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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 19, 2011

Pitt, Penn heap praise on Malick's 'real world'

Terrence Malick kicks off his new film, "The Tree of Life," with a bang. The Big Bang, actually. Over the next 138 minutes, the viewer witnesses a journey through history that ends up in a small town in Texas. Critics seem to agree that you'll either love it or hate it.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2011

Agent Orange buried on Okinawa, vet says

In the late 1960s, the U.S. military buried dozens of barrels of the toxic defoliant Agent Orange in an area around the town of Chatan on Okinawa Island, an American veteran has told The Japan Times.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2011

A deal struck in Washington

German statesman Otto von Bismarck is credited for pointing out that "laws are like sausages: It is better not to see them being made." Never has the truth of that old saw been more evident than during the week through Aug. 2, when the world witnessed the sorry spectacle of U.S. politicians scrambling...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 6, 2011

Nakazawa hoping to return to national team

On Tuesday afternoon, Yuji Nakazawa could never have imagined the events that would unfold over the course of the week.
COMMENTARY
Aug 4, 2011

A stinging defeat for Obama

Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman nailed it right away: "Basically the Republicans [said] we'll blow up the world economy unless you give us exactly what we want, and the president said, OK. That's what happened."
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2011

A less blinkered view of the Dalai Lama

As expected, China reacted strongly to the meeting between Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, saying this had "grossly interfered in China's internal affairs, hurt the feelings of Chinese people and damaged Sino-U.S. relations."
Reader Mail
Jul 31, 2011

Avoid meat and feed more people

The July 21 article "What it takes to banish starvation," by former European commissioner for agriculture Franz Fischler, repeats all the silly ideas that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has been promoting for years, and that has led directly to the development of gene-modified food and seeds....
BUSINESS
Jul 30, 2011

South profits from nuke scare

South Korean food exports to Japan are climbing at their fastest pace on record after radioactive contamination and supply disruptions prompted consumers to switch to overseas producers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 29, 2011

Local galleries move to fore at Art Fair Tokyo

On the Japanese cultural calendar, visual-art events tend to take place in the more pleasant seasons of spring and autumn. Classical music and ballet have winter sewn up, with dozens of performances of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 or "The Nutcracker" being held over the Christmas-New Year period,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2011

Winning the transition to democracy

Is the Arab Spring turning into a gloomy autumn? With brutal crackdowns in Syria, a bloody civil war in Libya, and Yemen teetering on the brink of chaos, the number of skeptics is growing. Although Egypt and Tunisia's prodemocracy movements achieved rapid regime change, uncertainties remain in those...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2011

Mindful of pesky value judgments

The Japan Times runs opinion articles written by current and retired Japanese bureaucrats. Professor Takamitsu Sawa's July 12 article, "Advantage of taking notes," was a waste of space even though Sawa sounds more like a journalist than a bureaucrat.
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2011

A media empire crumbles

Scandals have often dominated the British media, but few have been as remarkable as the revelations which have been appearing almost every day about the misdeeds of journalists on the British populist mass circulation Sunday paper The News of the World. This was owned by News International which is run...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2011

Cutting power at night may be overdoing it

The hot, humid summer is here and people and industries face the huge challenge of curbing electricity consumption to avoid large-scale blackouts stemming from power plant shutdowns amid the radiation crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 3, 2011

Kotaro Horiuchi: A life spent in uncharted waters of boat design

Considering the current state of Japan's economy, it's remarkable to recall that 60 years ago there were hundreds of companies both old and new jockeying restlessly to fill the vacuum left after almost all the nation's cities were heavily bombed in World War II — jockeying, that is, with the kind of...
Reader Mail
Jun 30, 2011

Why put down counseling?

I was frankly shocked when I read the following paragraph by Giovanni Fazio in his June 24 review of the movie "Hesher": "Hesher" stands in opposition to the modern American obsession with pop-psych, and the rather misguided idea that endlessly talking about one's feelings will help one deal with them....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 27, 2011

Dealing with addiction to the 'war on drugs'

Earlier this month a spate of reports and commentaries came out on the failure of the U.S. "war on drugs," beginning with the Global Commission on Drug Policy flatly stating the war "has failed."
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 26, 2011

Morishita: treats in place of the trees

Sometimes it's hard to see the forest for the trees. According to Akinori Saito, a historian in Tokyo's Koto Ward Office, the area known as Morishita (lit. "forest below") was most likely named for woods that surrounded the yashiki (residence) of a feudal lord named Saemon Sakai (1564-1619), a retainer...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2011

Chopper group keeps up disaster-zone airlifts

After the March 11 quake and tsunami ravaged ports, railways, roads and bridges all along the Tohoku coast, leaving thousands of people stranded in isolated areas without water or electricity, the only way vital supplies could reach them at first was by flying them in.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 17, 2011

Nakamura hopes to bring winning ways to Akita

Fiery leader Kazuo Nakamura is officially on board as the Akita Northern Happinets' new head coach. The announcement, made earlier this week, was in the works for weeks.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 5, 2011

Parmer headlines Top 20 players in 2010-11

With four new teams joining the bj-league over the past two seasons, it has become a greater challenger to select Hoop Scoop's Top 20 players. But it's a worthwhile — and necessary — challenge. One that will become greater next June, following the first season with 20 teams, including four more...
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2011

China steps up drilling, intimidation

China recently launched an oil and natural gas drilling platform that may be as significant as military modernization in buttressing Beijing's claims to control most of the islands, water and seabed in the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 28, 2011

Experts: Leave radiation checks to us

Measuring radiation levels accurately is difficult for laypersons and they shouldn't panic if their devices show much higher levels than the figures announced by the government, radiation experts say.
Reader Mail
May 26, 2011

Compassionate aid has strings

William Twaddell's May 19 letter, "Okinawa issue and aid don't mix," criticizes my May 8 letter ("Better use of the U.S. Marines"), saying that the issue of where to locate U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, Okinawa Prefecture, should not be conflated with the marines' relief operations after the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2011

Depp adds more gold to his treasure chest

Johnny Depp is wrestling with a monster. No, it's not one of the numerous sea monsters from "Pirates of the Caribbean" — it's the franchise itself.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 13, 2011

Rookie coach Blackwell admires veteran peers

Leading their teams to three consecutive Final Fours, Ryukyu's Dai Oketani and Hamamatsu Higashimikawa's Kazuo Nakamura have earned respect from their coaching peers and helped set the standard of excellence for which all future bj-league coaches will be judged.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 12, 2011

Nuclear energy at a crossroads

The choice Japan must soon make over the future of its energy policy will determine whether it will develop safer nuclear power plants, expand reliance on other energy sources or remain in power-save mode for decades to come.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
May 10, 2011

Osaka/Kobe: Where do you go for news of the Tohoku disaster?

Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 9, 2011

Evessa eye title after booking place in bj-league Final Four

Reaching the Final Four is an annual objective for the Osaka Evessa, but it's only the first step.
Reader Mail
Apr 24, 2011

Keep the good ol' boys tethered

Regarding the April 19 article "METI hit for 'amakudari' habits that put retirees in Tepco" (in which the government is described as urging industry ministry officials to refrain from taking positions at power utilities after retirement): It is old government retirees "descending from heaven" into comfortable...

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