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Japan Times
JAPAN
May 9, 2009

Indian consultant orchestrates Sichuan earthquake relief effort

This summer, near the first anniversary of the massive, deadly earthquake that hit China's Sichuan Province, Somasundaram Soma, an Indian management consultant in Tokyo, plans to hold a charity concert in the capital to raise funds to build schools for children in the devastated region.
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2009

'Mr. Democracy' fell short after 1919 demonstration

HONG KONG — Ninety years ago this week, thousands of students from Peking University and elsewhere gathered in the then much smaller Tiananmen Square before marching through the city in protest.
CULTURE / Music
May 8, 2009

Bluesman Robert Cray plays it with soul

Robert Cray last performed in Japan 13 years ago at the Japan Blues Carnival — an experience that for him is now a bittersweet memory.
JAPAN
May 6, 2009

Calls to revise organ law grow as lawmakers debate various plans

When Yasuto Katagiri asked New York's Columbia University in February to perform a heart transplant on Hoku, his 2-year-old son suffering from a rare form of heart disease called restrictive cardiomyopathy, the university had to turn him down because its 5 percent limit for accepting foreign transplant...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 5, 2009

Go with the flow at classic 'sento'

Not simply as a means to get clean, "sento," or public baths, have traditionally been places where communication flowed. Bathing and chatting together with one's friends and neighbors in the buff exemplifies the off-guardedness of the most informal relationships.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 5, 2009

Google crosses line with controversial old Tokyo maps

When Google Earth added historical maps of Japan to its online collection last year, the search giant didn't expect a backlash. The finely detailed woodblock prints have been around for centuries, they were already posted on another Web site, and a historical map of Tokyo put up in 2006 hadn't caused...
JAPAN
May 4, 2009

Experts say Japan can handle flu

While Japan has yet to see a confirmed case of swine flu, experts believe it won't be long before someone will be infected.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 3, 2009

SMAP star Kusanagi causes naked rage among media

Between the time the media first heard the news that SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi had been arrested for public indecency and his press conference the next day, there was a frisson of titillating anticipation over what the scandal might reveal and how Kusanagi would emerge from it. Even now, speculation...
JAPAN
May 2, 2009

Power struggle rages in North over Kim's heir

As succession speculation abounds amid reports of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's deteriorating health, a recently obtained confidential report has shed new light on a power struggle taking place in the reclusive state.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 1, 2009

Mexico and Japan make beautiful music together

I n September 1609, when a Mexican sailboat ran ashore in a typhoon near the village of Onjuku in today's Chiba Prefecture, local fishermen and ama (female divers) rescued 317 souls from the angry ocean. That was Japan's first contact with Mexican people.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2009

Food crisis still plagues Asia

BANGKOK — For 583 million people across Asia and the Pacific the financial crisis has become a food crisis. While food prices have fallen from last year's spike, they remain high. Rising unemployment and falling incomes are putting additional pressure on poor and vulnerable groups. More worrying still...
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2009

New flu fears

Global health officials are worried about the spread of a new flu that has killed some 150 people in recent weeks and has the potential to create a pandemic. This alarm confirms warnings that have been issued since the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak of 2003 — with two important differences:...
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Apr 28, 2009

Nagoya win limited lift for DPJ until Ozawa comes clean

Takashi Kawamura's landslide win Sunday in the Nagoya mayoral poll was a much-needed boost for the Democratic Party of Japan, whose image and reputation were badly damaged by the arrest in March of President Ichiro Ozawa's chief secretary over shady political donations.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Apr 28, 2009

Tokyo 2.0 a buzzing hub for online communities, entrepreneurs

For one night every month, Roppongi's artsy underground event space SuperDeluxe turns into a networking hub for the Internet junkies dwelling in the capital's vast urban sprawl.
EDITORIALS
Apr 26, 2009

90 million Japanese wired

Internet users in Japan topped 90 million at the end of 2008, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reported earlier this month. That means three out of four Japanese are communicating, shopping, reading or hanging out on the Internet. With Japan's advanced broadband and fiber-optic connections,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 25, 2009

Environmentalist David Suzuki has words of warning for ancestral homeland

Long before baseball's Ichiro moved to the northwest coast of the United States of America, another Suzuki had made a name for himself higher up, across the border in British Columbia, Canada. Dr. David Suzuki, environmentalist, scientist, TV producer and writer, was voted, in a nationwide poll in 2004,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2009

Tokyo by-law threatens freedoms

Street performances are fun for many people and give character to streets and communities such as Tokyo's Shibuya, Harajuku, Akihabara and Kichijoji areas. But now such activities may be restricted or banned due to a revision of the Tokyo metropolitan by-law for "the building of safe and secure communities,"...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2009

Machimura bides his time

Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura revealed that he has ambitions to someday lead the nation, but said that as chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction, his present role is to give full support to Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 24, 2009

Wishing Chong: from barbecue to demons

2008 was undoubtedly the year of "Yakiniku Dragon" ("Korean Barbecue Dragon"), a realistic, autobiographical work by the Korean-Japanese playwright Wishing Chong that premiered April 17 in the New National Theatre's Pit. When the curtain came down that night on the NNT/Seoul Arts Center collaboration...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2009

Interest in history, literature spawns tomb tours

Cemeteries are generally considered spooky and gloomy, which may explain why Japanese visit the graves of loved ones on few occasions yearly, such as on the anniversary of their deaths and during the spring and fall equinox.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 22, 2009

An era of translation by everybody, for everybody

The Internet has brought us closer together than ever before, or so the cliche goes. But has it really?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2009

JCP basks in discontent as faith in capitalism crumbles

Under a big red flag, the Japanese Communist Party's headquarters stand as the center of a vibrant grassroots movement.
Japan Times
Events / WHERE IT'S AT
Apr 21, 2009

Embassy officials brush up, show off Japanese skills

Once a year, embassy officials in Japan are given a chance to showcase their Japanese ability at the Japanese Speech Contest for Foreign Embassy Officials. This year's contest was held on April 11 in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward and, as always, the speeches were open to the public.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past