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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2009

Choosing the slow lane en route to free trade

LONDON, INTERNATIONAL POLICY NETWORK — This week India and South Korea sign an agreement that they say will reduce barriers and boost trade between our two important economies. But the reality of the Comprehensive Economic Partnership (CEPA) is in the fine print.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 7, 2009

Surf Kamakura's spicy Asian turf

A chilled bottle of Singha beer forms a ring of condensation on the table. The heady aromas of fried garlic, lemongrass and curry spices waft from the kitchen in the corner of the wooden hut. Two waitresses gossip in Thai.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2009
Aug 6, 2009

DPJ poll win would set up battle with bloated bureaucracy

First in a series
Reader Mail
Aug 6, 2009

Beware the JR 'delay' clause

This subject will be of special interest to foreign tourists visiting Japan using the JR Rail Pass. We obtained a 21-day JR Pass on the day we arrived, July 1. On the last day of validity, July 21, we were traveling from Oita via Kokura, Osaka, Tokyo to Narita airport in order to take our return flight...
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2009

Uncertainty remains over NUMMI plant's fate

Despite Toyota Motor Corp.'s improved earnings forecast announced Tuesday for the current business year, the automaker still needs to overcome a major hurdle — the planned shutdown of a plant in California, the second largest in the U.S.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 4, 2009

Strict rules in play to keep campaigning above board

Since Prime Minister Taro Aso dissolved the Lower House last month and announced Aug. 18 would be the official start of campaigning for the Aug. 30 general election, hundreds of undeclared candidates have been making the rounds to attract voters.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2009

Those off lay judge hook feel relieved

Relief was the overriding emotion of the candidates who weren't picked in a final lottery draw Monday to participate in the first criminal trial under the new lay judge system.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2009

DPJ sees no problem with dollar reserves

The Democratic Party of Japan shouldn't follow a push by China to diversify foreign-currency reserves away from the dollar if it wins this month's election, DPJ Policy Chief Masayuki Naoshima said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 1, 2009

Baseball expert lines up new book on mobsters in Japan

Robert Whiting is best known as an expert on baseball. But he's much more than that. He's also an expert on mobsters in Japan and the sound a radar site makes when it is "spotted" by a U2 spy plane.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2009

'Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian'

What to say about "Night At The Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" (opening locally as "Night Museum 2"), the latest outbreak of Hollywood sequelitis? Well, I can tell you with all confidence that leading man Ben Stiller is just as funny here as he was in "Meet The Parents 2" or "Madagascar 2." Or that...
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2009

Next word on intervention

WATERLOO, Ontario — The 1990s was a decade of conscience-shocking atrocities in Rwanda, the Balkans and East Timor. Unilateral actions by India and Vietnam to end atrocities in the 1970s had drawn international opprobrium and condemnation. The crises of the 1990s provoked agonized soul-searching on...
JAPAN / PARTY POWERS
Jul 29, 2009

New Komeito chief slams DPJ policies, rules out alliance

Citing the Democratic Party of Japan's "unreliable" policies, New Komeito chief Akihiro Ota says joining hands with the DPJ is unlikely even if the largest opposition force wins the Aug. 30 election.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2009

DPJ's election promises

The Democratic Party of Japan has announced its manifesto for the Aug. 30 Lower House election. It has two pillars: scheduled measures to directly help households and steps to end bureaucracy-led politics.
COMMENTARY
Jul 29, 2009

Don't waste good intentions

When I read former Vice Foreign Minister Ryohei Murata's remarks in the newspaper, disclosing a secret agreement on port visits by U.S. ships carrying nuclear weapons, I was excited and hopeful that there would be new developments on this issue.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2009

New ambassador ready

When U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Mr. John V. Roos as the next American ambassador to Japan, some Japanese were apparently perplexed because the California-based lawyer was almost unknown to them and a Washington "Beltway" outsider.
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2009

Foreign reserves to stay in dollars: DPJ's Okada

The Democratic Party of Japan has no plans to diversify the country's foreign reserves away from the dollar if it wins next month's election, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada said.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 28, 2009

Japan's funerals deep-rooted mix of ritual, form

Funerals in Japan incorporate a unique mixture of religion, tradition, culture, ritual and geography that to the outsider may appear perplexing.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 27, 2009

Dollar beauty may be fading but it still tops currency pageant list

The Group of Eight countries and the outreach participants in the July 8-10 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, discussed promotion of an international currency system that is stable and functions well. But it remains an elusive goal to find concrete ways of reforming the system.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 26, 2009

China vets shock archivist with 'horrible things they did'

In 1999, Sinitirou Kumagai dropped out of university, got on his motorbike and set out to begin what he now calls his "life work" — traveling from one end of Japan to the other to record the testimonies of former soldiers stationed in China between the 1930s and the end of World War II in 1945.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years