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Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2008

The mathematics of music

So forward-looking that it's hard to categorize him — Is he an artist? A musician? A conceptualist? — Ryoji Ikeda makes the music that we'll lull the robots to sleep with when they ultimately try to take over. Or that we'll use to convince ourselves that we are the robots.
BUSINESS / SOUTH KOREAN JOURNALIST SYMPOSIUM
Mar 6, 2008

New leader's pragmatism to define policies

New South Korean President Lee Myung Bak will pursue a "pragmatic" foreign policy that will seek to rebuild ties with the United States and Japan while taking a "carrot-and-stick" approach to North Korea, journalists from South Korea told a symposium held in Tokyo just before his inauguration.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2008

Skymark mulls first dividend

Skymark Airlines Inc., Japan's largest low-fare carrier, may pay a dividend for the first time next business year to help stem a decline in its shares.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 5, 2008

Marion bashers refuse to exit shadows

NEW YORK — Sorry, but no Shawn Marion column today, as advertised, on the grounds one and all insisted on anonymity with regards to his debatable trade for Shaquille O'Neal.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2008

Gazprom-ization of EU energy security

LONDON — The term "energy security" in Europe has been hijacked to empower suppliers and weaken importers, implying a drastic reduction in competition, rising political vulnerability and the erosion of the rule of law.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2008

Cambodia's revenge fiasco

BRUSSELS — Cambodia is currently witnessing the commencement of what is likely to become a grotesque farce. In July, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia will try four Khmer Rouge leaders, as well as the commandant of the infamous S21 Tuol Sleng prison, for crimes committed more than...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2008

MSDF ship, freighter clip sterns in Vietnam port

A Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyer collided with a Cambodian cargo ship in the port of Ho Chi Minh City around 12:20 p.m. Monday Japan time, less than two weeks after another MSDF warship collided with and sank a small trawler off Chiba Prefecture, MSDF officers said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 4, 2008

Remains issue clouds Tokyo-Seoul ties

Historical issues involving Japan and South Korea have entered a new phase with the inauguration in Seoul last week of a conservative president and the return to South Korea last January of the remains of 101 Koreans who died while forcibly serving in the Japanese military during World War II.
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2008

Preventing forced confessions

False charges leveled in a 2002 rape and attempted rape in Toyama Prefecture and the acquittal of all defendants of vote-buying allegations in the 2003 Kagoshima Prefectural Assembly election were widely reported in 2007 and caused controversy.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 3, 2008

Tallying up the benefits of disaster relief

PRAGUE — When disaster strikes, nongovernmental organizations are among the first on the scene. The United Nations estimates that there are now more than 37,000 international NGOs, with major donors relying on them more and more.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Mar 2, 2008

Evessa's 3-point ace Nakamura fulfills dream as pro player

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with players in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which is in its third season. Naoto Nakamura of the Osaka Evessa is the subject of this week's profile.
Reader Mail
Mar 2, 2008

Time for a town beauty contest

Regarding Kevin Rafferty's Feb. 28 article, "Why's Japan grown so ugly?": I love the idea of starting a competition for the most picturesque town/village in Japan. Somebody, hopefully including The Japan Times (as suggested by Rafferty), needs to do it! A community can work together to make their environment...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 2, 2008

Compartmentalizing Japanese using prefectural stereotypes

At the heart of the current argument over whether or not to continue the special gasoline tax is a question that gets overlooked: Does the central government have too much control over prefectural governments?
EDITORIALS
Mar 2, 2008

Education reform in reverse

The education ministry has unveiled drafts of revised courses of study for elementary and middle schools. The new courses of study will become effective in fiscal 2011 for elementary schools and in fiscal 2012 for middle schools. For the first time in 30 years, the drafts call for increasing the number...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Mar 1, 2008

Warren's play has Five Arrows primed for title run

"An accomplishment sticks to a person," someone once said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 29, 2008

Slow-food movement creeps to Japan

Enjoying good food is a fundamental pleasure. But the slow-food movement asks whether "good food" can mean more than simply the flavor and presentation of a meal.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 29, 2008

Splendor falls on castle walls

Snowcapped Fuji drops behind the humps of the Hakone range in central Honshu as a southwest-bound train approaches Odawara Station. With mountains on the west and the ocean on the south and east, Odawara was a natural fortress. The first to exploit this topography was the Kobayakawa clan, who built a...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 29, 2008

Yoshihiko Matsui: The return of the underground king

Born in 1956, Yoshihiko Matsui worked with indie icon Sogo Ishii on his early films, including the seminal 1980 biker pic "Kuruizaki Thunder Road (Crazy Thunder Road)."
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2008

Why's Japan grown so ugly?

YUNOMINE, Wakayama Pref. — My brother wanted to create a new room in the loft of his house in an English provincial city, actually Kingston upon Hull (population 250,000), a place of passing interest to Japanese because two centuries ago it was one of the world's biggest whaling ports. Today, the whales...
Reader Mail
Feb 28, 2008

Getting an abusive hubby arrested

Regarding the Feb. 24 article "Miura held again over '81 hit on wife in L.A.": How many Japanese readers will be happy to see that Kazuyoshi Miura (now 60) has been charged with murder by U.S. authorities? Japan, a land of overwhelming beauty, a rich culture, and people whom I find are generally quite...
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2008

New occupant in the Blue House

South Korea has a new president. Mr. Lee Myung Bak has vowed to take the same "bulldozing" approach to running his country as he did when he was the head of a construction company and the mayor of Seoul. His first priority is economic revival, but he also hopes to forge new relationships with his neighbors,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2008

Bangladesh's female workforce powers silent revolution

DHAKA — The women of Bangladesh are a force to be reckoned with.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 27, 2008

Even oceans can only take so much

N ow that the wider world has finally recognized the extent to which human activities are altering the Earth's climate, maybe we can also begin to grasp the fact that our oceans, too, are in dire straits.
Japan Times
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Feb 27, 2008

War exacts top toll on bottom echelons: vet

Fifteenth in a series
Reader Mail
Feb 26, 2008

Larger questions about Ishihara

In his Feb. 21 letter, "The root of national identity" (a response to the Feb. 16 Japan Times article "Ishihara laments loss of national identity"), Timothy Khaki makes a number of valid points. But, actually, rebutting quotes by Shintaro Ishihara is like shooting fish in a barrel. Most of what the...
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.

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