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COMMENTARY
Mar 2, 2008

Will 'rebirth' of China level the field?

HONG KONG — At precisely eight minutes past 8 p.m. on Aug. 8 — the eighth day of the eighth month of the year 2008 — the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, this year's summer Olympics, will officially open in Beijing. It is widely seen as China's debut party after an eclipse of a couple of centuries....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 29, 2008

YMCK takes 'chiptune' revolution major

'The music in video games is less memorable now than it was in the old days," says Midori Kurihara, vocalist with YMCK, and she should know: Her Tokyo three-piece band emulates the sound of classic scores to games on the 8-bit Nintendo Famicom console (known in the West as the Nintendo Entertainment...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2008

Israel's Olmert lauds Japan for peace-building initiatives

Israel is in the middle of negotiating a peace agreement with the Palestinians that could be concluded by the end of the year, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2008

High court finds Suzuki took bribes, rejects appeal

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal by House of Representatives lawmaker Muneo Suzuki against the two-year prison term and ¥11 million fine he received in 2004 for accepting bribes from two Hokkaido-based companies.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 26, 2008

Japan needs imports to keep itself fed

After a spate of food mislabeling frauds and the recent scare over pesticide-laced "gyoza" dumplings imported from China, consumers are perhaps more conscious than ever of the origin of what they eat. Many routinely check the origins of the foods they buy, especially imported products, which Japan relies...
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2008

Fidel Castro steps down

Fidel Castro, one of the world's longest tenured leaders, resigned this month. His decision to step down, long anticipated, opens a period of uncertainty for Cuba, but hopes for sweeping change are muted. Mr. Castro's brother Raul was picked to succeed him.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 25, 2008

G7's changing world and the need for microeconomic steps

The Feb. 9 meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank chiefs — the first one held in Tokyo in eight years — adopted a statement recognizing that the global economy is facing more challenging and uncertain circumstances.
Japan Times
LIFE / THE SKY'S THE LIMIT
Feb 24, 2008

Polar pioneer sets her sights high

For her doctoral thesis, Kazuyo Sakanoi studied the mechanisms of flickering auroras — those luminous phenomena in the atmosphere that appear like curtains of light.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 24, 2008

Will rookie slugger Nakata live up to hype in Hokkaido?

One guy getting a lot of attention these days, including gaudy front-page coverage in Japan's daily sports newspapers and on TV "Camp Report" segments, is Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters rookie phenom Sho Nakata.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2008

Back to the 'great game' in Kazakhstan

BRUSSELS — Those who oppose Western rapprochement with Kazakhstan cite the country's lack of political and human rights. But, while Kazakhstan has not gone down the "color revolution" route to democracy that other post-Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia have followed, its timidity about reform...
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2008

'Asian Arc' doomed without Australia

HONG KONG — Kevin Rudd, the non-Chinese world's first Chinese-speaking prime minister, has dealt a lethal blow to a budding "Asian Arc of Democracy" that was actively pushed by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a notion that appeared designed to isolate Beijing.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2008

Ishiba in fender-bender en route to crash-apology site

Just as Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba headed Thursday afternoon for the hometown of the fishermen missing since their boat was run over by a Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer, his official car collided with a vehicle being driven by a 30-year-old woman in Katsuura, Chiba Prefecture, police said....
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2008

Mr. Musharraf repudiated

Pakistan's voters have resoundingly rejected their president, Mr. Pervez Musharraf. This week's parliamentary elections crushed political parties associated with the president, giving the opposition a significant majority in the legislature and setting the stage for political upheaval. The challenge...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Feb 21, 2008

Final eight participants join defending champion Japan in '09 WBC field

The field for the next edition of the World Baseball Classic has been set.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2008

Collision laid to negligence by destroyer

Watch standers aboard the Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer Atago may have spotted the small fishing boat it ran over before dawn Tuesday 12 minutes before the collision instead of two, as earlier reported, Defense Ministry papers showed Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 2008

Kosovo is born

The Republic of Kosovo has declared its independence. A decade after a bloody separatist war with Serbia that claimed thousands of lives, the Albanian enclave that was one of the last remnants of Yugoslavia has promised to create a "democratic, multiethnic state." The move, bitterly denounced by the...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2008

MSDF destroyer cuts fishing trawler in half

A Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer cut a small trawler in two before dawn Tuesday in the Pacific about 40 km off Chiba Prefecture, and the boat's father-and-son crew were missing.
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2008

China's path deserves respect, not fear

LOS ANGELES — Let's not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Congressional grumblings about currency and balance-of-trade issues, and equal grumps from the U.S. Democratic Party's leftwing (over human-rights issues), could leave the impression that U.S. policy toward China has been a dismal failure....
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008

Sarin killer's death penalty is finalized

Rejecting his appeal, the Supreme Court on Friday finalized the death sentence of senior Aum Shinrikyo cultist Yasuo Hayashi, a key figure in the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic