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SOCCER
Jul 8, 2007

Man City names Eriksson manager

LONDON (AP) Sven-Goran Eriksson was appointed Manchester City manager on Friday after former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra announced he had gained effective control of the club to become its new chairman.
Reader Mail
Jul 8, 2007

Taking chances on a rail line

Meitetsu railroad, based in Nagoya, changed its timetable at the beginning of the month. Besides the many improvements, some services have deteriorated. Among these are several trains during the morning rush hour that have been shortened. One of these is a train I take in the morning, now running...
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Funding scandal hits farm minister

has given an explanation." In the 16-year period up to 2005, a total of 22.8 million yen was registered as rent, 71.6 million yen as personnel costs, 13.5 million yen as utility costs and 15.6 million yen as other miscellaneous costs, according to the funding reports.
Reader Mail
Jul 8, 2007

'Kawaii' trend is not dead

Regarding the June 30 article "Miss Universe director turns Japanese into women of worldm": I find it quite rich that the one person who actively works for an event that is nothing more than an archaic display of male chauvinism and sexism has the guts to scoff at the "kawaii (cute)" ideal in Japanese...
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2007

The Olympics and the Putin factor

The International Olympic Committee has awarded the right to stage the 2014 Winter Olympic Games to the Black Sea resort of Sochi. It was the Russian city's first candidacy for the right. At present, its athletic facilities are almost nonexistent. It presented an innovative plan to combine ice-related...
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.

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