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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2010

A vote for Hong Kong as most livable city

HONG KONG, PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES — For me, there is no question that Hong Kong is one of the world's most wondrously livable cities. After 30 years of having Hong Kong as my home, I would challenge anyone to claim that — on balance — any other city can deliver the same combination of virtues.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010

Safeguarding financial stability

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Central bankers around the world failed to see the current financial crisis coming before its beginnings in 2007. Martin Cihak of the International Monetary Fund reported in July 2007 that, of 47 central banks found to publish financial stability reports (FSRs), "virtually all" gave...
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2010

Give Israeli 'traitor' unconditional freedom

NEW YORK — On May 23, Mordechai Vanunu, whom Amnesty International calls a "prisoner of conscience," was sent to prison for three months, accused of violating the terms of his 2004 release from prison. He has spent 18 years in prison, the first 11 years in solitary confinement.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 25, 2010

Wherefore art thou, corporate social responsibility?

As an American lawyer, I know a bit about working in a profession that has had serious image problems.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2010

'Seraphine'

When a woman values her art over personal happiness, the result can yield sheer, mesmerizing beauty. Tolstoy wrote that women prevail because of their "ingrained talent" to achieve happiness, but at the same time this talent becomes their downfall in achieving true greatness. Indeed, had Frida Kahlo,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2010

Immelt's China meltdown

HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 18, 2010

Youth is wasted on the dwindling young

What's it like to be young in this most elderly, least youthful country on Earth?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 18, 2010

Outer limits of kinky sex and violence

Bored with life and bullied by an overbearing mother, 17-year-old Mari finds a painful solace in the company of a translator of Russian, 50 years her senior. Yoko Ogawa's "Hotel Iris," beautifully translated by Stephen Snyder, deals with obsession, fetishism, loneliness and the multifaceted nature of...
SOCCER / J. League
Jul 18, 2010

Kennedy provides spark for Grampus

Nagoya Grampus shrugged off a first-half red card for Igor Burzanovic to grab a 1-0 away win over Omiya Ardija on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2010

FIFA vs. the Cheating Heart

BARCELONA, Spain — The World Cup proved a triumph for the predictions of Paul the Octopus, which accurately forecast the rise and fall of Germany and the ultimate victory of Spain, after football pundits and the quants with their battery of supercomputers had tipped Brazil, Argentina, Germany or even...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2010

'Inception'

Director Christopher Nolan has fashioned a career as neatly parceled into halves as that of Bruce Wayne/Batman: On the one side are his ontological thrillers, crafty mind games such as "Following," "Memento" and "The Prestige," with their shifting levels of reality and unreliable narrators. On the other...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 16, 2010

The talented women of Kyoto

"Women Artists of Kyoto: Bearing Burdens / Burdens Born" is ostensibly about the classification of female artists since the late 19th century. The term "keishu-gaka" refers to accomplished women artists, "joryu-gaka" to post-World War II artists who created trends among male colleagues and "josei-gaka"...
BUSINESS
Jul 14, 2010

Kokusai sees Japan yields diving

Kokusai Asset Management Co., which runs the world's second-largest bond fund, said Japanese government bond yields may drop to a record, even as larger fund supervisor Pacific Investment Management Co. expressed concern about the nation's rising debt levels.
COMMENTARY
Jul 11, 2010

Treason of the attorney

LONDON — Eighty years ago, just after the First World War and with the world rapidly sliding toward the next, the French philosopher Julien Benda wrote a book called "The Treason of the Clerks"— "clerks" in the medieval sense, educated men, intellectuals, who despite their high calling chose to serve...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BY THE GLASS
Jul 9, 2010

Spanish vintners are shaping up

Ah, Spain . . . land of bullfights, football and flamenco. The current trend to celebrate all things Spanish means that we can be bound a little by stereotypes: Not all Spanish are hot-blooded, football mad, paella eaters. When it comes to wine too, we can be constrained by preconceptions, but there's...
BUSINESS
Jul 9, 2010

NEC sets supercomputer goals

NEC Corp. aims to double its share of the global supercomputer market in the next four years by increasing sales in Europe, a market where industry leaders IBM Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. may be easier to challenge.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 8, 2010

Japan's economic fantasy

HONG KONG — Belatedly, Japan's leading politicians are waking from their coma and realizing that the country's economy is in a massive mess hit by a triple whammy of low growth, heavy debts and an increasingly aging population.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / STYLE WISE
Jul 8, 2010

A party for Tsumori Chisato, big bling, premium denim and good old gents

MISHA JANETTE and PAUL McINNES Staying young at heart
COMMENTARY
Jul 7, 2010

The price of living longer

The British coalition government has announced that it will set from 2016 the qualifying age for old-age pensions for men at 66 instead of 65. Women have hitherto received old-age pensions at 60, but the qualifying age will be brought into line with that for men through a speedier timetable than hitherto...
COMMENTARY
Jul 6, 2010

Valiant voice against a war without borders

NEW YORK — Is it not fair to say that the more we love our country, the more we want it to be a better, more honorable country?
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 4, 2010

Remembering 'baseball ambassador' Cappy Harada

There are many who have tried to bridge the gap between Major League Baseball in North America and the game as it is played in Japan, but perhaps no one has done more for MLB-NPB relations than Tsuneo "Cappy" Harada. He died on June 5 at the age of 88 in California, and his death from heart failure was...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past