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Reader Mail
Dec 4, 2008

A lot of outlaws in the making

I urge The Japan Times to publish further details of the recently passed Japanese law banning "survival knives." If the law does indeed ban, without further qualification, all two-sided knives with blades longer than 5 cm, it bans most German and French chef knives, Swiss Army knives, Chinese cleavers,...
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2008

Aso to break with Koizumi reforms

With the economy in recession and public approval ratings low, Prime Minister Taro Aso signaled Wednesday that Japan must depart from the reformist fiscal policies pursued by former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his successors.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2008

Failed governance allowed attacks

MUMBAI — In most cities of South Asia, hidden beneath the grime and neglect of extreme poverty, there exists a little Somalia waiting to burst out and infect the body politic. This netherworld, patrolled and nourished by criminals who operate a vast black-market economy, has bred, in Mumbai, a community...
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2008

Moving back to socialism?

The "ism" enthusiasts are out in force again. These are the analysts and commentators who see everything in strictly ideological terms of socialism versus capitalism, more state control versus less state control. Just now they are all convinced that the pendulum is swinging toward state control, that...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 2, 2008

Back to the baths: Otaru revisited

The story is familiar to regular readers of Zeit Gist. Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen, originally from America, was living in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and had heard of the Yunohana public bath's policy of denying entry to foreigners. In 1999, media in tow, he decided to put that onsen's policy...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 2, 2008

Soka Gakkai keeps religious, political machine humming

What do movie star Orlando Bloom, who plays young pirate Will Turner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, R&B diva Tina Turner and Shunsuke Nakamura, an ace midfielder for Scottish soccer team Celtic, have in common?
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2008

Look at the brighter side of the financial crisis

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — One good way to counter depression (of the emotional and of the otherwise kind) is to emphasize the positive (of the imagined or otherwise kind).
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2008

Top court notifying lay judge candidates

Over the next few days, some 295,000 Japanese can expect to find a large envelope from the Supreme Court in their mailboxes with the following notice: "This is to inform you that, as a result of a lottery, you are listed as a prospective lay judge of the court (between May 21 and Dec. 31, 2009)."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 28, 2008

Defense of an artist who had lived as a slave

NEW YORK — Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Europe. Liberated from the complexity of knowing too much about the cruel past, the young people of Eastern Europe's postcommunist generation seem uninterested in what their parents and grandparents endured.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 28, 2008

Lisa Loeb

Now that it's almost December, there can be only one thing on the minds of kids around Japan: Um, summer camp?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2008

'252 — Seizonsha Ari'

Disaster pics have been big in Japan since the days of "Godzilla," the 1954 classic whose title monster served as a rubber-suited symbol for everything from earthquakes (that stomp) and fires (that breath) to atomic bombings (that city-wrecking power).
COMMENTARY
Nov 27, 2008

Time to get tough with Somali pirates

On one side are the eight navies, the world's largest shipping companies, the rich Gulf states that need to get their oil to market, and the great powers, whose commerce depends heavily on the shipping lanes around the Horn of Africa. On the other side are a few thousand Somali pirates in small boats...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2008

Sex slave victims press for apology

Victims of Japan's wartime sexual slavery were joined by international activists and lawmakers Tuesday to demand what they call a proper apology and compensation from the government for its past atrocities.
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2008

West Coast appreciates destiny with Asia

LOS ANGELES — Serious intellectual narrowing can happen to even the brightest folk once nested down on the U.S. East Coast. They become preoccupied (almost neurotically, almost provincially) with the problems of the past — especially with the Middle East and Europe — and lose sight of the new problems...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008

Tamp down the old ways

Sixty years ago on Nov. 12, 1948, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMT) handed down its verdict branding Japan an aggressor nation and leading to the execution of six military leaders and one politician for instigating the war. As if to substantiate the validity of this verdict,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2008

Deciphering the oil puzzle

What happens when the demand for oil flattens out or falls and the supply of oil continues as before or actually increases? The answer is economics at its simplest — the price plummets. And that indeed is what has occurred.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 24, 2008

Connecting the solutions while there's time

WASHINGTON — The world does not need to be reminded of the urgency of this historical moment. We sense it every day in the news. One day a major bank, insurance company, or automaker announces a record loss. The next brings word of the impact on nations and peoples least able to cope with these blows...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 23, 2008

We're just playing ball

It's an open secret that TV news shows tend to go easy on big advertisers in their reporting. In the many tributes to journalist Tetsuya Chikushi, who died two weeks ago of lung cancer, no one mentioned that he was a heavy smoker. The dangers of cigarettes were never covered on his nightly TBS show,...
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2008

BOJ leaves key interest rate unchanged at 0.3%

The Bank of Japan left the key interest rate unchanged Friday at 0.3 percent, as widely expected, amid a stagnating domestic economy, a decelerating global economy and financial turmoil.
BUSINESS
Nov 22, 2008

Workers urged to knock off early, make babies

The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) is worried the nation's workers aren't having enough sex.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2008

Masuda defends 'hawkish' classes

The Defense Ministry will continue to provide a balanced education at its Joint Staff College, but will not immediately respond to criticism that some of its lecturers are known to hold nationalistic views, Vice Defense Minister Kohei Masuda said Thursday.

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