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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 2010

Soutaiseiriron: "Synchroniciteen"

In a world of information overload,in which we know what the members of our favorite bands had for breakfast thanks to an endless and unwelcome barrage of mundane information on Twitter, Facebook and a million fetid blogs, thank golly for Soutaiseiriron. The Tokyo four-piece's refusal to speak to the...
JAPAN
May 12, 2010

Historic ecumenical parley revived in Tokyo

From June 14 to 23, 1910, some 1,200 representatives of 176 Christian missionary societies and church mission boards gathered in Edinburgh, Scotland, to attend the World Missionary Conference. This conference spearheaded the modern ecumenical movement to promote cooperation and unity among different...
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2010

Path of engagement with Burma

NEW YORK — The Obama administration's decision to seek a new way forward in U.S.-Burma relations recognizes that decades of trying to isolate Burma (aka Myanmar) in order to change the behavior of its government have achieved little. As Burma's ruling generals prepare to hold elections later this year...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 8, 2010

Weaving a bridge between cultures with new fabric

Love of art and a desire for understanding different cultures — so as to find a way to build a bridge among them — have been important aspects of Micaela Metri's life since her youth, when she was a student on a full scholarship at the L.B. Pearson College of the Pacific in Canada.
EDITORIALS
May 4, 2010

Hopes for NPT review meeting

The 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, which lasts about four weeks from May 3 at the United Nations headquarters in New York, offers a chance for the world to move forward toward nuclear disarmament and to strengthen efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, although optimism...
COMMENTARY / World
May 4, 2010

Rural Africa planting seeds for bigger payoffs

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — After decades of bad news, at least three major trends are turning Africa's way: agricultural policies, rural demography and farm productivity all promise improved opportunities for farm families across the continent.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2010

Life or death for Suu Kyi's party?

The incumbent regime in Myanmar is asking all interest groups, until Thursday, to form political parties and register within 60 days. All unregistered parties will cease to exist under the new election laws. The National League for Democracy (NLD) party has openly boycotted the election laws, and has...
EDITORIALS
May 1, 2010

China's summer showcase

Expo 2010 — a six-month event starting May 1 in Shanghai, the largest city in China — will showcase the recent economic development and internationalization of the world's most populous country, once a revolutionary nation that directly challenged the Western political and economic order. The event's...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Apr 28, 2010

Shippers expect profits as rates bounce back

Nippon Yusen K.K. and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd. forecast profits this year as a global economic rebound revives container and commodity-shipping rates.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Apr 27, 2010

Craftsman gets creative with Yakushima wood

Derrel Grisham is an American, but it was a sense of nostalgia that drew him to the island of Yakushima off the southern coast of Kagoshima Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 27, 2010

Battered Briton survives aikido ordeal

At the end of February, a group of international students graduated from the Tokyo-based Yoshinkan Honbu Dojo, one of the most intensive martial arts training centers in the world.
COMMENTARY
Apr 26, 2010

China's true supporters versus the hackers

Caring about China can be hard to do. Many Chinese, for starters, resent it when others express concern, viewing it as an intrusion, especially when the other party disagrees with something China has done.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2010

The limits of China's global charm offensive

BRUSSELS — To many people in the West, China seems to have gone from a country that "keeps a cool head and maintains a low profile," in Deng Xiaoping's formulation, to one that loves a good international bust-up. Putting an Australian mining executive behind bars for 10 years, squeezing out Google,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 23, 2010

'Johnny Mad Dog'/'Clash of the Titans'

For a quick snapshot of the alternate and opposing directions being taken by cinema in the 21st century, it's worth considering a pair of films on release this weekend: "Johnny Mad Dog," by French director Jean-Stephane Sauvaire, is a provocative, intensely realist look at child soldiers on the rampage...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Apr 20, 2010

Japan's vulnerability to tsunami

Rollers from the giant earthquake in Chile in February and the catastrophic Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 are still fresh in the world's memories, but in Japan giant tidal waves have never been far from thought.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Apr 20, 2010

Sumo association between a rock and a place

Sumo has been around in organized form for over 250 years. As a sport in which the rankings and most of the promotion/demotion rules and regulations have remained unchanged, sumo has just turned 100.
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2010

Stronger yuan may help China take second place

China's anticipated move to let its currency appreciate may help the nation overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy, according to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Apr 18, 2010

Brace yourself — I did say 'cute'!

When did you last go out into the woods at night? In this age of media-induced fears, and with far more than half the world's population now being urban- dwellers, fewer of us brave the outdoors even during daylight hours, let alone at night.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 16, 2010

'Moon'/'An Education'

If hell is other people, as existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre famously put it, then Sam Bell has the best job in the world: He leads a solitary existence on a lunar base, where he's the only human employee in charge of a mostly robotic-controlled installation that mines fusion energy from beneath...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 16, 2010

Finding beauty in the simplest of things

The Japan Folk Crafts Museum in Tokyo's Komaba area was founded by Muneyoshi Yanagi (1889-1961) in 1936 and built in the style of a traditional Japanese house. With natural light filtering through shoji screens, its unusual setting enhances the wonderful displays from its collection of folk-craft items...

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