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EDITORIALS
Mar 19, 2008

Sacrifices for rehabilitation

One year has passed since the effectively bankrupt city of Yubari in Hokkaido began a special fiscal rehabilitation process under the internal affairs ministry's supervision. It must repay ¥35.3 billion debts by the end of fiscal 2024. In the first year, it repaid about ¥1.5 billion as required. But...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Mar 18, 2008

Pocket bells

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 18, 2008

Figuring out 'cleaning fees'

Years ago, when a friend of mine was preparing to move back home to Los Angeles, I helped her clean her rented studio apartment in Tokyo. Shoving aside a pile of books, clothes and various other kinds of clutter, we wiped the wood floor, scrubbed the bathtub and polished the kitchen sink. We spent almost...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 18, 2008

Hey grandma, thanks for all your genmai grub

'Shoku wa inochi! (Food is life itself)' was one of my grandmother's maxims, which when I was growing up, I was never able to fathom.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 16, 2008

Hope for Burmese reconciliation

PERFECT HOSTAGE: Aung San Suu Kyi and the Generals, by Justin Wintle. London: Arrow Books, 2007, 464 pp., £8.95 (paper) In January, Aung San Suu Kyi, 62, voiced her growing frustration with the lack of progress in "national reconciliation" talks with the ruling military junta, the State Peace and Development...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 16, 2008

Nature documentary, candid camera reality, history documentary

With every passing day, scientists learn more about the Earth's past, but the future always remains a mystery. Is the extinction of species being accelerated by mankind, or is it part of nature's plan?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2008

Blood Red Shoes

After their respective bands broke up in 2004, guitarist Laura-Mary Carter and drummer Steven Ansell of Brighton, England, started jamming and decided to form a band, which they named Blood Red Shoes. Swearing they would always be "just two people" dedicated to the principles if not always the specific...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2008

Nemuro faces fisheries-conservation dilemma

NEMURO, Hokkaido — Despite requests by a committee of UNESCO and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, fishery associations in Nemuro remain baffled by the idea of safeguarding their traditional foe.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 12, 2008

Food for thought in our ways of seeing

W hen the famed Michelin food guide belatedly reached Asia recently, it seemed to make up for lost time, awarding more of its coveted stars to restaurants in Tokyo than are held by restaurants in New York and Paris combined. About time, too.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Mar 12, 2008

Black-faced spoonbill

* Japanese name: Kurotsura-herasagi * Scientific name: Platalea minor * Description: A large, white, striking bird with a black face and bill, and black legs. The bill is the most distinctive feature, being wider at the tip than in the middle, with a flattened end like a paddle or a spoon. The long...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2008

Witness recalls day of Nagai shooting

Photojournalist Adrees Latif, who took pictures of Japanese video journalist Kenji Nagai after he was gunned down last year in Myanmar by a junta soldier during a crackdown on demonstrators, on Monday recounted events leading up to the killing.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 11, 2008

The lowest form of flattery?

In order to avoid the entry of terrorists into Japan, it has been decided to impose fingerprinting and photography at immigration.' So begins the Foreign Ministry video explaining the November changes to the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 9, 2008

Crown Prince could lead the way in effort for mutt emancipation

Next month, the environment ministry and the health ministry will jointly implement a new law that provides subsidies to local government health centers for the feeding of abandoned or captured dogs and cats. The money is designed to make it possible for these centers to take care of the animals an extra...
Japan Times
LIFE / COSPLAY CULTURE
Mar 9, 2008

Fashion fantasies come to life in cosplay

Silver wig, blue contact lenses, a mock sword and a (kind of) knight's costume.
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2008

Wanted: more volunteer firefighters

Community-based fire brigades called "shobodan," composed of ordinary citizens, play an important role in firefighting and fire prevention. But the number of shobodan members has been declining. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency in January started a three-month campaign to encourage citizens to...
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Mar 7, 2008

Survivor still haunted by night's fiery terror

Sixteenth in a series
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League / 2008 J. LEAGUE PREVIEW
Mar 6, 2008

Consadole shoot for immediate success in top division

The legacy of the 2002 World Cup has given many Japanese cities state-of-the-art stadiums, and Sapporo is no different.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 5, 2008

In praise of the 'mountain whale'

Not long after I arrived in Tokyo for the first time in October 1962, Klaus Naumann — a childhood friend from Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, in the rural southwest of England, who had come to Japan ahead of me (and is still here) — took me on a magical trip to the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture....
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 5, 2008

Easy-to-listen-to hits, soccer memories

Proven brand: Picking genuine designer goods from increasingly sophisticated ripoffs is tough. So Hitachi and printing maestro Toppan next month bring to Japan a high-tech method for seeing beyond the label. The IC Hologram is an RFID (radio-frequency identification) tag with a special hologram etched...
Reader Mail
Mar 4, 2008

Taking matters in her own hands

This year I experienced my first Japanese Valentine's Day. More than two weeks before the event, I was looking forward to it with confident anticipation. This year I wouldn't sit around waiting for some guy to extend romantic greetings. I would make chocolates for all the boys in my office, and for...
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2008

Preventing forced confessions

False charges leveled in a 2002 rape and attempted rape in Toyama Prefecture and the acquittal of all defendants of vote-buying allegations in the 2003 Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly election were widely reported in 2007 and caused controversy.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Mar 2, 2008

Evessa's 3-point ace Nakamura fulfills dream as pro player

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Naoto Nakamura of the Osaka Evessa is the subject of this week's profile.

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