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EDITORIALS
Aug 11, 2008

Entity to change its spots

The pension-related functions of the Social Insurance Agency will be taken over by a new organization in January 2010. The organization will have to solve problems related to pension records. The government should take utmost care to ensure that the new body can fulfill its tasks.
EDITORIALS
Aug 11, 2008

Obtuse to a radiation leak

The actions of the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Foreign Ministry concerning the possible leak of radioactive water from a nuclear-powered submarine during its port calls in Japan in March and April show that they lack sensitivity to the concerns of Japanese citizens.
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Aug 11, 2008

Beijing squeezed by Olympic ideals, populist distortions

When the Olympic games were awarded to Beijing in 2001, more than a few questions were raised about the host country. It was clear from the start that China was not just making a bid to host a sporting event — it was claiming a place in the developed world.
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS: JUDO
Aug 10, 2008

Tani falls short in quest for gold

Her fighting spirit never wavered and her effort was never less than stellar, but judoka Ryoko Tani came up short in Beijing on Saturday in her quest to capture a third straight Olympic gold medal.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2008

Disturbing reasons to put a nation to death

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y. — Belgium is in danger of falling apart. For more than six months, the country has been unable to form a government that is able to unite the French-speaking Walloons (32 percent of the population) and Dutch-speaking Flemish (58 percent). The Belgian monarch, Albert II, is...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2008

Russia's convertible icon

MOSCOW — Prophets, it is said, are supposed to be without honor in their homeland. Yet Moscow has just witnessed the extraordinary sight of Alexander Solzhenitsyn — the dissident and once-exiled author of the "Gulag Archipelago" and "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" receiving what amounts...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Rising to India's energy demands

The Aug. 6 editorial, "Nonproliferation Spluttering," contains discrepancies with regard to India's civilian nuclear-use agreement with the United States. First, India has, since the inception of the Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, opposed discrimination against nonnuclear...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Few more details about Yasukuni

Regarding the Aug. 5 article "Yasukuni in spotlight as Aug. 15 nears": I would like to point out a couple of inaccuracies in an otherwise very informative and balanced presentation by writer Masami Ito. The first and most important one concerns the "1978 enshrinement of the 14 wartime leaders convicted...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / JAPAN NATIONAL BASEBALL TEAM
Aug 10, 2008

Japan routed by CL squad in final tuneup

Japan's final Olympic tuneup featured a team that put on a gold medal-worthy performance both at the plate and on the mound on Saturday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 10, 2008

Too many Israelis want to cling to a paradox

LONDON — "I am proud to be a citizen of a country where the prime minister can be investigated like an ordinary citizen," said Ehud Olmert on July 30, announcing that he would resign as prime minister in September to defend himself against corruption allegations. He should be even prouder: Three of...
OLYMPICS
Aug 10, 2008

Important message not quite lost in translation

BEIJING — Olympic blunder No. 1: For any writer making his first trip to the Olympics, the individual will make his/her share of silly mistakes: getting from Point A to Point B in time, misreading the event schedules, etc.
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Aug 10, 2008

Nakamura's decision to stay with Celtic proved a wise move in the end

Anyone following the saga of quarterback Brett Favre could be forgiven for thinking that athletes care little for their legacy, but not all sportsmen are prepared to gamble with their reputation.
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Unlikely material for a revolution

Let me add a little historical context to Debito Arudou's ludicrous comparison of the white man in Japan with the black man in the United States. Long-standing racism in America begat the civil rights' marches and Martin Luther King, the Black Panthers, the Watts riots, the Last Poets, etc. As well,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Aug 10, 2008

Fiat's 'Bambina': a 'small car with a big heart'

Japan makes plenty of fun little cars, but it is far from having a monopoly on the aesthetic.
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Japan has a responsibility

I grieve, as all Americans do, for all the innocent Japanese civilians that were killed during World War II. They were the victims of the Imperial Japanese Army's and the government's warlords lust for power and its arrogant use at the expense of the Japanese people. But before Japan can condemn the...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 10, 2008

China remembers John Rabe, its own local Schindler

John Rabe (1882-1950), known as the Oscar Schindler of China, was an employee of Siemens and a Nazi party member when he helped establish the International Safety Zone (ISZ) toward the end of 1937 to provide a refuge for Nanjing's noncombatants.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 10, 2008

Sharing Japanese poetry with the rest of the world

THE RABBIT IN THE MOON/TSUKI NO USAGI by Kayoko Hashimoto. Kadokawa-shoten, 2007, 260 pp., ¥2,667 (cloth) EARTH PILGRIMAGE/PELLEGRINO TERRESTRE/CHIKYU JUNREI by Ban'ya Natsuishi, English translations by the author and Jim Kacian, Italian by Luca Toma. Milan, Italy: Albalibre, 2007, 146 pp., 10.00 euro...
LIFE
Aug 10, 2008

Some look forward to a harmonious future

The following is from the text of an e-mail sent to Jeff Kingston from Cindy Yang, a Chinese university student.

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