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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2008

Writer blogs her way to top literary prize

Mieko Kawakami, a former bar hostess and bookstore clerk, was just another obscure singer until she started a blog.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 25, 2008

Pioneering women's center in Osaka slated for closure

Last month, the new governor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto, announced his plan to shut down and sell or privatize 25 public facilities in a bid to tackle the prefecture's financial crisis. Except for two libraries, no prefectural facilities merit further public funding, argues Hashimoto. Included among the...
BUSINESS
Mar 25, 2008

Nippon Oil in deal with PetroChina

Nippon Oil Corp., Japan's largest refiner, may process 40 percent more crude oil for a unit of PetroChina Co. under an accord expected to be signed this month, according to company officials.
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2008

Chinese arms fueling Sudanese conflict

NEW YORK — Between 2003 and 2006 China sold Sudan more than $55 million worth of small arms, which, according to a report recently published by Human Rights First (HRF), are among the main ingredients fueling conflicts in that country.
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2008

Japan peers into the abyss

HONOLULU — It is an item of faith for many Japanese — and many Japan watchers — that their country will never build or acquire nuclear weapons. Japan's nonnuclear status, a product of both the searing experience of August 1945 and a calculation of the strategic value of nuclear weapons, has been...
EDITORIALS
Mar 24, 2008

Security for cultural treasures

The burning of South Korea's Namdaemun Gate in February was a terrible tragedy. A month after the fire was set by an arsonist, Koreans still mourn their national treasure, now a cinder. Along with many people around the world, we extend our deepest sympathy for the terrible loss of an ancient symbol...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 24, 2008

Drew's sixth-inning grand slam powers Red Sox past Giants

Hideki Okajima proved that you can go home again, but J.D Drew was the star on this night.
COMMENTARY
Mar 23, 2008

Nonbelievers in the 'existential threat'

LONDON — When Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon was chosen to replace Gen. John Abizaid as the commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in March 2007, many analysts didn't shy away from reaching a seemingly clear-cut conclusion: the Bush administration was preparing for war with Iran and had selected...
MORE SPORTS
Mar 23, 2008

Japan defeats U.S. squad in Global Challenge Bowl

KAWASAKI — Since American football was introduced here in the early 1930s, Japan had one of the most memorable moments in its history on Saturday when its under-19 squad defeated its American compatriots 24-14 at Kawasaki Stadium in the Under-19 Global Challenge Bowl 2008.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 23, 2008

You'd have to be drunk to be fooled by Japan's booze commercials

A few weeks ago the Asahi Shimbun printed a letter from a 59-year-old man who complained about a TV commercial for Kirin's Tanrei, one of those beerlike beverages known as happoshu. In the spot, world-famous alpinist Ken Noguchi is seen climbing a mountain, the Gipsy Kings howling away on the soundtrack....
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 23, 2008

Ortiz, Youkilis spark BoSox past pesky Tigers

The Boston Red Sox came to Japan to give their Japanese fans a good show and they didn't disappoint. But neither did the Hanshin Tigers.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 23, 2008

Oh what an extravaganza

Even the heavens were smiling on Tokyo Girls Collection. Balmy 19-degree temperatures — the year's highest up until then — provided the perfect setting last Saturday for the Spring/Summer edition of this hugely popular fashion-show-cum-showbiz extravaganza, allowing most of the 22,000 teenage and...
Reader Mail
Mar 23, 2008

No selective approach to terrorism

It is regrettable that The Japan Times chose to reprint The Washington Post article "A rocky terrain for Kurdish guerrillas" for the March 20 Focus page. The article is misguided and misleading in many ways. It only serves to legitimize and even attempts to glorify an organization that has been recognized...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 22, 2008

Red Sox, Athletics arrive for MLB season opener

After a few tense hours on Thursday, the Boston Red Sox and Oakland A's finally arrived in Japan. More importantly for the Japanese fans, Daisuke Matsuzaka was present and accounted for.
COMMUNITY
Mar 22, 2008

Gallery brings Vietnamese art to Tokyo

Karen Thomas' Thai housekeeper is apologetic. "Karen" is down in the garage basement, unpacking a shipment. So down we go from the Bird-Thomas household on the sixth floor and find a tiny dynamic powerhouse, power tool in hand, tackling large flat wooden crates of art, flown in by Fedex from Vietnam....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 22, 2008

Here they are once again — The Cherry Blossoms!

Nothing excites Japanese people the way cherry blossoms do. Cherry blossoms are something the Japanese are so proud of, they can't help but smile when someone mentions the magic word: o-hanami.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2008

Japan, Rosneft ink agreement on oil exploration, production

Japan and OAO Rosneft, Russia's biggest oil producer, signed an initial agreement to cooperate in crude oil exploration and production, part of Japan's efforts to win better access to overseas reserves.
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2008

Tibet and Olympic Games

Events in Tibet have turned ugly. Once again we see the harm caused by Beijing's heavy-handed bureaucracy, and its panicky, untrained soldiers used for crowd control. But even when combined with all of Beijing's other alleged sins — Darfur, pollution, human rights and other issues — does Tibet justify...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 21, 2008

Then there were ghosts

Uraga Station, on the Keikyu Line, deposits passengers at the end of a narrow valley. The road ahead bifurcates.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Mar 21, 2008

Folk music lights traditional tales

Takeharu Kunimoto's entry into the music world was via the mandolin, which he took up in 1974 while he was still in junior high school. But it wasn't the lure of traditional European tunes that attracted him to the ancient instrument; it was the twangy rhythms of the blues- and jazz-fusion American...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2008

'Memo'

Some directors put their own neuroses on the screen, with attitudes ranging from the dramatically self-lacerating (Ingmar Bergman) to the comically self-deprecating (Woody Allen). Where actor-turned-director Jiro Sato departs from the messed-up norm in "Memo," his first feature film, is in the rawness...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 21, 2008

'My Blueberry Nights'

What in the world has happened to Wong Kar-wai? The freshest, most effortlessly cool man in cinema since the mid-1990s, Wong seems to be floundering at the moment. For a director whose style once seemed all about being free, off-the-cuff, jammed out, and playful, his most recent flicks show every sign...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan