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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 28, 2010

Journalist wants Ashikaga murder case reopened

In June 2009, this column mentioned a TBS news report about the DNA testing method that resulted in the 1992 conviction of Toshikazu Sugaya for the 1990 murder of 4-year-old Mami Matsuda in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. Sugaya was sentenced to an indefinite prison term but was released last year after...
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2010

Let's hope Obama wins New START gamble

NEW YORK — President Barack Obama's decision to press for ratification of the New START treaty between Russia and the United States is one that will have a lasting influence on the rest of his presidency.
COMMENTARY
Nov 24, 2010

Japan's declining prestige

LONDON — Japan's prestige abroad has continued to decline despite the change from the clapped out Liberal Democratic Party with its series of old hack prime ministers to a government led by the Democratic Party of Japan. Foreign observers thought that surely a DPJ government must represent a change...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2010

Yanagida resigns over gaffe

Justice Minister Minoru Yanagida resigned Monday amid the fallout over his joking about his Diet duties, and after Prime Minister Naoto Kan effectively pressured him to step down.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2010

Japan hand Chalmers Johnson dead at 79

OSAKA — American author and scholar Chalmers Johnson, whose views on postwar Japan angered American academics and Japan experts in the late 1980s but influenced a generation of students studying the country, died Saturday in California at age 79.
COMMENTARY
Nov 21, 2010

To fold on rights is not an option

LONDON — In his recently published self-justifying and self-congratulatory memoir "Decision Points," former U.S. president George W. Bush declared that the waterboarding of al-Qaida suspects, which he had authorized, was justified because the information obtained from the suspects had been instrumental...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 21, 2010

Tossing our leaders to the lions

In Tokugawa days (1603-1867), criticizing the government was a capital offense. Rulers, not only in Japan but the world over, expected to be — and generally were — not only obeyed but revered, sometimes as gods, sometimes as beings only slightly less exalted. "God," wrote the French bishop and political...
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2010

Too close to the death penalty

Six lay judges and three professional judges at the Yokohama District Court on Tuesday handed down a death sentence to a 32-year-old man for murdering two men in a Chiba Prefecture hotel in June 2009 — the first death sentence under the lay judge system introduced last year.
EDITORIALS
Nov 17, 2010

Uphill on trade policy, diplomacy

As its relations with China and Russia are deteriorating over territorial issues and its domestic opinion is sharply divided on further opening of its markets, Japan hosted and chaired the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit on Saturday and Sunday in the port city of Yokohama — the first...
Japan Times
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Nov 16, 2010

Kan given low score for weekend

Pundits came away unimpressed over the weekend by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's bilateral meetings with his Chinese and Russian counterparts and his hosting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Yokohama.
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 16, 2010

Antlers refuse to concede title to Grampus

KAWASAKI — Kashima Antlers manager Oswaldo Oliveira has warned Nagoya Grampus not to start celebrating their first-ever J. League title just yet, even as Dragan Stojkovic's side moved to match point in the championship race on Sunday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
Nov 12, 2010

Brain death in kids complicates transplant issue

On Dec. 16, 2005, a pediatrician told Akemi Nakamura that her 2-year-old daughter was brain dead.
EDITORIALS
Nov 12, 2010

Japan's push for open trade

The 2010 APEC forum meetings started in Yokohama on Monday and an APEC leaders summit will take place on Saturday and Sunday. As host and chair, Japan faces the task of leading the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation members to agree on steps to push for further liberalization of trade and investment....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2010

Five anti-recession imperatives for the G20

NEW YORK — The world's economies are becoming more interdependent than ever, but economic nationalism, protectionism and beggar-thy-neighbor attitudes are threatening the bonds of trust and cooperation that a truly globalized economy requires.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Nov 10, 2010

Sega's Kikuchi makes a killing with 'Yakuza'

"While making the first and second games in the series, I went drinking in Kabukicho with (Toshihiro) Nagoshi, the overall producer of the franchise, two or three nights every week," says Masayoshi Kikuchi, a veteran producer at Sega, as we discuss the latest entries in his smash-hit series "Ryu ga Gotoku"...
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 9, 2010

Tokyo: What are your thoughts on the U.S. midterm election results?

Norman WooFinancial controller, 27 (American)For California, we felt disappointed. The House is represented by the Republicans now, and it seems like the controlling parties are going to be clashing, so it's going to raise a lot of conflict.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2010

Thailand after the protests

BANGKOK — Only a few months ago, governments of the West were warning their citizens not to visit Thailand. The heart of the capital was a no-go area with battle lines drawn and blood shed between security forces and protesters. Shops and hotels were shuttered, but that did not prevent one of Asia's...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2010

U.S. voters set to jump from frying pan to the fire

HONG KONG — Is the United States heading for disaster when the country goes to the polls Tuesday to elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate?
Japan Times
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Oct 26, 2010

LDP by-election win may be slap at DPJ but little else

Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Nobutaka Machimura's victory Sunday in the Lower House by-election in Hokkaido for the Hokkaido No. 5 constituency has dealt another blow to the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, which suffered a huge setback in the July Upper House election.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Oct 25, 2010

Kan feeling Diet squeeze from three major groups

What occupies the mind of Prime Minister Naoto Kan more than anything else appears to be how to keep his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) free from the influence of his archrival, former party Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa. This could very well be the root of inconsistencies and blunders that have emanated...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 24, 2010

Mysteries through the eons

While traveling alone on horseback through a gloomy forest near Lake Biwa, northeast of Kyoto, Justice Ministry official Sugawara Akitada suddenly comes upon a filthy, shivering urchin who appears to be deaf and mute.
EDITORIALS
Oct 22, 2010

Reaction to a delayed recovery

Clearly Japan's economic conditions give little cause for optimism. A steep rise in the value of the yen against the dollar, stagnation in the U.S. and European economies and the end to subsidies for purchasing eco-friendly cars are negatively affecting the economy.
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2010

Former prosecutor indicted

The Supreme Public Prosecutors Office on Oct. 11 indicted Mr. Tsunehiko Maeda, a prosecutor with the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office's special investigation squad, on suspicion of tampering with data on a floppy disk seized from a suspect in a case involving alleged abuse of the postage discount...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?