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LIFE
Nov 28, 2010

Summiteering with Nobel peace laureates

Hiroshima is a beautiful city with cute trams cruising along its tree-lined streets.
Japan Times
LIFE
Nov 28, 2010

The Rita Taketsuru Fan Club

In January 2001, I was riding a single-car train through Hokkaido ski-country when a blizzard swept in without warning and stopped us dead on our tracks. It was 11 a.m. but the snow clotted the windows dark and the wind rocked us so hard it felt as if we would tip over.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 28, 2010

Veering off the path of mutually assured destruction

As individuals, we usually recognize when we're heading off in the wrong direction and then have the good sense to get ourselves back on the right track.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2010

The Caucasus imperative in summit season

YEREVAN, Armenia — Following the Group of 20 meetings in Seoul and the NATO summit in Portugal, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will hold its first summit in 10 years in Astana, Kazakhstan's spanking new capital city.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2010

For a fairer, more unwieldy Security Council

UNITED NATIONS — Reform and redesign of the U.N. Security Council has long been on the diplomatic drawing boards. Few countries will argue against the necessity for that, but most balk at the specific details.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 26, 2010

AZZXSSS "Deepsketch"

Few people are more aware of the potential of high-quality dubstep collaborations than the guys behind Hydra Records. The Japanese label, still in its infancy, scored a massive coup in September when they secured Japanese distribution of the latest album by dubstep pioneer Skream (who also experienced...
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2010

Let's hope Obama wins New START gamble

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama's decision to press for ratification of the New START treaty between Russia and the United States is one that will have a lasting influence on the rest of his presidency.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2010

Japanese open about being part of Sea Shepherd crew

For Kuniko Oyakawa, that cetaceans may be more intelligent than, say, cows, pigs or chickens is not why she opposes whaling — she is against eating any wild creature.
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2010

Japan's declining prestige

LONDON — Japan's prestige abroad has continued to decline despite the change from the clapped out Liberal Democratic Party with its series of old hack prime ministers to a government led by the Democratic Party of Japan. Foreign observers thought that surely a DPJ government must represent a change...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 21, 2010

Icon's advice on Japan's plight may not be everyone's cup of tea

One of the immutable principles of cosmology states that wherever you are in the universe, everything appears to be streaming away from you. This certainly seems to be the case with Japan.
COMMENTARY
Nov 21, 2010

To fold on rights is not an option

LONDON — In his recently published self-justifying and self-congratulatory memoir "Decision Points," former U.S. president George W. Bush declared that the waterboarding of al-Qaida suspects, which he had authorized, was justified because the information obtained from the suspects had been instrumental...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 21, 2010

'Freeter' drama reflects Japan's income gap

The American media keeps wondering whether or not the United States will have to endure a "lost decade" of sluggish growth and stagnant employment like the one Japan suffered through after the real-estate bubble burst in the early 1990s. It seems unlikely. The American economy is dynamic while Japan's...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 21, 2010

'Evacuate' to whole new worlds

In the foyers of theaters in Tokyo's new "happening" hub of Ikebukuro — where the provocative Festival/Tokyo (F/T) drama event is running through November — odd exchanges can often be overheard.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2010

Beijing conspiracy, New York villainy

CURE, by Robin Cook. Putnam, 2010,
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2010

UNHCR chief praises asylum system's meaningful progress

Japan's acceptance of asylum-seekers has made meaningful progress, including its serving as a trial "third country" in a United Nations-promoted trial resettlement program, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said Thursday in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2010

'Yukizuri no Machi (Strangers in the City)'

Japanese films targeted at adult men, particularly those made by Toei, often have a dark, heavy, turbulent quality. Japanese has a wonderful, hard-to-translate word for it — dorodoro. Think of slogging across a muddy field at 3 a.m. in the driving rain; or being a middle-aged guy with a troubled past,...
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2010

Chiba port festival fetes bygone era by serving up whale wieners

In a former whaling port in southern Chiba Prefecture, a merchants' association is attempting to raise spirits by selling the unconventional: whale meat hot dogs.
COMMENTARY
Nov 18, 2010

China's big stick: trade reprisals

China's ascent as a trading power and its push for control of disputed islands and seas in East Asia are confronting the region with a new challenge: how to cope with Chinese moves that make recognition of its sovereignty claims a condition for access to its huge market and strategic resources.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2010

Kyoto doubts prompt Japan to hedge carbon-trading bet

Japan, the world's fifth-biggest producer of greenhouse gases, is building a new emissions market as the widest carbon-trading spreads in four months signal that the 1997 Kyoto climate agreement will be scrapped.
COMMENTARY
Nov 16, 2010

Japan's narrowing lead

For quite some time now the mass media has been reporting pessimistic views of Japan's future. March 1991 marked the end of an economic bubble and the start of economic stagnation. From then until 2009, Japan's economy grew by an average 0.8 percent per year, an extremely low figure compared with other...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes