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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2008

Group plans to bury Tokyo's elevated 'shuto'

A group of business executives is floating the idea of burying all of Tokyo's elevated highways 60 meters underground. The megaproject also includes a sweeping greening of the space they will leave behind and large-scale redevelopment at key highway ramps.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 30, 2008

Flying in the face of common sense in building new airports

Several weeks ago while walking through Tokyo's Ueno Station a friend and I passed a poster advertising the new Ibaraki airport. After we boarded our train, we started talking about the poster. Neither of us were aware that Ibaraki had an airport and we wondered why the prefecture needed one.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 29, 2008

Research on some research

Most of my Stateside friends and family have knowledge of Japan only as deep as what they see on TV. Which means they think I live my life in a "dizzified" world of ninja, yakuza and robots.
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2008

Bringing in China and India

The rise of China and India is a frequent topic of discussion in the international community. In pondering the global repercussions of this rise and how the world might cope with it, it is instructive to examine how the international community dealt with Japan, and how Japan adapted to the international...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2008

Hashimoto's cost-cutting plans under fire

OSAKA — If Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto has his way, employees now working on international human rights issues may become school security guards and a popular women's center will be sold off.
COMMENTARY
Mar 22, 2008

Iraq after five years of war

LONDON — March 20 marked five years since U.S. President George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq. Can Iraq emerge from this ordeal as a place where people lead reasonably safe and happy lives?
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 21, 2008

Then there were ghosts

Uraga Station, on the Keikyu Line, deposits passengers at the end of a narrow valley. The road ahead bifurcates.
Reader Mail
Mar 16, 2008

Plea for better judgment this time

With the remaining term of the George W. Bush administration getting shorter by the week, I would like to ask a simple question as a pure political amateur, hoping that the comments of some wise pro -- a Democrat, Republican or other -- could enlighten me and other amateurs a bit.
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2008

Sovereign funds rescue West

LONDON — Ten years ago some commentators, including myself, were forecasting that the age of Westernization was over and that the age of Easternization was about to begin. Capital and technology that had flowed from the West to the East for several centuries past was now about to start flowing the...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2008

Keynes and the end of economic history

PARIS — Some academic works, for reasons that are at least partly obscure, leave a persistent trace in intellectual history. Such is the case with John Maynard Keynes' paper "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren."
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 3, 2008

No place for celebrity currencies in global jungle

Just recently I took part in a very interesting discussion program for NHK television in which economists and strategists from around the world came together to debate the state of the global economy and what kind of a beating the financial markets were liable to take as a result of the ongoing subprime...
LIFE / Language
Feb 26, 2008

Get into electronic touch with kanji

'A lot of squinting and counting.' That is how Dries Durnez, a Belgian graduate student at Doshisha University in Kyoto remembers how he used to look up kanji, those intricate Chinese-based characters that make up a sizable chunk of the Japanese syllabary.
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2008

Reflecting on 'Sorry Day'

Regarding Alan Goodall's Feb. 18 article, "Australia's historic apology": Goodall's rendition of the mood of the "Sorry Day" apology by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was apt. Although the reply by the opposition leader Brendan Nelson was criticized by some, it provided the balance that many thought was...
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 21, 2008

A living play appears from the past

"I have absolutely no idea beforehand what exactly I am going to do. Everything comes together really at the last minute," says 50-year-old English dramatist Simon McBurney when asked how he's approaching his latest collaboration. Working with Japanese actors, McBurney is producing "Shunkin," a play...
COMMENTARY
Feb 15, 2008

U.S. campaign fires up Brits

LONDON — "A woman president, a black president or the oldest president — which would you prefer?"
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2008

Election of new Iwakuni mayor may speed U.S. realignment

IWAKUNI, Yamaguchi Pref. — Sunday's mayoral election, in which Yoshihiko Fukuda, a former Diet member, narrowly defeated former Mayor Katsusuke Ihara, is expected to ease tensions between Tokyo and Iwakuni over the planned relocation of U.S. military aircraft to a base here.
EDITORIALS
Feb 10, 2008

Entrance exam blues

Entrance exam season is here again. All over the country, students hoping to enter universities are showing their ID cards, sitting down at desks and answering question after question. The hope and anxiety of many young people and their families, not to mention that of their teachers and principals,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2008

Five uncertainties about China's future

A former senior Chinese diplomat praised the journey of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to Beijing last December as a "wonderful visit."
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2008

Going after Google

The high-technology world is abuzz following Microsoft Corporation's $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo! Inc. last week. The takeover is an assault on Google's dominance of the online world, and on paper the two companies make a good match. But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about the deal's eventual...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Feb 6, 2008

Talking sense about deer

We were filming a television documentary in the mountains of Hokkaido. It was winter, and bitterly cold. Through the trees, bare of leaves, we could see floe ice, dotted with eagles, gulls, crows and a few ravens. Then a raucous gathering of crows ahead drew our attention and we trudged through the crisp...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2008

New magazine takes aim at wrongful convictions

A court ruling last fall changed a man's life. After Hiroshi Yanagihara was found guilty of rape in Toyama Prefecture and served about two years in prison, the Toyama District Court's Takaoka Branch officially found him not guilty.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 28, 2008

Watching the world's biggest roadshow

NEW YORK — I was recently amused to read the following observation quoted in an intellectual history of modern Japan: "The system in which people vie to get elected head of state through indulgence in garrulity and by flaunting gestures like those of low-class actors is a singularly bizarre custom...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 24, 2008

The girl in the corner

She's one of the most admired actresses in Hollywood, both for her talent and versatility.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 23, 2008

Bay Area fans unfair to target Dunleavy

NEW YORK — Warriors fans who booed Mike Dunleavy when he played for their team and continued to do so each time he touched the ball last week at Oracle Arena, his first appearance there since being traded to the Pacers, are easily the NBA's most unrefined.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jan 21, 2008

Fukuda's house won't stand

It appears all but certain that the Japanese political landscape will undergo a drastic change this year as a result of general elections following the dissolution of the House of Representatives by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2008

Reality check in the Middle East

American President George W. Bush has just completed his first extended Mideast trip of his presidency. The visit was remarkable on two counts. First, there is the fact that Mr. Bush has not been to the region before despite its centrality to U.S. foreign policy in general and his administration's policies...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 13, 2008

Japan's wild genius of slime-mold fame and more

First of two parts
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 10, 2008

Expat artists 'making a home' in NYC have little in common

For many Japanese artists who want to make it in the art world, New York City has yet to shake its image of being an art utopia where anyone can succeed: You'll find representation by a hip gallery! Share cerebral discourses with art star Jeff Koons! And work in a loft of immense dimensions in the Lower...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat