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COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 26, 2007

Eastwood didn't idealize Kuribayashi

NEW YORK -- Isn't the Gen. Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Clint Eastwood's film "Letters From Iwo Jima" idealized? That was a question my poet friend Geoffrey O'Brien asked on New Year's Eve. A dedicated student of film, O'Brien had remembered a poem about the general that I translated three decades ago. Written...
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2007

Defense chiefs reaffirm need for close ties

Joint efforts by Japan and South Korea to resolve North Korea's missile and nuclear crises that led to this month's denuclearization agreement illustrate the importance of bilateral cooperation on defense matters, the two countries' defense chiefs said Sunday.
BASKETBALL
Feb 25, 2007

Osaka outlasts Niigata in OT

In a rematch of last season's inaugural bj-league title game, the host Osaka Evessa topped the Niigata Albirex BB 85-84 in overtime on Saturday night.
SOCCER / J. League
Feb 25, 2007

Gamba trounces Reds in Xerox Cup

Brazilian striker Magno Alves masterminded Urawa Reds' downfall with a hat trick as Gamba Osaka thrashed the J. League champions 4-0 in the Xerox Super Cup on Saturday.
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Lifting the stigma of depression

Regarding the Feb. 15 article "Masako book author spurns call to apologize": I agree with Australian author Ben Hills that the protest he received from the Japanese government over his depiction of the Imperial family in his biography of Crown Princess Masako is offensive, but perhaps for different reasons....
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 25, 2007

Suzuki takes pride in heady play

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league -- Japan's first professional basketball circuit -- which is in its second season. Yukinori Suzuki of the Oita HeatDevils is the subject of this week's profile.
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Apologies without conviction?

Regarding the Feb. 16 article "Former 'comfort women' tell Congress of ordeal": It is absolutely amazing that the "comfort women" issue is still being reported on in 2007. Then again, perhaps not -- when a Japan Times article runs comments such as: "Japan reckons its leaders have repeatedly apologized."...
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Freedom to dislike anything

Regarding the Feb. 17 article "NBA sanctions ex-star Hardaway following anti-gay tirade": The recent trouble that American basketball player Hardaway has found himself in gives us lots to consider. First, since when does a single sentence ("I hate gay people") amount to a "tirade"? By definition, a tirade...
BUSINESS
Feb 25, 2007

Yamaha helped METI craft export rules

SHIZUOKA (Kyodo) Yamaha Motor Co. helped the trade ministry in 2005 formulate stricter export controls on unmanned helicopters, investigative sources said Saturday.
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Senseless dolphin slaughter

Thank you for publishing Boyd Harnell's Feb. 14 article, "Eyewitness to slaughter in Taiji's killing coves," the account of the dolphin killings in Wakayama Prefecture. Animal cruelty occurs worldwide, but few things are as horrifying as the mass slaughter of the one of the world's most intelligent,...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

In fallen cities, where money trumps love

Love in a Fallen City, translated by Karen S. Kingsbury and Eileen Chang. New York: New York Review Books, 2007, 321 pp., $14.95 (paper) Money and the scramble to get it are at the center of many of our best novels, and this is nowhere truer than in the work of Jane Austen. The financial security that...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Law and disorder

I was surprised when Jaime Xavier Lopez, the head of Sacred Heart, a notorious "martial-arts" group, told me to meet him at the government's Office of Cadastral Surveys and Property, where he has his day job. Or that's where he did work, since he is now imprisoned.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 25, 2007

Fernandez knuckler the buzz at Carp camp in Miyazaki

MIYAZAKI -- You know it is spring training time upon arrival at the small airport in this quaint city in southeast Kyushu. Banners hang almost everywhere bearing the logos of five Japan pro baseball teams whose camps are in session in Miyazaki Prefecture: the Yomiuri Giants, Hiroshima Carp, Fukuoka SoftBank...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Insider lashes 'lip service to human rights'

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 25, 2007

Will strategic retreat soon signal Australia's tardy advancement?

Apolitical wrangle, with Prime Minister John Howard as the prime wrangler, has begun in the rodeo ring of Australian politics -- and it certainly looks as if someone is going to take a spill.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2007

Tehran shows its contempt

Iran's contempt for international opinion could not be plainer. The government in Tehran has flatly ignored the Feb. 21 deadline set by the United Nations Security Council to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. The burden is now on those who desire a multilateral order based on respect for international...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

Upstairs, downstairs and inside old Japan

Companions of the Holiday by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Timothy Harris and an afterword by the author. Tokyo/New York: Printed Matter Press, 181 pp., $15 (paper) Donald Richie is known to readers of The Japan Times for his regular reviews of books dealing with Asia, and more particularly...
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Two 'ways' of intelligent design

In his Feb. 16 article "Unintelligent designs on real evolution," Edward Humes justly posits two theories of evolution -- the scientific and the popular "straw-man image of evolution." Sadly, he is less than just in positing only one contrasting theory, which he calls "an upstart movement" ("intelligent...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji