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EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2006

A positive form of punishment

Justice Minister Seiken Sugiura has asked the Legislative Council to discuss the introduction of social service as a way for certain types of convicts to make amends for their crimes. He also asked the advisory body to discuss housing for parolees and convicts who have served their time under a certain...
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2006

Licensing rights to players' images belong to baseball teams, court rules

The Tokyo District Court ruled Tuesday that the right to license the names and likenesses of professional baseball players belongs to their ballclubs.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2006

Perfect storm brewing in Horn of Africa

LONDON -- It has the makings of a perfect storm extending right across the Horn of Africa. The 15-year war of all against all in Somalia is threatening to morph into an international war bringing chaos and disaster to the rest of the region, and the al-Qaida-obsessed "securocrats" in Washington are the...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 2, 2006

Cider and Spots in my haunts of old

It was my first month of living in Tokyo, and I had just about gained enough courage to go into a little restaurant and order all by myself. I had come to Japan to study karate, and had just finished a hard training session at the Kodokan. I was thirsty, and so was delighted to see that not only did...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2006

Staffing companies find market in helping retired athletes

When international midfielder Hidetoshi Nakata recently announced his retirement from soccer, people wondered what he would do in the next stage of his life -- business, sports, or a combination of both?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2006

Photographer captures essence of elderly full of life, near death

As a freelance photo journalist, Munesuke Yamamoto has witnessed numerous deaths in war zones around the world, but he is now focusing on the living, specifically elderly people in Japan.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 1, 2006

Island travel and Mac help

Airport on Ogasawara? J and partner have heard that there is an air service to Ogasawara (the Bonin Islands) -- described in my book Insider's Tokyo (2001) as "Tokyo furthest flung outpost."
EDITORIALS
Jul 31, 2006

Sympathy for a racehorse

The world's compassion is notoriously quirky. Just consider where it has been directed over the past couple of months, a period as replete with tragedy and disaster as any in recent memory. Another lethal tsunami struck Indonesia. The sectarian slaughter in Iraq worsened, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 30, 2006

Time-capsule Tokyo along a street where I lived

In the early 1980s, my wife and I lived in a tiny flat in Soshigaya on the Odakyu Line in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward. The eldest three of our four children were born then, and I have only the fondest memories of pushing a pram up and down the kilometer-long shotengai (shopping street) between the station...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 30, 2006

Working for and beyond the call of hospitality

WELCOME TO SAWANOYA, Welcome to Japan, by Isao Sawa. Omega-Com Inc., 2006, 203 pp., 1,200 yen (paper). It seems at times as if, by common consent for the other's altering tastes, that East and West are exchanging positions. The West's love of the subtle side and back lighting, in the spirit of Junichiro...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 30, 2006

And in the Japanese corner is . . . Morita-san

Christina Morimoto is sitting in the office of the Tokyo modeling agency she works for, answering questions about her first acting job in the new movie "I Am Nipponjin."
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2006

JCJ awards Tokyo Shimbun for stories on conspiracy bill

The Japan Congress of Journalists said Thursday it will award its grand prize this year to Tokyo Shimbun for its investigative report on crimes of conspiracy.
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2006

Missile defense plans have their skeptics

North Korea has become Japan's main security concern in the post-Cold War era, as underscored by Pyongyang's July 5 test-firing of seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2006

Small-scale funerals on the increase

The second-floor unit in Kodaira, western Tokyo, at first glance may look like an overly large apartment, with its sofas, large TV, video player, kitchen, bathroom and tatami room, but it is actually a small-scale funeral hall.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 28, 2006

Breaking teeth on 'Hard Candy'

Thonggrrrl, 14, could just be the girl of Lensman's dreams. She's sexy, she's witty, she's currently reading the autobiography of Jean Seberg and making all kinds of intelligent comments. And she's all of 14 years old.
MORE SPORTS
Jul 27, 2006

Suzuki likely out of World Cup

Athens Olympics over-100 kg gold medalist Keiji Suzuki is likely to miss the world team championship World Cup in September in Paris because of a left shoulder injury, Japanese men's coach Hitoshi Saito said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2006

Pols undermining Britain's civil service

LONDON -- The British civil service has prided itself on being politically neutral in providing unbiased advice to ministers. It has also largely avoided being corrupted by political cronyism. Sadly these traditions are being undermined by British politicians.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jul 27, 2006

Finally hitting the local

It occurred to me recently that in the more than five years I've been covering contemporary art for The Japan Times, I've never once written about the gallery I visit most frequently -- The Konica Minolta Gallery in Shinjuku.
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2006

Harm in delayed action

The recent revelation that 21 people have died of carbon-monoxide poisoning caused by malfunctioning gas water heaters points to a lack of awareness and slow action on the part of the parties involved -- the manufacturer and its parent company, Paloma Industries Ltd. and Paloma Co., the Ministry of Economy,...
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2006

No-permit cadaver dissections probed

A 47-year-old former assistant at Jikei University School of Medicine in Tokyo is suspected of allowing vocational school students to dissect cadavers without a permit, the Metropolitan Police Department said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2006

University admission woes worsen

A record-high 222 private universities failed to reach their admissions targets this year, according to a recent survey by an educational lobby group.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2006

Gold-selling binge defies oil, Middle East uncertainties

possessions," said Hidekazu Yamada, a gold adviser at the firm's head office in Tokyo's Ginza. An official in charge of precious metal sales at Mitsubishi Materials Corp. said sales have been increasing conspicuously since October.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 25, 2006

Renting and dual nationality

In Japan, "truth" is often a very nebulous concept. A "situational ethics" approach to life here directly affects law and gives birth to the "don't ask, don't tell" attitude, which is pervasive in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jul 25, 2006

Mariko Sakaida

Mariko Sakaida, 33, is a supermarket cashier in Tokyo and the 2003 Best Checker Concours champion, a title she competed for with about 2,000 of the Kanto region's other checkout aces. She won hands-down with polished greetings, flawless scanning, speedy and accurate cashing, and artful packing. She also...
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2006

Story worsens with each telling

The investigation into the mid-May murder of a 7-year-old boy in the community of Fujisato, Akita Prefecture, has taken a second bizarre twist since 33-year-old Ms. Suzuka Hatakeyama, who lived two houses away from the boy's home, was arrested June 4 on suspicion of dumping the boy's body by a river,...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 23, 2006

Marty K. still alive and well in Eagles' nest

Marty Kuehnert still with Rakuten? What is Marty doing these days?
JAPAN / Politics
Jul 23, 2006

Retired Yasukuni official recounts turmoil over war criminal question

in Kashihara, Nara Prefecture, in May 1981. KYODO FILE PHOTO

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