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EDITORIALS
Jun 23, 2008

Building an eco-friendly society

The government's 2008 white paper on the environment deals with the transition to a low-carbon and recycling society. In view of the expiration in 2012 of the Kyoto Protocol, it stresses the need to build a post-Kyoto framework under which all major greenhouse gas-emitting countries strive to curb emissions....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 22, 2008

Lame conclusions about U.S. occupations

NEW YORK, SPECIAL TO THE J (AP) Lately South Koreans' view of the United States has improved as the Obama-Clinton contest showed the possibility of ending the Bush-Republican Iraq war and halting the destruction of American democracy. Now, South Koreans are rebelling against President Lee Myung Bak,...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Jun 22, 2008

Aoshima provides enthusiastic analysis for Japan's hoops fans

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which wrapped up its third season in May.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Jun 22, 2008

Suguri turns to Morozov in attempt to regain form

In an effort to reignite her career, five-time Japan national champion Fumie Suguri has joined forces with coach Nikolai Morozov, the man who led Shizuka Arakawa to the gold medal at the 2006 Olympic Games and Miki Ando to the 2007 world championship.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Childhood lifestyles exact penalty

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of potential (killers) in Japan today like the 25-year-old who ran amok with a knife in Tokyo's Akihabara district June 8. It is high time that we stop ignoring the problem: Japanese children and young adults have reached the edge of mental breakdown.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Witness to 9/11 flight debris

Regarding John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article, "(Japanese) Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global": The plane (Flight 767) did not "vaporize" as some say. The plane broke into thousands of small and large pieces and were clearly visible to all of us there that day. They were collected piece by piece in...
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Japanese-Korean language link

Reiji Yoshida's assertion in the June 17 article "How hard is it really to learn Japanese?" that Okinawan (Ryukyuan) is the only language "with a demonstrable connection to Japanese" is mistaken. While Okinawan is certainly the closest relative, the split occurring around 1,700 years ago, the affinity...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 22, 2008

Countryside games offer charming change of pace

FUKUSHIMA — I am writing this column on June 17 at the Yomiuri Giants-Orix Buffaloes interleague game at Azuma Stadium in Fukushima Prefecture, north of Tokyo. It is one of seven regular-season games the Giants will have played this year at countryside ballparks, and have you ever wondered why they...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 22, 2008

Grounded rulers of the sky

His sharp, calm gaze follows yet another aircraft swooping down from the cloudless sky, its tires screeching in clouds of blue smoke as it returns to Earth on Haneda's concrete runway. One more flight successfully completed, he thinks — and now the next.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2008

Nobel laureate raps Japan for avoiding midterm carbon goal

YOKOHAMA — Japan's reasons for not committing to a medium-term target for cutting carbon emissions are "unfounded," the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told The Japan Times on Saturday.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 22, 2008

Giants triumph over Hawks in 12th inning

Takuya Kimura hit a two-run, "sayonara" single with no outs in the 12th inning to lead the Yomiuri Giants to a 3-2 victory over the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks at Tokyo Dome.
BUSINESS
Jun 22, 2008

Sanyo offers to fix 880,000 ovens

Sanyo Electric Co. will offer free repairs for more than 880,000 microwave ovens sold in Japan to fix a wiring flaw that might cause a fire.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 22, 2008

Suzuki's double lifts A's in 11th

OAKLAND AP — Kurt Suzuki's knee was throbbing. So was his foot, painful reminders of the foul balls that that hit off his body earlier in the night.
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 2008

Uphold disabled people's rights

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities took effect May 3 — 30 days after it received its 20th ratification (April 3). So far, 27 countries have ratified the convention, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and promotes their social participation.
LIFE / Travel
Jun 22, 2008

In the footsteps of Dylan Thomas

SWANSEA, Wales — Thursday night in Swansea and it's a full house. Outside, it's the kind of night that Dylan Thomas would have described as "starless and Bible black." Inside, text-messaging teenagers and polite pensioners count the seconds to the interval and the ritual stampede for ice-cream as the...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 22, 2008

An impressionable connoisseur of cultures

TRAVELS IN THE EAST by Donald Richie, with a foreword by Stephen Mansfield. Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2007, 180 pp., $14.95 (paper) Donald Richie continues to write learnedly, wittily and insightfully about Japan, of whose culture he is one of the world's greatest interpreters. Readers...
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

India, China do not act alone

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's June 18 article, Is the India and China hype true?": India and China do not act alone in challenging the two-century-old Western domination of the world. Indeed, they have history on their side, but they also have strong, dynamic partners. They belong to the BRIC (Brazil,...
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Kids love stories, even in English

Every time I read a letter arguing that the lack of skilled linguists among staff is reason enough not to offer foreign languages at the primary school level in Japan, I wonder if the authors have noticed the polychromatic pachyderm peering over their shoulders as they write.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 22, 2008

Fortune-teller detective mystery, manga drama of the business world, Ethiopia trivia special

Misuzu Maruyama (Kumiko Okae) is one of Ginza's most popular street fortunetellers, but she's also an amateur detective. In the two-hour mystery special "Uranaishi Misuzu Jiken wa Unmei no Kanata ni (Fortune Teller Misuzu's Incidents Are Beyond Fate)" (TBS, Monday, 9 p.m.), Misuzu plies her trade in...

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