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Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2008

Blame game by Afghanistan

The statement carried in the Sept. 1 article "Afghan official accuses Pakistan intelligence in aid worker's slaying" is an outrageous slander. The government of Pakistan and its people condemn the murder of aid worker Kazuya Ito as well as deplore all such acts of violence. But this is not the first...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2008

Katsura Funakoshi's sphinxes of suggestivity

The figure is nothing if not startling: Truncated just above the knees and suspended on four, bark-covered sticks sprouting from the body, sculptor Katsura Funakoshi's "The Sphinx Floats in Forest" is a muscular hermaphrodite with full, female breasts and male genitalia, an elongated neck and leather-strap...
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2008

Top hedge fund manager Mukai joins Epic Partners

Tadashi Mukai, who outperformed all his hedge fund rivals in Japan last year, joined Tokyo-based Epic Partners Investments Co. and will start a new fund that won't bet on stocks rising or falling.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 2, 2008

Urawaza — quirky, everyday Japanese tips — head West

Two years ago, a mysterious 20-second video clip triggered some unexpected buzz on the Web site YouTube. In the segment, an ordinary-looking housewife draws an invisible line across the chest of a shirt with her finger. Then she pinches the shirt under the armpit and at the shoulder, does a quick flipping...
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2008

Ma pursues defense plus China's blessing

PARIS — Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, who marked his first 100 days in office last week, has wrought major changes in Taiwan's relations with both China and the United States, mending relations damaged by his predecessor, the pro-independence Chen Shui-bian, who insisted on pushing the envelope at...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 31, 2008

New company casts light on power saving

The use of solar energy to generate power and to heat water is gradually spreading in Japan, but the most basic use of sunshine is yet to come out of the shadows — namely, for lighting.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Aug 31, 2008

Why is Japan lagging in solar-energy field?

In the renewable energy industry, how does Japan compare with the rest of the world?
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2008

Peddling influence with Fiji

SYDNEY — From dazzling the world at the Beijing Olympic Games, China now appears to be turning its attention to the South Pacific. Its chosen beachhead to begin island- hopping is Fiji.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2008

Faust

As leading figures in the 1970s German experimental rock scene, Faust are really the granddaddies of much modern electronic and noise music. Along with contemporaries such as Can, Neu! and Kraftwerk, they helped to break the stranglehold that British and American musicians then had on rock — and in...
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2008

Bankruptcies to rise: Daiwa chief

The list of real estate companies filing for bankruptcy will grow this year as banks cut lending, said Takeo Higuchi, chairman of Daiwa House Industry Co., Japan's second-biggest home builder by market value.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2008

Temp era ending as rules change, workforce shrinks

Masahiko Tanabe's life has changed since home products retailer The Loft Co. made him a permanent employee and gave him a 10 percent pay raise.
EDITORIALS
Aug 27, 2008

Sumo career goes up in smoke

It appears that the Japan Sumo Association lacks the ability and determination to rid itself of scandals. Wakanoho has become not only the first active sekitori wrestler to be arrested, but also the first active wrestler to be dismissed in sumo history. His arrest on suspicion of possession of marijuana...
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2008

Kirin to buy Aussie dairy business

Kirin Holdings Co Ltd. said Monday it has agreed to buy Dairy Farmers for 910 million Australian dollars (¥88.5 billion) in cash and assumed debt to extend its position as Australia's largest seller of fresh milk.
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS: BASKETBALL
Aug 25, 2008

Team USA back on top of basketball

BEIJING — Chinese culture, it has been said, emphasizes group harmony over individual desires. Western culture is supposed to stress the opposite dynamic.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2008

Chinese 'oldies' who raised the bar for caring

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — In the obsessive media heat of these youth-oriented Beijing Olympics, a once-famous Chinese political figure has died at the ripe young age of 87, and goes to the grave almost internationally unnoticed.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2008

Some lessons from Japan's burst bubble

HOLY GRAIL OF MACROECONOMICS: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession, by Richard C. Koo. John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd., 2008, 296 pp., $34.95 (cloth) Hit by a devastating housing slump, billions of dollars of subprime losses and rising oil prices, the U.S. economy appears headed for recession, taking...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 23, 2008

Communicating through the unsaid

Sculptor Gakushi Yamamoto arrives looking as if he tumbled out of bed — or rather rolled off his futon and into the nearest shirt and pair of jeans that came to hand. And that may be so, considering he has had to travel two hours to meet up in Moto-Azabu for 10 a.m.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 22, 2008

Champion 'turntablist' Kentaro gets mixed up

It's been a busy few years since DJ Kentaro won the 2002 DMC World DJ Championship and became the first Japanese to bring back the prize — a golden pair of Technics record decks (the turntable of choice in clubs around the world) — to the land where they were made.
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 21, 2008

China taking small steps to baseball success

BEIJING — Baseball is experiencing growing pains in China. In order to take a big step forward, China needs time to establish a foundation for the future.

Longform

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?