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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 7, 2007

The king of Kita Kyushu

Shinji Aoyama was in an up mood when The Japan Times met him at the office of his distributor, Style Jam. His new film, "Sad Vacation," opened the Horizons section at the Venice Film Festival last week, and though, when we met, he confessed himself nervous at the prospect of facing a foreign audience,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 6, 2007

China's image sinking fast

HONG KONG — Public opinion surveys taken in the United States and other countries around the world show that China's image has been badly dented in the wake of widespread reports of unsafe food, toxic toothpaste, dangerous toys and poisonous drugs.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 1, 2007

Adding insult to hot air at the Japanese BBQ

Some people blame global warming on farting cows, others blame it on farting vehicles. I blame it on Japanese BBQs.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 1, 2007

Manga magic from a girl who uses her melon

Worth a reported ¥500 billion every year, Japan's manga industry is a serious business. But not so for Saki Matsuzawa, a budding 12-year-old mangaka (comic book artist) who has created her own adorable interactive storybook, "Meron Pan no Ichi Nichi" (titled in English as "A Day of the Melon Bread"),...
MORE SPORTS
Sep 1, 2007

Women ready for marathon

OSAKA — Collectively, Japanese people will repeatedly utter "good luck" over and over again on Saturday morning for five women: Reiko Tosa, Yumiko Hara, Mari Ozaki, Yasuko Hashimoto and Kiyoko Shimahara.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 30, 2007

Reforming Aboriginal affairs

SYDNEY — A rush of reform bills through Parliament, a lockdown in Sydney for an APEC heads-of-state meeting, unseasonal storms sweeping across the whole continent — what's going on in Australia? Surely the signs of an knife-edge national election ahead.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 29, 2007

No failed doping tests so far

OSAKA — First the good news: As of 4 p.m. Monday, there had been no positive doping tests at the 11th IAAF World Athletics Championships.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 29, 2007

Worlds notebook; Day 4

OSAKA — News and notes from Day 4 of the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Champion ships.
EDITORIALS
Aug 29, 2007

Mr. Abe plays it safe

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who chose not to step down after his Liberal Democratic Party's devastating defeat in last month's Upper House election, reshuffled the LDP leadership and his Cabinet on Monday. Mr. Abe has at least two messages for the people: that his new Cabinet is reliable and stable, and...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2007

Nationwide quake alert in offing

It's still beyond the reach of science to predict exactly when an earthquake will strike, but Japan will soon get the next-best thing — televised warnings that come before the shaking starts.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 28, 2007

Worlds notebook; Day 3

OSAKA — News and notes from Day 3 of the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships.
COMMENTARY
Aug 28, 2007

Thai character trumps flaws of politics

LOS ANGELES — When social scientists or journalists are in doubt, sometimes it's best to consult the artist.
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

The quest for U.N. membership

On July 23, the U.N. Secretariat rejected Taiwan's application for U.N. membership. Four days later, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said "the position of the United Nations is that the People's Republic of China (PRC) represents the whole of China as the sole and legitimate representative government...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 26, 2007

Paranoid android Abe blind to reality when it comes to eye contact

Image and issues always compete for voters' attention on the campaign trail, with the former usually winning. A successful candidate is the one who uses the media most effectively in shaping an image that's acceptable to more people than the next candidate's. Issues, on the other hand, have become more...
EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2007

Thailand approves a constitution

Last Sunday, Thai voters approved a new constitution. The expected result clears the way for national elections later this year. But the military-installed government should not exaggerate the meaning of this vote. It is a vote for a constitution, not a particular government. The election that should...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 25, 2007

A sprint to keep up with the slow life

The people who work in our post office are, to use the politically correct term, "a little slow." Long before I moved to this island, the government had a plan that worked. They sent those workers who were "a little slow," to work on a small island where hardly anyone one lived and where they could do...
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2007

The unending humanitarian nightmare

NEW YORK — In August 2002, Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser under Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, wrote a prescient article in The Wall Street Journal warning of the dire consequences of invading Iraq. His predictions are confirmed in a new report by Oxfam, the British aid agency...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 24, 2007

'Sicko'

In the space of merely a few years, director Michael Moore has seen his reputation morph from "the guy who made documentary films truly popular" to "the guy who plays fast and loose with the truth." His moment of greatest triumph at the box office — "Fahrenheit 9/11," which raked in some $120 million,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2007

Something's up as 'buy' confidence slips

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut — The sharp drop in the world's stock markets on Aug. 9 — after BNP Paribas announced that it would freeze three of its funds — is just one more example of the markets' recent downward instability or asymmetry. The markets have been more vulnerable to sudden large drops than...
Reader Mail
Aug 19, 2007

U.S. whitewash of the bombings

Regarding Arnie Hove's Aug. 5 letter, "An apology from one American": I wish more Americans shared his view about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Having grown up in Hiroshima, I feel compelled at this time of the year to ask ordinary Americans how they view the use of the bombs.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 19, 2007

When the way of the 'samurai' was pointless self-annihilation

Before the war there was a famous woman commonly referred to as Mrs. Inoue, though after the war people stopped talking about her.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Aug 18, 2007

JBA needs to give Suzuki more time to turn national team around

Continuity helps breed success. Without it, a sports team rarely finds the necessary components — leadership, in-game chemistry and mastering the fundamentals — to become an elite team.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2007

Roh's trip to Pyongyang puts three scenarios in play

WASHINGTON — There is much speculation about what President Roh Moo Hyun will do when he meets North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang during Aug. 28-30.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Aug 17, 2007

Journalism in the service of war authority

Kanji Murakami began his reporting career in January 1941, joining the Asahi Shimbun's bureau in Seoul, or Keijo as it was then known, when the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule.
Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Aug 16, 2007

How the Net made a bedroom rapper a star in Japan

The Acid Panda Cafe, an underground hip-hop club in Tokyo, is packed. The show is sold out. The racial makeup of the crowd is virtually all Japanese, except for the four African-Americans who hit the stage at 1 a.m. and launch into spirited rhyme. The words, inexplicably, are Japanese.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2007

Kin of war dead protest Yasukuni visits

People who lost relatives during the war and are against politicians' visits to Yasukuni Shrine gathered Wednesday in Tokyo to confirm their commitment to protecting the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9.

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