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EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2008

Another trauma for East Timor

The attempted assassination of East Timor's president and prime minister this week is a reminder of the plight of Asia's youngest and poorest country. President Jose Ramos-Horta will survive, but his country needs more than his return to health: It needs sustained attention and assistance from its neighbors...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2008

Bangladesh tries to shake corrupt image

DHAKA — Ever since its hard-won independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh has struggled to shake off something just as unwelcome as foreign rule: its image as an impoverished and politically corrupt backwater.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 16, 2008

In the land of the statistically speaking

Numbers don't lie. Not in Japan anyway. Here, they tend rather to flatter. Or "fibulate." Or nourish.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Feb 15, 2008

A Mediterranean buffet, Austrian food fair and half-price wines at Cardenas

Early birds stay longer in Hakone The Hyatt Regency Hakone Resort and Spa has introduced an early check-in accommodation plan that extends a one-night stay at the hotel to 26 hours.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 15, 2008

'Fast Food Nation'

Once upon a time, the spread of freedom and democracy was measured in the spread of hamburger franchises. Beaming network correspondents would report from places like Moscow or Beijing on how formerly gray and monolithic communist societies had opened their doors to the Golden Arches. This, truly, was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008

Chuck Brown is good to go-go

Chuck Brown doesn't know when to quit. That's not a character flaw — it's a trait that gave the world the musical equivalent of a marathon.
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2008

Crises cast light on China's problems

HONG KONG — More snow, even blizzards, are expected this week, but for the most part, China has weathered the crisis brought on by weeks of unusually bad weather, including severe snow and ice storms that affected most of the country, paralyzing transport systems just when millions of people were trying...
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2008

Violence in sumo training

The arrests of former sumo stable master Tokitsukaze and three sumo wrestlers in connection with the fatal beating of a 17-year-old wrestler before and during a training session last June should serve as a warning to the Japan Sumo Association about a culture characterized by tolerance of corporal punishment....
Reader Mail
Feb 14, 2008

Routine pastime of xenophobes

The timely response from the Feb. 11 editorial "Avoid hysteria over food" is a welcome antidote to the prevailing mass anti-Chinese hysteria in Japan fanned by a bigoted local media. From "second-rate toys" to every conceivable Chinese-made good, China is now the convenient bogeyman for any inferior...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 14, 2008

A question of intention

How valid is the distinction between crafts and arts? A number of recent exhibitions, most notably "Roppongi Crossing" at Tokyo's Mori Art Museum and "Space for Your Future" at the Museum of Contemporary Arts, Tokyo, have confronted us with this question, one that is of great relevance to Japanese art....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2008

Let science empower you

The setting: The 350-year-old Royal Society in London, whose magnificent neo-Classical base overlooks the Mall, which has Buckingham Palace at one end of the boulevard and Trafalgar Square at the other. The speaker: Lord Rees of Oxford, the Astronomer Royal. Martin Rees is the current president of the...
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2008

Daiwa SMBC to invest ¥200 billion more

Daiwa Securities SMBC Co. plans to invest about ¥200 billion of its own money in the coming year to restore profit that has been battered by a slump in underwriting fees.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 11, 2008

ASEAN's Pakistan problem

MANILA — Pakistan's near political chaos, the result of President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of martial law last year and the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, has had a tsunami-like impact across Southeast Asia. Should Musharraf's government backslide even more on its commitments...
Reader Mail
Feb 10, 2008

Let the Crown Princess breathe

Regarding the Feb. 7 Associated Press article "Crown Princess panned for living high": The Crown Princess's free-time activities make up one of the biggest nonstories I think I've ever read. Going riding and dining at a Mexican restaurant are hardly indulgences that are going to tip the country back...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2008

Russian bomber detected violating Japanese airspace

A Russian air force bomber briefly violated Japanese airspace over the uninhabited island of Sofugan just south of Tokyo on Saturday, the Foreign Ministry said.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 10, 2008

Tickets for Red Sox-A's openers not expected to last long

The posters are up on the trains and ads in the Japanese sports papers are ballyhooing the sale of tickets to the Boston Red Sox vs. Oakland Athletics openers and the preceding exhibition games at Tokyo Dome March 22-26.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 10, 2008

There's no way of stopping the poisoned food sent from abroad

Last week, when the Chinese government sent five experts to talk with Japanese counterparts about those pesticide-tainted frozen gyoza (Chinese dumplings) imported from their country, the head of the team, Li Chunfeng, expressed concern over the feelings of Japanese consumers. He also offered a veiled...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2008

Noda wins 'madonna' turf war as LDP shunts Sato to Tokyo

A political dispute between two "madonna" lawmakers of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party both contesting a ticket to run for Gifu's No. 1 district finally came to an end Friday after the party announced that Yukari Sato will run for Tokyo, rather than Gifu, in the next Lower House election.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 9, 2008

Pocketful of yen

If you live to be 75 years old, you will live approximately 650,000 hours. Somehow, that doesn't seem like a lot, especially when you can buy a very nice house for $650,000, the same number, but a huge amount in dollars (and which would cost you one dollar per hour to live there). On the other hand,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2008

Killing calves makes Japan's whaling indefensible

KUROHIME, Nagano Pref. — When I turned on my TV to both BBC World and CNN this morning, I was shocked and saddened by the sight of a minke whale and calf being winched up the ramp of a Japanese factory ship in the Antarctic Ocean.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2008

Sentiment of 'economy watchers' tumbled to six-year low in January

Japanese merchant sentiment fell to a six-year low in January as stagnant wages forced consumers to crimp spending, the government said Friday.

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