas taxes

About 450 prefectural assembly members from the ruling and opposition parties staged a rally Wednesday in Tokyo to call on policymakers to maintain the current tax rates on gasoline, roads and motor vehicle tonnage.
LIFE / Language
Jan 22, 2008

Corny corkers add life to lingo, you elephant!

First of two parts
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 22, 2008

Weak yen will trump prints row for tourists

Online letters of protest were filled out. A group of nearly 70 civic organizations from around the world delivered a formal letter of disapproval to Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama. Protesters gathered outside the Justice Ministry and thrust an inflated 3-meter-high yellow hand with an extended forefinger...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jan 21, 2008

Sovereign wealth funds warping market, pose insider-trading hazard

The international profile of sovereign wealth funds is expanding, and the Group of Seven's finance ministers and central bankers are expected to discuss the depth of the funds' risk control, management and accountability when they gather Feb. 9 in Tokyo.
Reader Mail
Jan 20, 2008

To eat and to be eaten

I am delighted with Misao Nakayama's question of why we must treat whales as special creatures in his Dec. 27 letter, "Human existence demands sacrifice," although I disagree with the editor's choice of a headline.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 20, 2008

Showa nostalgia documentary, baseball star interviewed, optical illusions

The Showa boom has yet to run its course. Appropriating the street address used in the title of the hit Showa Period movie series "Always: Sanchome no Yuhi," TV Tokyo pumps up the nostalgia on "Sanchome no Post: Natsukashii Rankingu SP (Sanchome Mailbox: Nostalgic Rankings Special)" (Monday, 7 p.m.)....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 20, 2008

The Utagawa brand name

COMPETITION AND COLLABORATION: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School, by Laura J. Mueller, with essays by Fujisawa Akane, Kobayashi Tadashi, and Ellis Tinios. Leiden/Boston: Hotei Publishing, 2007, 232 pp., 200 illustrations, $120 (cloth) The Utagawa school, founded in the 18th century and active throughout...

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