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BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 12, 2007

Mum's the word, Mr. Yanagisawa

Keeping mum has never been a strong point of politicians. Hakuo Yanagisawa, the beleaguered health, labor and welfare minister, seems especially bad at keeping mum on the subject of mums. In his world, mums are machines. Their sole function is to breed.
EDITORIALS
Feb 12, 2007

A milestone for justice

In a world where states are sovereign and supreme, international relations are anarchic. Who can call leaders to account apart from their own citizens? The inability to answer that question makes a mockery of the idea of "justice," subordinating the idea to domestic political concerns. The International...
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2007

Japan ready to renew whaling push

Japan will host an international conference this week to push its campaign to allow commercial whaling, but some of the world's most influential antiwhaling nations -- including the U.S. -- plan to boycott the meeting.
BASKETBALL
Feb 11, 2007

Bryant to appear on NHK show

Tokyo Apache coach Joe Bryant, father of Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant, will appear on the NHK program "Eigo de Shaberanaito" on Feb. 16, the bj-league team announced.
BASKETBALL
Feb 11, 2007

Niigata rallies in 4th, wins in OT

The Niigata Albirex BB made a big fourth-quarter comeback and then routed the host Saitama Broncos in overtime, earning a 97-86 triumph on Saturday in bj-league action.
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Feb 11, 2007

Murry relishing shot at pro ball

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. Point guard Nile Murry of the Toyama Grouses is the subject of this week's profile.
Reader Mail
Feb 11, 2007

News of American rescue ignored

I have noticed a trend within the Japanese press in the past several years to "bash" or publish every negative aspect of the U.S. service men and women here -- from car accidents, to murder, assault, robbery and various other sundry crimes. Keep the public informed. After all, that's your job isn't it?...
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2007

It's increasingly a walled world after all

LONDON -- If good fences make good neighbors, then the world is experiencing an unprecedented outbreak of neighborliness. They used to wall cities. Now they wall whole countries.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2007

Remarkable return: Hingis happy with comeback

Former world No. 1 Martina Hingis won a record-breaking fifth Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo last Sunday, adding the title to the ones she won in 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2002. It was her third Tier 1 title since returning to the WTA Tour in January 2006 after coming out of a three-year retirement because...
Reader Mail
Feb 11, 2007

Chinese acquiescence to Japan

In his Jan. 31 letter, "Bigger Threats than Japan," James Boyden has missed the point of Gregory Clark's Jan. 18 article on China-Japan relations, "So much for Abe's reconciliation policy."
Reader Mail
Feb 11, 2007

Imperial tradition no longer useful

Last year, a prince was born in the Imperial family. As a result, some people are pleased that Imperial line is set to continue, but I can't be pleased. I think the tradition of exalting the Imperial family should be abolished for three reasons:
Reader Mail
Feb 11, 2007

Value outside of making babies

Recent comments by health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa were very disappointing, but they really got me thinking nonetheless. According to his view, I, too, am a "baby-making machine." I am a healthy male, capable of reproduction, even good with kids. However, the big difference is that my value as a human...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Resentments sustain a moribund meat trade

Many environmentalists around the world hope that the whaling issue in Japan will simply fade with the now moribund industry. In Japan, though, the political prowhaling lobby has never been stronger.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

Vitriol vies with science

For journalists used to the smooth diplomatic hum of the global conference circuit, covering the poisonous annual meetings of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) is akin to being slapped in the face with a slab of week-old minke bacon.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 11, 2007

Mammon and myopia: Japan's governing '70s legacy

Over the past three weeks I have looked back in this column at the decades leading up to the 21st century, which has to date seen a marked shift in Japanese domestic and international policy back toward a not-so-new form of nationalism. In this last article I discuss the 1970s, when critical decisions...
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2007

Exam system put to the test

When road signs point to universities, racks at shrines fill with rows of handwritten ema (votive pictures/messages), and a respectful hush falls over the city, you know it's time for one of Japan's most important rituals -- entrance exams.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2007

Women find voice over sexist gaffe

In harmony-loving Japan, women rarely take to the streets to protest the sexist remarks that routinely spill from the mouths of ruling politicians, and even the most outrageous comments go largely unpunished at the ballot box.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 11, 2007

On the line between East and West

Glory in a Line: A Life of Foujita--the Artist Caught Between East and West, by Phyllis Birnbaum. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006, 332 pp., with photographs. $27.50 (cloth) The line referred to in this excellent biography of the troubled artist, Tsuguharu Fujita (1886-1968), is the "thin line...
Reader Mail
Feb 11, 2007

Redrawing the battle line

Regarding the Feb. 2 article by George P. Fletcher, "Declining tolerance of dangerous words": I began the article with an open mind, but it is still unclear from what angle Fletcher was writing his piece, although this may in itself have been its angle. What I take issue with are his comments about...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 11, 2007

There is nothing two-dimensional about Japanese manga in the U.S.

Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S., by Roland Kelts. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2006, 223 pp., $24.95 (cloth) In "Japanamerica," Japanese-American writer Roland Kelts explores how and why Japanese manga and anime have become as familiar to Americans as sushi or karaoke in the 21st...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 11, 2007

The price of stalemate

One of the most controversial elements of Japan's campaign to overturn the International Whaling Commission's 1986 commercial whaling ban is the alleged use of official Overseas Development Aid to "buy" the votes of poorer IWC member-countries. That is an allegation vehemently denied by fisheries bureaucrats....

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell