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BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2007

Komatsu to open plant in Russia

Komatsu Ltd., the world's second-biggest maker of earthmovers, will start its first factory in Russia to assemble excavators and forklifts by June 2010 to benefit from the nation's oil-funded construction boom.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 14, 2007

Culture observed by an art of glass

All of us go through life with our own set of personal "filters" — emotional baggage and cultural biases that color the way we see the world. This is the theme of the exhibition "Culture Filters."
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Dec 14, 2007

A tycoon's field of dreams

On Oct. 16 a Japanese media tycoon was awarded the Newspaper Culture Prize by the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (JNPEA) at its 60th general meeting in Nagano.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Dec 14, 2007

"Surf's Up"

Directors: Chris Buck and Ash Brannon
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2007

'Les filles du botaniste'

Banned in China as "unsuitable for viewing," "Les filles du botaniste (The Botanist's Daughters — released in Japan as 'Chugoku no Shokubutsugakusha no Musumetachi')" is a luscious, languid tale of forbidden love in 1980s China.
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2007

TCI latest fund to seek better returns from companies

The Children's Investment Fund Management Ltd., the U.K.-based activist fund with more than $10 billion (¥1.1 trillion) in assets, said it won't let Japanese companies stymie its efforts to boost shareholder value.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Dec 14, 2007

Michelin maestro spills the beans

For one of the world's most illustrious chefs, Pierre Gagnaire keeps a remarkably low profile. Unlike many of his media-savvy colleagues, he shuns business suits and the spotlight of stardom, and just lets his food do the talking.
Reader Mail
Dec 13, 2007

Pay the price of social harmony

It seems a lot of readers are of the opinion that Japan needs an influx of immigrant workers or it will perish. I think "become extinct" is how one reader put it. I admit to not having the economic background to fully comprehend the declining population issue, but it would seem to me that countries like...
JAPAN / History
Dec 13, 2007

Nanjing Massacre certitude: Toll will elude

who argued that it is impossible to determine the number of victims killed based on the historical materials (available) now. "If I were the director of the museum in Nanjing, I wouldn't write the figure in the first place," Cheng said, referring to a huge sign on the war museum's exterior that simply...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 13, 2007

The printer who wished to paint

Masuo Ikeda's polymath abilities in the arts — ranging from printmaking to writing and ceramics — is mirrored in his diverse depictions of feminine eroticism. Posed provocatively in Ikeda's works are his versions of Venus, virgins, brides, generic types and femme fatales, the Madonna of the Annunciation...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 12, 2007

How do chimps top us in a brain test?

"We are 98.77 percent chimpanzee," Tetsuro Matsuzawa told me last week. "We are their evolutionary neighbors."
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Dec 12, 2007

Asashoryu Akinori — the people's champion?

The 2007 sumo season has drawn to a close, and no sumo fan in his or her right right mind would want to see a repeat of it.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2007

Legislating history obscures the truth

NEW YORK — In October, the Spanish Parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 11, 2007

Hemp OK as rope, not as dope

A Justice Ministry report released last month says the number of Cannabis Control Law violations set a record in 2006, while the amount of marijuana seized dropped to half from the previous year.
LIFE / Language
Dec 11, 2007

Yearend love stories cap a yucky 2007 for girls

Here's a toshinose renai hora banashi (yearend love relationship horror story) -- always a favorite topic of conversation during the season's more casual nomikai (drinking parties).
Reader Mail
Dec 9, 2007

Whales don't cause fish shortages

Regarding Misao Nakaya's Dec. 4 letter, "Hold your beef about whale meat": Nakaya argues that the consumption of whale meat is necessary to combat fish shortages. It appears to me, however, that this claim simply parrots the so-called science of the Japanese whaling industry.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 9, 2007

Police-interrogation drama, obscure comedian jokester, actor-singer tribute

The controversial practice of closed police interrogations gets the TV drama treatment on the two-hour mystery "Yoru no Owaru Toki (When the Night Ends)" (TBS, Monday, 9 p.m.). After the naked body of Detective Tokumochi of the Fujimi Police Department is found, a childhood friend named Sekiguchi is...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 9, 2007

Finding the self and losing others

Losing Keiby Suzanne Kamata. Wellfleet, Mass.: Leapfrog Press, 2007, 196 pp., $14.95 (¥1,554) Like France, after World War II Japan has hosted a varied group of expatriate writers. Though no Hemingways or Gertrude Steins have yet emerged, expectation remains.
LIFE
Dec 9, 2007

Japan's love affair with Oma's tuna

On Jan. 5, 2001, a 202-kg Pacific bluefin tuna sold at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market auction for $173,000 ($860 per kilogram), making it the most expensive single fish transaction ever recorded.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 9, 2007

The buildup to Beijing

During the 40-minute drive from Beijing Capital International Airport to the city center, my Chinese tour guide, Ma, had plenty of time to relate his views on Beijing's rapid development.

Longform

The sun shines from behind a waving Philippine flag at the Manila American Cemetery and Memorial.
Eighty years after the Battle of Manila, old foes forge new ties