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EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2009

Better eating habits

In 2005, the Diet enacted the basic law on education on eating habits (shokuiku) to promote healthful eating habits. This move came against the backdrop of a deterioration in the country's dietary culture, which traditionally has been considered well-balanced and healthy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2009

Will Asia's economic recovery lead the way?

MANILA — The latest economic indicators from the world's advanced economies remain mixed. There are some signs of stabilization — industrial output and consumer spending are, for example, falling much more slowly than they were, but stabilization does not mean imminent recovery. A decline is still...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 24, 2009

Performing opera can easily be child's play

Kids Opera does not have to be a contradiction in terms, as the New National Theatre has proved since 2004. Artistic Director Thomas Novohradsky (2003-2007) first suggested the idea, and now Kids Opera is a regular summer feature. The NNTT takes the original music and text from a classic, reworking the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2009

'Amalfi'

Films produced by Fuji TV — one of Japan's five national TV networks — have regularly hit the top of the box-office charts in the past decade. Fuji's biggest franchise started in 1998 with "Odoru Daisosasen The Movie" ("Bayside Shakedown"), a thriller starring Yuji Oda as a rambunctious detective...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2009

Franz Ferdinand ready for Fuji to rock

Barely a minute into our conversation, and without prompt Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thomson begins talking up the virtues of Japan
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jul 20, 2009

Two brothers competing on Japan's political ladder

One of the major topics of speculation among political observers nowadays is what course of action former internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama will take following his revolt against Prime Minister Taro Aso. He will have to make up his mind soon now that the date of the next general election has just...
COMMENTARY
Jul 19, 2009

Like it or not, China is not about to go away

KUALA LUMPUR — There was never the slightest doubt in the mind of a single reputable expert anywhere in the world that China was a caldron of ethnic unrest ready to boil over. Nor was there the slightest possibility that the masters of the People's Republic of China would be able to escape, within...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 19, 2009

A different kind of hardball

It's as English as dancing round a Maypole on the village green. But, wedged between a rugby pitch and fields full of practicing Little Leaguers, the University of Tokyo Cricket Club and their counterparts across town from Chuo are doing their best to put this most civilized of pastimes on Japan's sporting...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 18, 2009

JAL faces more losses as retirees fight cuts

Takahiro Fukushima gets a pension of ¥2.7 million a year from Japan Airlines Corp., where he worked for 35 years. Two months ago, the unprofitable airline sent the former cabin attendant a letter asking his permission to cut it by more than 50 percent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 17, 2009

Dick El Demasiado

Dick El Demasiado is, by his own admission, an impostor. Born Dick Verdult in the Netherlands in 1954, the musician and media artist has become a pivotal figure on Argentina's experimental music scene thanks to an elaborate hoax.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 17, 2009

A cool show at Shiseido with the Helsinki School

Finland may seem like a cold, distant land better known for Nokia and reindeer than photography and art. But the Helsinki School, an art cooperative formed about 15 years ago, is heating up the international photography and video art world. Showing in Asia for the first time, the Helsinki School's photography...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Jul 16, 2009

Chrysmela founder sticks to it

At first glance, it comes as a surprise that such a quiet and sensitive young woman founded her own company, but Eri Kikunaga, 28, moved aggressively to establish Chrysmela Inc. in July 2007 and continues to drive it forward.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Jul 16, 2009

Ishigaki

Dear Alice, Is it weird to love a wall? I recently visited the Imperial Palace in Tokyo and was totally blown away by a high rock embankment on the far side of the moat. That rugged face! Those elegant lines! I am completely enchanted and want to know anything at all you can tell me. But there's one...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2009

China's growth won't be high enough to sustain jobs: scholar

China's economy will grow at modest rates, but not strong enough to tame unemployment for an extended time without a radical change in macroeconomic policy, a Chinese scholar told a recent seminar in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Jul 12, 2009

It's up to the five powers to bottle the nuclear genie

LONDON — Speaking in Moscow on July 7, U.S. President Barack Obama was the very soul of reasonableness. The United States and Russia must cooperate to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons, he said, while keeping the goal of a world without nuclear weapons always in sight: "America is committed...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2009

Ethnic profiling threatens very ethos of EU

BRUSSELS — Several years ago, as terrorism, immigration, and unrest in suburban Paris were at the top of the news in France, a French police officer confided to a researcher: "If you consider different levels of trafficking, it is obviously done by blacks and Arabs. If you are on the road and see a...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jul 11, 2009

Religion couple's common ground

Zuzana Koike, a 29-year-old Austrian national of Slovak extraction, never thought she would even visit Japan before meeting and marrying Takeshi Koike, 38, a lecturer at Daito Bunka University in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 10, 2009

'Kani Kosen'

Why does a novel about exploited workers on a crab cannery boat, published 80 years ago by a young communist writer, later tortured to death by the police, become a hot movie property now?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 10, 2009

Artist Yoko Ono is honored

On June 6, the Venice Biennale presented artist Yoko Ono with one of its most prestigious honors, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Ono was nominated for the distinction along with American John Baldessari by the director of this year's biennale, Daniel Birnbaum.
Reader Mail
Jul 9, 2009

Added burden on the hospitals

Overstayers by definition are in Japan illegally and thus are criminals in that they have broken the law. Those acknowledged as not having the right to stay are usually not problematic as long as they do not break the law. Nevertheless, the vast majority are not enrolled in national health insurance....
EDITORIALS
Jul 9, 2009

McNamara's tragedy and triumph

Mr. Robert McNamara, the 1961-68 Pentagon chief who died on Monday, will be largely remembered as a tragic figure. He led the United States into a military quagmire in Vietnam that not only took the lives of more than 58,000 U.S. soldiers and an estimated 4 million Vietnamese but also weakened America's...
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2009

Diet OKs bills to up foreigner controls

The Diet passed bills Wednesday that tighten controls on foreign residents, paving the way for them to take effect within three years, despite opposition from foreigners and human rights activists.
BUSINESS / GLOBAL ECONOMY AND LABOR SYMPOSIUM
Jul 9, 2009

Outmoded labor practices blunt competitiveness

Japan needs a more flexible and diverse labor market as its population ages rapidly and starts to decline, experts told a recent symposium in Tokyo.

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick