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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 19, 2007

Tokyo sanctions an extended cull of Taiji dolphins

The photos accompanying this article were shot covertly despite escalating intimidation by members of the Isana Fishery Union in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, who appear to be increasingly fearful that continuing publicity in Japan and abroad will threaten their widely condemned but profitable annual dolphin...
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Sep 19, 2007

Automatic sushi machine, simple soba noodle maker

Many of us possess all the culinary abilities of an aardvark. Bandai Namco is not about to have Michelin knocking on our doors to try out for its restaurant guide, but it at least promises to enable us to make sushi. The toy maker does this with its new automatic sushi roller. The little orange machine...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 18, 2007

Plane wrong?

Max Phillips Jr. wrote in after getting a nasty shock from his local travel agency.
BASKETBALL
Sep 17, 2007

Kawachi excited to be coaching again

This is the fourth straight year that the legendary streetball AND1 Mix Tape team comes to play in Japan. This year, its opponent is the bj-league All-Star team and the league's commissioner, Toshimitsu Kawachi, will be back on the sideline as head coach of the bj-league team.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Sep 16, 2007

Postmodern sports for all

One night last month, while I was lazily channel-surfing at home, I happened on shot-putters doing their thing at the IAAF's World Athletics Championships in Osaka.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2007

Is it right to judge creativity by its 'correctness'?

"Brute! You brute! You beast!" Gloria exclaimed. "You haven't changed, have you? You haven't changed a bit. You're still the little Jew who sold rags and scrap metal in New York, from a sack on your back."
Japan Times
SOCCER
Sep 15, 2007

Takahara finding his feet at Frankfurt

FRANKFURT — Naohiro Takahara puts almost all of his Japanese striking contemporaries to shame by possessing that rare something that is hard to come by on the national team: a killer instinct.
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2007

China opens window on military

China has taken two steps to increase the transparency of its military. The decision to resume providing data to the United Nations register on trade in conventional weapons and to participate in the U.N. Military Transparency Mechanism will provide some insight into what China is doing in this sensitive...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 14, 2007

Got the Biwa blues

This is the second part of a two-part story on a trip to Lake Biwa and its environs in Shiga Prefecture.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 14, 2007

The guitar skeptic

For a guy who's routinely credited with revolutionizing the sound of jazz, Pat Metheny sounds surprisingly detached from his mode of musical expression.
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2007

Guidelines on takeover defenses to be reworked

Spurred by a rancorous battle for control waged by Steel Partners' activist hedge fund and Bull-Dog Sauce Co., the government plans to revise guidelines on corporate defenses against hostile takeovers, an official said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 13, 2007

Lashing out at U.S. won't help Taiwan

TAIPEI — For all the divisions that define Taiwan politics, parties on both ends of the political spectrum agree on one thing: The island is in trouble. At that point, however, they part ways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 13, 2007

Memories of fortresses and clouds

Watching on television as the second plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001, Japanese sculptor Masayuki Nagare's thoughts were not with his most famous sculpture, "Cloud Fortress" (1975), which was located at the base of the towers. The then 78-year-old was recalling a time 58 years earlier when, as...
EDITORIALS
Sep 12, 2007

Mr. Abe tones down rhetoric

In his policy speech in the Diet on Monday, the first day of the extraordinary Diet session following his Liberal Democratic Party's devastating defeat in the July 29 Upper House election, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe toned down rhetoric on his conservative political agenda and touched more on issues closely...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 12, 2007

Carp

* Japanese name: Koi (Nishiki-goi) * Scientific name: Cyprinus carpio * Description: A big, colorful fish, with large scales and barbels (those are the "whiskers" growing down from the upper lips). They can grow to well over a meter in length, and live for more than 15 years. They are related to other...
COMMENTARY
Sep 11, 2007

Stopping sexual abuse of Russian kids

NEW YORK — One of the regrettable consequences of the uneven economic expansion that Russia has experienced in recent times has been the increase in child abuse, particularly child prostitution.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Sep 11, 2007

Funds law no match for wily politicians

Almost every day it seems another politician is making headlines over a money scandal. Four members of embattled Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet — administrative reform minister Genichiro Sata, and farm ministers Toshikatsu Matsuoka, Norihiko Akagi and Takehiko Endo — have been forced from their...
EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2007

Surviving in Net cafes

Over 5,000 people in Japan spend their nights at 24-hour Internet cafes every night, according to the first, but certainly not the last, survey on so-called Net cafe refugees by the labor and welfare ministry. On one hand, it seems that school refusers were first, then job refusers, now "home refusers,"...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 9, 2007

Americans share blame for Bush's 9/11 'devil'

There is no worse tragedy than one transformed into profanity. The profanity is compounded when it is not recognized as such by the mass of people.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2007

Extragalactic androgyny cuts a dash in roster of chic, high-energy shows

While trivial matters such as global warming get blamed for weather going awry, Japan Fashion Week being moved forward this season by more than a month has caused more angst than a whole panorama of melting ice caps.
COMMENTARY
Sep 9, 2007

Extreme events fire up the Greek fringe

LONDON — "How are our children going to survive in a land that is dead?" asked a survivor of the wildfires that seared much of southern Greece during the last week of August.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 9, 2007

From the Beatles concert to royal tattoos in Japan

Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits, Volume VI, compiled and edited by Hugh Cortazzi, Global Oriental, Kent, 2007, 368 pp., £60 (cloth) This book is the latest (and, sadly, probably the last) of the volumes about Anglo-Japanese relations that have been sponsored by the Japan Society of London since...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 9, 2007

Yamamoto protege debuts stoic new line

While his daughter Limi prepares to present her Limi Feu line at the Paris collections for the first time in October, Yohji Yamamoto has selected another protege to take her place on the Tokyo runways.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 9, 2007

Taking a good look at Tokyo's eclectic fashion

The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish To Spectacular, Goth To Gyaru, Sidewalk To Catwalk by Philomena Keet, photographs by Yuri Manabe. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2007, 224 pp., profusely illustrated, ¥3,000 (paper). It was the philosopher George Santayana who penned these wise words: "Fashion is something...
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 9, 2007

Tokyo revival

Taking on the task of reinvigorating Tokyo's beleaguered attempt at producing a world-class fashion week requires a good deal of gumption. In this regard, Nobuyuki Ota, CEO of leading fashion house Issey Miyake, is relishing the task and achieving a measure of success.
Reader Mail
Sep 9, 2007

Image of wasteful planning

The front page of The Japan Times on Sept. 1 shows a picture of a Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile battery at the Air Self-Defense Force base in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture. The accompanying article says Harumi Pier Park is a prime candidate site for deployment of the missile system in the defense...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 8, 2007

England needs big lift from Heskey against Israel

LONDON — Any suggestion at the end of last season that Emile Heskey should be recalled to the England team would have been met with ridicule. Wigan Athletic was the only club in 2006-07 not to supply a player to the England squad, but now its center forward has gone from international underachiever...

Longform

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