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Mar 18, 2007

Golden girl Arakawa retains passion after Olympic glory

Time flies when you are on top of the world.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 18, 2007

As London shows, assimilation is what migration's about

LONDON -- I have been coming to this city every few years for more than four decades, and this visit, of 10 days' duration, has, in some ways, been the most startling. Not that the mid-Sixties weren't. The Beatles, with every challenge to staid British routine that they personified, were in the ascendancy...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 18, 2007

'I did it my way' -- 'Hey, stop! You do it my way 'cos I wrote the damn song!'

These days, a news report just isn't a news report without three or four men bowing in front of reporters over some misdemeanor.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 13, 2007

Japan is obliged to accept refugees, so why so few?

In 1981, Japan signed the U.N. 1951 Conventions Relating to the Status of Refugees and in 1982, it inked the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees and enacted the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law. Signatories are obliged to give refugees due recognition and protect their basic...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 11, 2007

What will happen to all that Japanese boomers' cash?

Hurry! Don't miss out! Yamaha, the giant musical-instrument manufacturer, is offering three-month ukulele courses! Or, the more adventurous can avail themselves of the services of travel agents at JTB who are promoting a six-day tour -- or an eight-day rongubakeeshon (long vacation) tour of Hawaii, where...
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2007

China acknowledges a gap

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's announcement at the National People's Congress that gross domestic product is targeted to grow by about 8 percent in 2007, down from at least 10 percent during the four previous years, not only reflects an attempt to prevent economic overheating but also points to the Chinese...
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2007

Aussie skiers spark land boom in Niseko

"When I started the business, people told me 'Ben, you're crazy, it's too expensive,' " he said. "But our buyers were saying the opposite: 'Ben, you're crazy. Why is it so cheap?' " suggesting properties in the area are still underpriced compared with overseas ski resorts.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2007

Realizing the potential of an aging society

Japanese society stands on the cusp of change. Starting from this year, large numbers of the postwar baby-boom generation will reach retirement age -- the so-called "2007 problem." The country's over-65 population already stands at 25.6 million, more than 20 percent of the total, and this percentage...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 8, 2007

Top-selling author Atwood: sometimes caustic, never without cause

She enjoys immense popularity in Japan. Twelve of her books have been translated into Japanese and more are on the way. But internationally acclaimed Canadian author Margaret Atwood wasn't in Japan recently to promote a new book. She was here to look at birds.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2007

Overcoming Africa's north-south divide

PRAGUE -- The late President Mobutu Sese Seko of former Zaire once declared that the north African countries, which pride themselves on their Arabic descent, should be excluded from the then Organization of African Unity.
COMMENTARY
Mar 6, 2007

Russia set to break the ice

TORONTO -- You probably missed it. With the new year focus on America's continued efforts to deal with U.S. President George W. Bush's three "evils" -- Iraq, Iran and North Korea -- you probably were not aware of the potential long-term international consequences of a speech by a Russian minister in...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 3, 2007

Ex-pat on a mission of life-saving dimensions

In 1982, I was successfully treated for cervical cancer. At that time I had little idea that my tumor was linked to sexually transmitted disease. Thanks to American Carol Baird -- who says that as a survivor I am one of the lucky ones -- I now know better.
JAPAN / WHEN A CITY GOES BUST
Mar 2, 2007

Once Tokyo's spa playground, Atami fading fast

ATAMI, Shizuoka Pref. -- Tamae "Meme" Ono remembers fondly the late 1980s when the hot spring resort of Atami was a glamorous place to be.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 1, 2007

Scriptwriter talks about Japan hit 'Letters'

Scriptwriting is something seemingly everyone in Hollywood does, from cab drivers to this year's Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres, who jokingly presented director Martin Scorsese with a script during the telecast. But the percentage of first-time scriptwriters who succeed in getting a feature film made is...
LIFE / Language
Feb 27, 2007

Wisdom, logic behind sayings strikingly alike

On my first trip to the former Soviet Union in 1964, I heard the Russian proverb, "A word is not a sparrow. Having flown out, you cannot catch it."
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Law and disorder

I was surprised when Jaime Xavier Lopez, the head of Sacred Heart, a notorious "martial-arts" group, told me to meet him at the government's Office of Cadastral Surveys and Property, where he has his day job. Or that's where he did work, since he is now imprisoned.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Japanese NGOs focus on relief, reconciliation -- and coffee co-operatives

The violent troubles in 2006 drove many staff of Japanese nongovern- mental organizations out of East Timor. The NGOs I visited had modest offices and accommodations, and the staff lived frugally -- unlike the "lords of poverty" I have encountered elsewhere in the international development community....
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Back into the vortex?

East Timor is an ill-starred land that has endured more than its share of violence, neglect and deprivation.
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2007

Airports foretell the future

LONDON -- It is at airports that one can tell that most of East Asia is merging into one gigantic business and market entity, a crisscrossed latticework flow of people, goods, ideas, lifestyles, relationships -- of such size, speed and intensity that it is beyond the power of any governments to check...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2007

A spiritual conversation

The foreign music press has a weakness for weird Japanese music.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2007

'Secrets' with a public interest

The Self-Defense Forces' investigation of an SDF member in connection with a news report of an accident in a Chinese Navy submarine in 2005 raises concerns regarding people's right to know and the freedom of the press. It could lead to limits on basic rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution....
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2007

Two years down the road, Nepali cyclist wheels solo through Japan

country and to the public," Chhetri said. "I have no academic skills, but I was confident in my physical strength. . . . So I did what I could do -- ride my bicycle to tell the world about Nepal, and to learn about the world from other countries." Why a bicycle? Chhetri said he couldn't afford a car...
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2007

New hearts for dying cities

The current economic recovery in Japan has been marred by imbalances. One imbalance is between the corporate and household sectors. While the corporate sector is prospering, much of the household sector is missing out on the fruit of the nation's longest postwar economic expansion. Stagnant wage growth...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 20, 2007

TV shows spur 'health' food fads

How many people would believe a doctor who says eating two packages of natto fermented soybeans every day helps you lose weight?
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2007

Rainy Tokyo Marathon draws 30,000 from around the world

time limit of seven hours. I wish I could run." The participants were picked by lot after 95,000 people applied for one of the largest marathons in Asia.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 18, 2007

'Africans in Japan' . . . not from the quill of Ishihara, thank God

Last week, The Japan Times ran a Bloomberg interview with Shintaro Ishihara in which the proudly provocative Tokyo governor followed up his contention that foreigners were behind the city's rising crime rate. He challenged his interviewers to go to Roppongi and see for themselves. "Africans -- and I...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 18, 2007

Close your eyes, count to 10 . . . and play to your heart's content

It seems only natural that everyone should have a wild time, at least once in their life, because for the most part our mortal span is occupied with studying, making a living or raising a family. All that, of course, can be fun -- but it tends to be rather serious stuff as well.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 16, 2007

'Dreamgirls'

The life of a wedding DJ is not easy, as I learned in my short and inglorious stab at that profession some years ago. It is not easy to please at the same time the boomer wanting The Eagles, the grandma wanting Glen Miller, and the sullen teen demanding Ozzie, especially when they're all drunk. But there...

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