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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2006

Why America needs the U.N.

We have to live in and manage a world in which the threat and use of force remain an ever present reality. The material capacity, economic efficiency, political organization and military skills in the use of force determine the international power hierarchy. Great powers rise and fall on the tide of...
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2006

Will Horie's impact on Japan business world last?

The arrest of Takafumi Horie, 33, founder of high-flying Internet startup Livedoor Co., has shocked business leaders and prompted some soul-searching.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2006

Consumers outraged by risky beef shipment

Anger, concern and a feeling of betrayal swirled among consumers, retailers and restaurants after the government announced that a shipment of beef imported from the United States contained material considered at risk of carrying mad cow disease.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 22, 2006

When notoriety helps sell books

TOPPAMONO: Outlaw. Radical. Suspect. My Life in Japan's Underworld, by Manabu Miyazaki. Tokyo: Kotan Publishing, 2005, 460 pp., $26.95 (cloth). THE APPRENTICE by Lewis Libby. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, St. Martin edition, 2005, 265 pp., $12.95 (paper). Japan's student movement ended with a whimper...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2006

Infamous English word is just an import

HONG KONG -- Apart from Thatcherism and the creation of the modern game of soccer, some cynics say that the major English contribution to modern international life has been the widespread promulgation of the dreadful "F" word.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 15, 2006

Two writers, two very different North Koreas

NORTH KOREA: The Struggle Against American Power, by Tim Beal. Pluto, 2005, 352 pp., £18.99 (paper). NORTH KOREA: The Paranoid Peninsula, by Paul French. Zed Books Ltd., 2005, 352 pp.,£17.95 (paper). The subtitles of these books reveal the sharply differing points of departure on North Korea for writers...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 10, 2006

Mind the gap

While the exoticism of cultural otherness certainly adds something to the experience of meeting a lover from another country, differences can also be the source of annoyance and complications.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2006

Moot 'right' raises risk of dying at home

NEW YORK -- Under the slogan "If you have a weapon you have a problem," the Ministry of Justice in Argentina has initiated a campaign against gun ownership in the country. It began as a response to a request from several nongovernmental organizations concerned about the high levels of violent deaths...
EDITORIALS
Jan 8, 2006

A bear who's aging well

Eighty years ago this year, a stuffed bear was brought downstairs by a small English boy named Christopher Robin -- "bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head" -- to be introduced to the world in the first of two books starring the amiable, slow-witted creature. The world got one look at Winnie-the-Pooh...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2005

Golden beaches bid ill will

SYDNEY -- Goodbye to the traditional Australian summer, surfing Pacific waves or lazing on golden beaches. Meet this summer's new beach sport, dodging gangs of racists trying to kill one another.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2005

Media reports on China, South Korea hit

turns toward South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao looks away after a group photo at the East Asia Summit on Dec. 14.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 18, 2005

What did you read about Asia this year?

Donald Richie THE COLUMBIA ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE, edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel (Columbia University Press) This new take on Japanese modern classics -- old standbys and lots of recent writing as well -- is big (864 pages and it's only the first volume). It includes examples...
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2005

Everyday marvels of design

Winter has a way of slowing things down. Animals hibernate. Ponds freeze over. And the human brain turns sluggish, resisting even repeated infusions of double mocha espresso. Then a funny thing happens. As the mind struggles to focus, elemental objects suddenly loom large. With the peculiar concentration...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 17, 2005

Lee Colegrove

In 1965, his senior class was studying drama in Lee Colegrove's university English course. The students asked him, "Can we continue to read drama after we graduate?" Pleased, he set up for them a reading group to meet regularly in his Tokyo apartment.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Dec 9, 2005

Drinking in a historical view

Choosing gifts for the wine lovers in your life can be a minefield, as passions among oenophiles can sometimes run as high as those in the most spirited political or religious debates. To avoid a dreaded, "Oh, you shouldn't have," we offer two gift ideas that are sure to stimulate and surprise even the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Dec 6, 2005

"The Fish in Room 11," "In my World"

"The Fish in Room 11," Heather Dyer, Chicken House; 2005;160 pp.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 6, 2005

Genki drinks riding high

People the world over are raising a toast to the growing mainstream acceptance of energy and functional drinks.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Nov 30, 2005

'Secret' dolphin slaughter defies protests

Japan's annual slaughter of thousands of dolphins began Oct. 8 in the traditional whaling town of Taiji on the Kii Peninsula of Honshu's Wakayama Prefecture. These "drive fisheries" triggered demonstrations, held under the "Japan Dolphin Day" banner, in 28 countries. The protests went almost entirely...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 28, 2005

Ishihara fails to measure up to his image

NEW YORK -- Earlier this month Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara gave a speech in New York City, and I went to hear him. That's one thing you do in this city: go hear or see some of the more famous visitors from your home country.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 23, 2005

Big Money warms to socially responsible investing

Environmentalists have been preaching for decades that true societal change will only happen when the really big-money players, such as multinational corporations and banks, begin to balance profit-making with social responsibility.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 19, 2005

Pan-Asianism central to exile activist's ideology

Author, artist, thorn in the flesh of America's political right and confirmed pan-Asianist M.T. Karthik is taking time to return to his roots in Madras. Preparing to make the first of several trips to India, he will then move on to Portugal before returning to Japan, where he is in self-imposed exile...
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2005

Osaka mayor race begins with promises of reform

OSAKA -- The Osaka mayoral campaign kicked off Sunday with all four candidates promising financial reform and a cleansing of a city bureaucracy racked by a year of scandals.
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2005

The pop-word culture

The dictionary frowns on words it snootily labels "informal." Teachers and newspaper copy editors carry a grudge against slang. Nearly everyone recoils from jargon. But according to a new book irresistibly titled "Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the Media, Business, Politics, and,...
COMMENTARY
Nov 11, 2005

Is capitalism key to peace?

WASHINGTON -- In a world that seems constantly aflame, one naturally asks: What causes peace? Many people, including U.S. President George W. Bush, hope that spreading democracy will discourage war.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 6, 2005

Find the right book without even going to Jinbocho

Renso Shuppan (Associative Publishing), a nongovernmental organization headed by Akihiko Takano, professor at the National Institute of Informatics, has recently launched the Web site Book Town Jimbou (jimbou.info). Book Town Jimbou can search for books available in Jinbocho, a Tokyo district long-famous...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 6, 2005

A modern master of an old tradition

MIREI SHIGEMORI: Modernizing the Japanese Garden, by Christian Tschumi, photographs by Markuz Wernli Saito. Stone Bridge Press, 128 pp., $18.95 (paper). A revival of interest in the dry landscape garden of Japan both domestically and internationally took place during the early Showa Era (1926-1989),...

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake