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JAPAN
Jun 4, 2009

Diet extension gives Aso breathing space

Now that the Diet session has been extended until July 28, the spotlight has shifted back to Prime Minister Taro Aso as politicians and analysts try to predict when he will dissolve the Lower House and call a snap election.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2009

The path with North Korea

What is North Korea up to? Is it trying to undermine the six-party talks in order to force Washington to deal with Pyongyang directly, as some experts claim? Or, as others maintain with equal certainty, is it sending a signal that it is not interested in talks at all, given current domestic political...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2009

Pyongyang purge seen speeding helm change

As speculation mounts that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has selected third son Kim Jong Un to succeed him, information obtained Wednesday suggested a purge has begun of people close to Kim Jong Nam, the dictator's first son and former heir apparent to the hermit regime.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Jun 3, 2009

Back to basics: The choice of seihin or kinben

"You're up very late," says Reiko.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 2, 2009

The issue that dares not speak its name

A few columns ago ("Toadies, Vultures, and Zombie Debates," March 3), I discussed how foreign apologists resuscitate dead-end discussions on racial discrimination. Promoting cultural relativity for their own ends, they peddle bigoted and obsolescent ideologies now impossible to justify in their societies...
JAPAN / Media
May 31, 2009

Pigs, pimps, prostitutes and other things — Japan's New Age

Fifty years is a long time, especially in film history. The iconoclastic Japanese New Wave, born with the release in 1959 of Nagisa Oshima's debut feature, "A Town of Love and Hope," is now an established part of Japan's cinematic canon. And in contrast to the French Nouvelle Vague, several of whose...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 31, 2009

Open mind key to Hillman's success

First excerpt in a two-part series of updated "You Gotta Have Wa"
Japan Times
LIFE
May 31, 2009

The Missing Vermeer

In this short story by Roger Pulvers, new and distant horizons open up to put a spring in your step as summer approaches. Illustrations by Alice Pulvers
JAPAN
May 30, 2009

Roos may have green-tech agenda

OSAKA — John Roos, the lawyer President Barack Obama has picked as next U.S. ambassador to Japan, will likely emphasize closer public and private cooperation on developing clean and "green" technologies and take an interest in bilateral health care issues, U.S. sources close to him said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2009

Key role for young Iranians in June's presidential poll

TEHRAN — Iranians will go to the polls June 12 to elect a new president. While some argue that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election is a foregone conclusion, the outcome is, in fact, not at all clear.
JAPAN / YOKOHAMA AT 150
May 29, 2009

Yokohama — city on the cutting edge

Last in a series
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2009

'Chandni Chowk to China'

Indian filmmakers have apparently been learning much from Hollywood's hits: They've picked up on the use of digitally-generated FX, they're learning to work crossmarket platforms, and they've also mastered the art of making comic-book plots so stupefying they could serve as large-animal tranquilizers....
CULTURE / Film
May 29, 2009

It was a year of gore galore at Cannes

A surgeon's smock replaced the customary tux or evening gown at this year's Cannes Film Festival as the most appropriate attire, so drenched in blood and gore were many of the major entries. To walk the red carpet became a wade in viscera, film after film offering all manner of mutilation and dismemberment....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 29, 2009

Dissecting the cave on canvas

One of the greatest mysteries of art is what exactly the flat two-dimensional surface of the canvas is, and what it is for. The mundane answer, of course, is that it's a convenient rectangular surface on which to place and display aesthetically pleasing colors and lines. But this does not really explain...
Reader Mail
May 28, 2009

Longevity speaks for itself

I would like to thank Grant Piper for his May 21 letter, "Symbolic cleanliness vs. hygiene," which enlightened us on the unhealthy practices of the Japanese. My goodness! To think that most of these people actually bathe DAILY! And imagine this: They even remove their shoes before entering the home rather...
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2009

Deciphering Iran

Tragedy often results when individual lives are caught up in great power politics. When state interests are placed on the scale, individuals are invariably overwhelmed — at best they are pawns in bigger games. It is not yet clear how journalist Roxana Saberi fits into the larger mosaic of U.S.-Iran...
JAPAN / YOKOHAMA AT 150
May 27, 2009

Newspapers opened eyes in Yokohama

Second in a series
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 27, 2009

Van Gundy's blunder set stage for LeBron

NEW YORK — That was some exotic craft LeBron James docked in the slip by remote control from long distance to win Game 2 on Friday night.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 27, 2009

DPJ won't hike tax, Okada says

The consumption tax would likely not be raised for the next four years if the Democratic Party of Japan wins the upcoming general election, DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada declared in an interview Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
May 27, 2009

Cross-strait gap narrows

Two things became apparent during a recent visit to China. One was the vitality of the economy; the critics who fussed over China's recent export downturn overlooked Beijing's ability to shift to a domestic demand-oriented economy. The other was the importance of Taiwan in Beijing's thinking.
EDITORIALS
May 26, 2009

Stunned by Mr. Roh's suicide

The suicide of former South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has shocked the world. Mr. Roh leaped off a mountain cliff near his residence in Gimhae Saturday morning and suffered fatal head injuries. We offer our prayers for Mr. Roh, who as president created a new epoch for South Korea. It is regrettable...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 26, 2009

Expat life in Japan: the good, the bad and the meaningful

I am a 46-year-old Caucasian male. I have lived in Japan for 17 years with an attitude toward assimilation that would not be looked upon favorably in my native Australia. I would feel worse about this were it not for an undeniable fact: Compared to the average Westerner in Japan, the moderate level of...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2009

Subprime crisis was unleashed by bank-shielding policymakers: expert

The global financial crisis is not the result of the failure of markets but of a series of government policy mistakes — prescriptions for which have been circulating for a long time but were largely ignored, a U.S. expert told a recent seminar in Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 24, 2009

MOX use opposed by Genkai's leery residents

GENKAI, Saga Pref. — Before a two-lane access road was built to connect it with other parts of the prefecture, the village of Genkai, nestled in high hills with deep ravines beside the Sea of Japan, was so remote that even locals called it the "Tibet of Saga Prefecture."
LIFE
May 24, 2009

City's new gateway to worlds apart

When I was walking to Osanbashi Pier, I noticed that the asphalt road changed to a wooden deck leading me up a slope to a grassy hilltop.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 24, 2009

From Meiji gentleman to 'Japanese Yankee'

This curiosity (a first-person account of the writer's gradual transformation from Meiji gentleman to self-proclaimed "Japanese Yankee") was first published in 1898 (by the Congregational Church) and never again seen until now.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’