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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2007

How the West lost its nerve with Russia

MOSCOW — Nation-states are built on ethnic and territorial unity, and their histories and political development are grounded in a sense of collective identity. Empires emerge when a national group considers its existence inside its territorial borders either risky or ineffective, and embarks on a forced...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 8, 2007

Stuffing of All-Star ballot boxes goes back at least 50 years

Were you surprised to see eight members of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles elected to the 2007 Pacific League All-Star team by fan balloting?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 8, 2007

Take a slab of meat, beef up the label on it and Hope for the best

There's a stereotype that says the Japanese possess a refined palate. The French are said to possess it, too, but have you seen a French movie lately? All they eat is spaghetti.
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Kleptocracy to 'freedom'?

Hla Aye Maung's nightmare began in the central Tokyo district of Nishi Nippori when he went shopping. A police car pulled up beside him and the officers found he was one of the more than 250,000 illegal aliens apparently working in Japan. They took him to a police station in nearby Ueno, from where he...
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Footy aims at goal of awareness

Japan's fourth annual refugee soccer tournament commemorating World Refugee Day (June 20) was played in the rain on June 24 in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd. There were 12 teams with players mostly from Asia. Takeshi Okada, former manager of the national team (1997-98), told me he fancied the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2007

'Propaganda is the soul of every struggle'

Revolutionary activist Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on Sept. 3, 1918, exhorted colleagues not to relent in their struggles. "Stand your ground," she wrote, "till we meet again at work!"
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 8, 2007

Separated siblings family drama, young romantic comedy, melodrama of women competing for the same man

This summer's crop of drama series is dominated by young female leads as opposed to the usual bunch of cute boys. In its most crucial time slot, Monday at 9 p.m., Fuji TV is offering up "First Kiss," which is about a pair of siblings who were separated as small children when their parents divorced.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

Japan, just a puppet of America?

Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, by Gavan McCormack. New York: Verso Press, 2007, 246 pp., $29.95 (paper) Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi are usually portrayed as assertive nationalists, but come off here as dutiful and submissive gophers carrying out the...
Reader Mail
Jul 8, 2007

Outrage over a simple assessment

The Japanese public has implicitly condoned nuclear weapons for the past 50 years by placing themselves under the protection of America's nuclear deterrent. Kyuma's statement was not a moral evaluation of nuclear weapons, but a simple pragmatic assessment that, given the historical political circumstances...
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Sit-ins win new home, in Canada!

All Kurdish asylum-seeker Erdal Dogan wanted was a peaceful home for himself and his family.
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Screenings on behalf of 33 million

From July 18-26, the U.N. High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) will sponsor the 2nd International Refugee Film Festival in Japan. The program of 30 movies over nine days at four theaters includes feature and documentary films that focus on the lives, trials and triumphs of people forced to leave their...
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Diplomat rues Tokyo's 'lack of humanity' to asylum-seekers

Sadako Ogata was the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991-2001, and has been President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) since 2003. Here, she talks frankly to The Japan Times about Japan's attitudes to those who flee their homelands and seek sanctuary on these shores.
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

'Liars' who won lottery

Just 410 — the number of refugees accepted by Japan since 1982 — says a lot about government policy toward those who flee political persecution in their home countries. They wouldn't fill more than a few cars on a rush-hour commuter train!
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2007

A question of dignity or cause for embarrassment

THE DIGNITY OF THE NATION by Masahiko Fujiwara, translated by Giles Murray. IBC Publishing 2007, 278 pp., 1,400 yen (paper) The title of this little book deliberately echoes that of a notorious pamphlet issued by the Japanese government in 1937, at the peak of nationalist hysteria, in an attempt to...
Japan Times
SOCCER
Jul 7, 2007

Messi helps spark Argentina by Paraguay

BARQUISIMETO, Venezuela (AP) An inspired piece of play by substitute Lionel Messi saw Argentina overcame Paraguay 1-0 Thursday to finish atop Group C and charge into the Copa America quarterfinals as the only team with a perfect record.
JAPAN / PARTY LINE
Jul 7, 2007

Tanaka won't disband party, despite defections

New Party Nippon leader and ex-Nagano Gov. Yasuo Tanaka announced Friday his party would carry on even though its only two lawmakers said they are going to leave and become independents.
JAPAN
Jul 7, 2007

Chinese growth sustainable, Wang says

market will be realized only after we solve problems in rural villages and increase their purchasing power," he said. To narrow the gap with urban areas, the government has concentrated infrastructure investment in rural areas and exempted 150 million children from paying school fees, Wang said.
JAPAN
Jul 7, 2007

Taiwan seen losing military edge to China

The military balance between China and Taiwan is shifting in Beijing's favor and the qualitative superiority of Taipei's fighting force may soon be lost, the Defense Ministry warned Friday in a report.
MORE SPORTS
Jul 7, 2007

Japan, France kick off gridiron championship

KAWASAKI — Two-time defending champion Japan will kick off the international American football competition against France as the two nations take on each other on Saturday, the opening day of the 3rd IFAF World Championships at Kawasaki's Todoroki Stadium.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight