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JAPAN
Feb 18, 2007

Leftist group claims Camp Zama explosions

. It admitted launching two projectiles at Camp Zama at around 11 p.m. Monday and said the launch was "an attack to prevent" realignment of the U.S. military in Japan and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's three-day visit to Japan starting Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2007

Local leaders OK post-Kyoto plan

KYOTO -- More than 100 local government leaders from 26 nations agreed Saturday to an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.
Reader Mail
Feb 18, 2007

Far more offensive remarks

Japan's hapless health minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa, has drawn the ire of Japanese women with his comment on "baby-making machines." Strangely, the far more offensive comments of Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, as reported in the Feb. 10 article "Trash Constitution, face China threat: Ishihara," do nothing...
Reader Mail
Feb 18, 2007

High-stakes test stress unavoidable

Regarding the Feb. 11 editorial, "Exam system put to the test": Japan's use of high-stakes tests is the unavoidable outcome of its system of differentiation in education. While the anxiety surrounding these tests is unfortunate, it is unavoidable as long as students have to be sorted out.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 18, 2007

Poet takes on the triads

A Case of Two Cities: An Inspector Chen Novel by Qiu Xiaolong. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2006, 320 pp., $24.95 (cloth) In U.S. paperback fiction, the arrival of an American detective, or spy, in East Asia unleashes a predictable train of events. He will inevitably lock horns with a rich and powerful...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 18, 2007

TIRED OR EMOTIONAL: A space robot knows

Office meetings occasionally flit between two extremes. Either they're so tedious that you want to sleep, or they take an interesting turn when someone gets hot under the collar and starts ranting without listening to anyone else.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 18, 2007

Yoshu Chikanobu: the neglected master of Japanese prints

Chikanobu: Modernity and Nostalgia in Japanese Prints, by Bruce A. Coats, with essays by Allen Hockley, Kyoko Kurita and Joshua S. Mostow. Leiden: Hotei/Brill Publishing, 2006, 208 pp., 280 color illustrations, $99 (cloth) This is the first monograph in English on the Meiji Era print-maker Yoshu Chikanobu...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 18, 2007

'Africans in Japan' . . . not from the quill of Ishihara, thank God

Last week, The Japan Times ran a Bloomberg interview with Shintaro Ishihara in which the proudly provocative Tokyo governor followed up his contention that foreigners were behind the city's rising crime rate. He challenged his interviewers to go to Roppongi and see for themselves. "Africans -- and I...
Reader Mail
Feb 18, 2007

Why accommodate Cheney?

Regarding the Feb. 12 article "U.S. nixes talks with Cheney, Kyuma": If U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney doesn't want to meet with Japanese Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma because of Kyuma's open criticism of the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, why let Cheney meet with the officers under Kyuma's command...
Reader Mail
Feb 18, 2007

Lack of Islamic expertise shows

In Dinesh D'Souza's Feb. 5 article, "Bin Laden, America's left and the hysterical reaction to the 'The Enemy at Home' (D'Souza's book)," D'Souza argues that "Bin Laden isn't upset that there are U.S. troops in Mecca" -- since there are no troops in Mecca. This is technically true, but Osama bin Laden...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 18, 2007

Strange stories from Canadian suburbs

Nectar Fragments, by Michael Hoffman. AuthorHouse, 2006, 564 pp., $23.49 (paper). In the manner of the anthropologist, Michael Hoffman, in his latest collection of short stories, stakes out a small piece of terrain then proceeds to examine the life within its coordinates. The name of this plot is Nectar,...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 18, 2007

Close your eyes, count to 10 . . . and play to your heart's content

It seems only natural that everyone should have a wild time, at least once in their life, because for the most part our mortal span is occupied with studying, making a living or raising a family. All that, of course, can be fun -- but it tends to be rather serious stuff as well.
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2007

Face of the lay judge system

By May 2009, Japan will introduce a lay judge system in which ordinary citizens will take part in criminal proceedings as judges to help decide the outcomes of trials. The system is gradually taking shape as the Supreme Court has made public a simulation for the process of choosing candidates for lay...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 18, 2007

Solo initiative turns used dentures into a goldmine for needy children

Isao Miyoshi runs a dental laborato ry in Sakado, Saitama Prefecture. Every day, he visits the dentistry department at the local Meikai University Hospital, where he collects dozens of plaster impressions of people's gums and their remaining teeth. Back at Miyoshi's lab, his 12 dental technicians then...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 18, 2007

Whose Japan deserves youth's patriotism now?

'I for one, cannot believe that love of one's country must consist in blindness to its social faults, in deafness to its social discords, in inarticulation of its social wrongs. Neither can I believe that the mere accident of birth in a certain country or the mere scrap of a citizen's paper constitutes...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2007

Abe, Li agree to cooperate on N. Korea

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed Friday to cooperate closely in their efforts to have North Korea denuclearize as part of the six-party process.
BASKETBALL
Feb 17, 2007

Sendai coach gets 1-game ban

Sendai 89ers coach Honoo Hamaguchi has been suspended for one game, the bj-league announced Thursday.

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