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SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 4, 2007

Barbaro's incredible will to live provided lesson for all

"Animals and children are the only pure things in life."
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2007

Hingis in final again; Injury hits Sharapova

With Maria Sharapova suffering from an uncharacteristic shaky serve and slovenliness, it was clear the world No. 1 was not having the best of times at the Toray Pan Pacific Open.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 4, 2007

Upson saga illustrates how much power today's players have on transfers

LONDON -- West Ham United should beware after signing Matthew Upson from Birmingham City.
Japan Times
SOCCER
Feb 4, 2007

Police officer killed in Serie A riot

CATANIA, Italy (AP) A police officer was killed Friday when fans rioted at a Serie A game between Sicilian sides Catania and Palermo, prompting the Italian soccer federation to postpone all league matches this weekend and cancel next week's national team friendly international against Romania.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 4, 2007

Hope springs eternal as Japan pro teams start training rituals

The 12 Japan pro baseball teams opened their 2007 spring camps on Thursday. By rule, players are not allowed to work out in uniform until that date and, unlike major leaguers getting ready to go to Florida and Arizona, all the Central and Pacific League clubs break camp on the same day.
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Japan doesn't need a cinema war

This year is the 70th anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre (December 1937). No doubt a new film by director Satoru Mizushima, which is to depict the event as "nothing more than political propaganda," will further inflame relations between Japan and China. In 2007, the world faces global warming, the...
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Hardly an issue elsewhere

While the tone of the Jan. 25 article "Filmmaker to paint Nanjing slaughter as just a myth" was, commendably, mostly neutral, it did contain a couple of noteworthy evasions. It stated, for instance, that most historians accept the International Tribunal's findings, but didn't mention that only Japanese...
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

'Volunteer' spirit co-opted

Although Prime Minister Shinzo Abe talks about building a "beautiful country," he seems intent on making the country appear so without actual change. Recently Abe's education advisory committee recommended compulsory "volunteer work" for all high school students. According to my dictionary, a "volunteer"...
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Decisions only Tokyo can make

Regarding Brad Glosserman's Jan. 24 article, "Abe's aggressive agenda": Reinforcing what he calls Japan's "junior partner status," Glosserman recommends that the United States "help" Japan in its formulation of its vision of its emerging power and its "strategy to use it." He then warns that "Washington...
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Fight one 'myth' with another

It is so utterly ridiculous to read time and again about certain segments of Japanese society continuing to choose to deny the events and the brutality of the Nanjing Massacre, and now they even want to make a "documentary" to show that it was a myth.
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Too easy for young people to drink

Regarding the Jan. 23 editorial, "Halting drunk drivers": I commend the National Police Agency's efforts to combat the drunk driving problem in Japan. However, it is common knowledge that people under the legal minimum drinking age of 20 can purchase alcohol from stores or drink at just about any...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2007

Japanese interest in Macau reaches new heights

MACAU, China -- Macau is definitely a hot spot these days, not just as a tourist destination but also as a focal point for international diplomacy and security.
Reader Mail
Feb 4, 2007

Credit a politician who speaks up

Regarding the Jan. 25/26 article "Kyuma: U.S. invasion of Iraq a mistake": Isn't it strange that whereas U.S. President George W. Bush already admits that mistakes were made in deciding to start the Iraq war in March 2003, the leaders in Japan won't say anything about having dispatched some of our Self-Defense...
EDITORIALS
Feb 4, 2007

Overbearing education proposals

An interim report submitted by the Education Resuscitation Council to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is long on proposals designed to tackle various challenges in Japanese education but short on reasons why some problems have developed. Without in-depth background analysis, it will be difficult to find correct...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Feb 4, 2007

Princess Tenko: conjuror of pure mystery

The life of illusionist Tenko Hikita -- better
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 4, 2007

Whatever befell Japan's heady '60s hopes?

Over the past two weeks in this column, I have looked at Japanese society in the 1980s and '90s in order to trace how the nationalistic policies of the current Shinzo Abe administration, particularly in the educational and military spheres, are the outcome of developments in the preceding decades.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 4, 2007

Super temp worker who saves day is a nonconformist heroine

Prior to the start of the current Diet session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that the ruling coalition would not submit previously announced bills to revise the Labor Standards Law. The move was seen as being cautionary, since there will be an Upper House election in July and the bills would have contained...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 4, 2007

Thoughts behind the picture book

Ehon: The Artist And the Book in Japan, by Roger S. Keyes, foreword by Paul LeClerc. The New York Public Library in association with the University of Washington Press, 2006, 320 pp., 250 color illustrations, $50 (cloth) "Ehon" means "picture book," that is, a volume comprising pictures along with some...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 4, 2007

Drawing on some humorous animal characteristics

A JAPANESE MENAGERIE: Animal Pictures by Kawanabe Kyosai, by Rosina Buckland, Timothy Clark and Shigeru Oikawa. London: The British Museum Press, 2006, 112 pp., £16.99 (cloth) The Meiji Era artist Kawanabe Kyosai (1831-89) is said to have had his first memorable encounter with an animal as a little...
Rugby
Feb 3, 2007

Top League has hope heading into final

Katsuyuki Kiyomiya is no Ichiro Suzuki, but he may be just what the Top League needs.

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