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Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2008

Living amid nuclear danger

Regarding the Aug. 19 article "Latest 'Indy' film's nuke blast scene irks some": The rest of the world is not trying to ban nuclear weapons or move away from them as the article suggests. Russia and China are most likely increasing their arsenals; Iran is actively pursuing nuclear capability; and Georgia,...
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2008

World gives Russia an unfair rap

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is an intelligent woman. So how can she possibly want to tell the world that Russia's response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia resembled the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2008

'Parallel Worlds'

Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2008

New 'Tang' Dynasty for rapidly rising China?

PRAGUE — On Aug. 8 the world watched with awe the amazing spectacle of the Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing. We saw the electronic unrolling of Chinese scrolls replete with great historic symbols and were mesmerized by dancers creating "harmony," using their bodies as ink brushes. Two thousand...
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2008

Rural welcome is not automatic

One factor that should not be overlooked in reviving rural communities in Japan is rural people's resistance to new people moving in. And I don't just mean to foreigners! Rural people also consider Japanese "I-turn" and "U-turn" people as outsiders. Acceptance in rural communities cannot be taken for...
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2008

Star-code ratings stretch logic

Sorry to say, The Japan Times film review page doesn't make sense. On Aug. 15, for example, reviewer Kaori Shoji found the flick "Sex and the City" to be "troubling, overly long, contrived, unnecessarily fussed at, impossibly cumbersome, excessive." She trashed it. Yet, it received a three-star rating...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2008

Betting on Beijing

In late April this year, two Tokyo galleries set up shop in Beijing just in time for the Olympic fervor, believing that Beijing, rather than Tokyo, was the place to bring contemporary Japanese art to an international audience. Sueo Mitsuma of Mizuma Gallery in Nakameguro opened Mizuma & One and Yumie...
CULTURE / Film
Aug 21, 2008

Christian Bale: a peek behind the Dark Knight's mask

Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Travelers turning to highway buses to save on fares

At a time when food prices are on the rise and income levels remain flat, it's not easy finding the money for shinkansen tickets, which cost ¥13,240 per person for a nonreserved seat from Tokyo to Osaka.
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2008

Natural way to divide the world

In his Aug. 5 article "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " Debito Arudou claims that the word "gaijin" is essentially the same as "n--ger" and should be made obsolete. He adds that the word gaijin lacks the meaning of "extra-national." I found this explanation absurd.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 21, 2008

A linguistic boxing match from a true classic

Internationally acclaimed English theater director David Leveaux first visited Japan 20 years ago as the substitute director of "Dangerous Liaisons" after an English colleague had to pull out. Now Leveaux, 50, is back in his second home after a bewildering series of trips from his London base to Vienna,...
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2008

ODA and bribery

The special investigation squad of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has arrested a former president of Pacific Consultants International, a Tokyo-based consultancy for overseas construction projects, and three others on suspicion of bribery in connection with a project in Vietnam financed...
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Mercedes thinks small, upgrades hatchbacks

Mercedes-Benz Japan Co. launched two upgraded versions of its hatchback compacts Wednesday that boast better fuel efficiency to meet rising demand for environment-friendly vehicles.
Reader Mail
Aug 21, 2008

Helping those closest to us

Regarding Roger Pulvers' Aug. 17 article, "There's a lot to learn from the life and times of Beate Sirota Gordon": Thank you for an inspiring article! I had read about Beate Sirota Gordon in her book, "The Only Woman in the Room," which moved me to actually read the full Japanese Constitution in English...
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2008

Georgian ambassador asks Japan to act

To achieve peace and stability in Georgia, Japan should increase the pressure on Moscow to end its occupation of the sovereign state, Georgian Ambassador to Japan Ivane Matchavariani said Wednesday in Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Japan to market mobile tech abroad

Japan will start an aggressive push to market its mobile technology abroad, especially the popular "wallet phone," a government official said.
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Aeon Mall to build near stations

Aeon Mall Co., a unit of supermarket chain Aeon Co., plans to open most of its new shopping centers near train stations to lure shoppers driving less because of higher fuel costs.
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2008

Prevention of suicides

The Diet in 2006 enacted a basic law to help prevent suicides. And in 2007 the Cabinet adopted the goal of reducing the number of suicides per 100,000 people by 20 percent by 2016 from the level of 2005.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2008

Shirakawa moves to demystify BOJ

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa, after four months on the job, is making one of the world's most opaque major central banks more transparent.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person