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JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 17, 2011

Japan's food crisis goes beyond recent panic buying

The neon lights of Ginza flickered out, leaving Tokyo's favorite playground in ominous darkness. Drivers fumed while waiting in long lines to purchase gasoline. Goods disappeared from supermarket shelves, sending housewives on forays into neighboring prefectures in search of everyday items such as toilet...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 16, 2011

Quest to gain, impart knowledge drives expat

The importance of education informs Aileen Kawagoe's life view, although early on she turned down the chance to become an educator like her father.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 15, 2011

Yoshihiko Takahashi's messages in a bottle

The obvious property of glass is that it is transparent, but for Yoshihiko Takahashi this is only one of its essential characteristics. The prolific glass artist, whose career is being honored by a retrospective at the Crafts Gallery of the Museum of Modern Art Tokyo, clearly has several handles on the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 15, 2011

It's a fine line between the eccentric and the experimental

Implicit in the idea of the "eccentric" painter is that the artist's style seems to have come out of nowhere, breaks all the conventions, and stands alone as an example of unparalleled individuality that cannot be repeated. All the better if the painter's biography is incomplete and prone to hyperbolic...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 12, 2011

Evidence for Agent Orange on Okinawa

In the late 1960s, James Spencer was a United States Navy longshoreman on Okinawa's military docks. "During this time, we handled all kinds of cargo, including these barrels with orange stripes on them. When we unloaded them, they'd leak and the Agent Orange would get all over us. It was as if it were...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 11, 2011

Hawks poised to take flight in '11

The following is the first of a two-part preview for the upcoming NPB season. Team-by-team previews of the six Pacific League clubs are in order of predicted finish.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 10, 2011

Japan's seismic nerve center

The Earthquake Phenomena Observation System, located inside the Japan Meteorological Agency in Tokyo's central Otemachi district, is usually operated by five teams of seven who work in rotating shifts that span every minute of the year. But at 2:46 p.m. on March 11 this year, all that changed. In an...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 7, 2011

The best kindergarten lessons are at lunch time

Despite the devastation of the earthquake and tsunami in the northeastern part of Honshu, in most of Japan, life has to go on as usual.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2011

Radiation terminology numbs, confuses, varies by need and country

Ever since the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant began spewing radiation on March 11, many have struggled to understand the unfamiliar units used to measure it.
BASEBALL / HIT AND RUN
Apr 5, 2011

Swallows could have what it takes to challenge CL's Big Three in '11

Norichika Aoki led Japanese baseball with a .358 batting average and turned out the second most single-season hits (209) in Central League history last year.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 4, 2011

Russian alienation and the cost of freedom

MOSCOW — The Russian government, with its solid hold on power, has invariably gotten away with poor performance, inefficiency, corruption and widespread violation of political rights and civil liberties.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 3, 2011

Japanese antinuclear voices are still struggling to be heard

On March 26, NHK covered an antinuclear power demonstration in Germany that attracted thousands of protesters. The report pointed out that the demonstration was sparked by the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear reactor. The next day, there was a march by Japanese antinuke protesters in Tokyo. Though...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 2, 2011

England has no chance at winning Euro 2012

LONDON — The celebrations of the wonderful Ghana fans went on long after the memorable 1-1 draw with England at Wembley.
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2011

Now it's Yemen's turn

The Middle East continues to churn. While events in Libya and Syria command most of the world's attention, developments in Yemen are just as important. The situation there is unraveling and for once the prospect of al-Qaida profiting from the unrest seems real. That is not a reason to disown demonstrators...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 27, 2011

Don't destroy that invader, it was here first!

NEW YORK — Among the most recent invaders of the United States to be exterminated that I learned about is the red lionfish. Before that, the Asian carp got all the attention. About the time the carp scare was quieting down the yellow jacket — yes, the wasp — came forward as a heinous invader to...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 25, 2011

It's a woman's world inside manga

Bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women), long a staple of ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) and its erotic sub-genre shunga (spring pictures), is mostly moribund in contemporary art. A variant form, however, lives on in shojo manga, serialized comic books that are often flush with romantic narratives and target,...
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Mar 22, 2011

The relief effort: how you can help

A few readers have questions about donating supplies.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2011

Black ink, red blood

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PRESS NETWORKS OF EAST ASIA, 1918-1945, by Peter O'Connor. Global Oriental, 2010, 381 pp., £61 (hardcover) In the pre- and early war years, the big three newspapers at the center of the networks in Japan were The Japan Times, Japan Advertiser and the Japan Chronicle.
COMMENTARY
Mar 17, 2011

Calculating the impact of aerosols

SINGAPORE — Scientists have developed an extensive understanding of the impact that carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other global warming gases have on Earth's climate.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Mar 17, 2011

Yokobue

Dear Alice, Last November, I went to Kyushu to see the Karatsu Kunchi festival. It was a wonderful spectacle, with huge, flamboyant floats pulled through crowded streets to the rhythmic accompaniment of drums, music and shouts of "Enya! Enya!" I loved it all, but if I had to designate one aspect as my...
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 13, 2011

Japan as a rice culture? Not so quick, says anthropologist

What could be more Japanese than rice? Without the pearly white grain there would be no mochi (rice cakes) at New Year's or sake at shrines, no sushi, no lunchtime onigiri (rice balls), no verdant paddies to mark summer in the countryside.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2011

Matsumoto new foreign minister

Prime Minister Naoto Kan named political blue-blood and former banker Takeaki Matsumoto as foreign minister Wednesday, promoting the deputy foreign minister to replace Seiji Maehara, who stepped down over a political donation scandal.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 5, 2011

Grampus favored to repeat as J. League champions

The following is the second of a two-part J. League preview for the upcoming season. Team-by-team previews of the nine top-ranked teams competing in the first division are listed.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 4, 2011

Survival on top of agenda for J. League's lower half

The following is the first of a two-part J. League preview for the upcoming season. Team-by-team previews of the nine lowest-ranked teams competing in the first division are listed.
COMMENTARY
Mar 2, 2011

Dawn of Arab democracy?

LONDON — The revolution in Tunisia was set off by the self-immolation of a poor vendor persecuted by an autocratic and corrupt regime. The consequent toppling of the Tunisian dictator inspired revolts in Egypt, Bahrain and Libya and led to unrest in the Yemen, Algeria and Jordan. It also spurred the...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 27, 2011

Indefensible costs of military one-upmanship

NEW YORK — I was recently surprised to learn that Singapore has 72,500 troops on active duty and plans to double the number of "combat-ready aircraft" to more than 200. It also plans to have 10 more submarines to add to the four it has today. Or so the Wall Street Journal reported ("Asia's New Arms...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Feb 24, 2011

Designing with the grain

For kids branching out to art Last year, Kana Nakanishi caught our attention with Koke-a, an unusual piece of furniture with a mosslike surface of tufted wool on which to relax — her graduate project for Finland's Alto University of Art and Design. Now she's a member of Oiseau, which has launched Mother,...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.