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Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Dec 15, 2006

Black and white flowers

Anyone previously overawed by the world of sumi-e (Japanese ink painting) will get a totally different impression once they see the works of Hiroko Hiroki.
COMMENTARY
Dec 14, 2006

Japan-India partnership key to bolstering stability in Asia

NEW DELHI -- Japan and India are natural allies because they have no conflict of strategic interests and actually share common goals to build stability, power equilibrium and institutionalized multilateral cooperation in Asia. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Tokyo this week offers an...
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2006

More trouble in paradise

For the fourth time in 19 years, the legal government of the South Pacific country of Fiji has been overthrown. The military is the culprit this time, with the head of the armed forces, Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama deposing Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and his Cabinet. The coup has been roundly condemned...
COMMENTARY
Dec 14, 2006

Pinochet's death marks the end of an era

NEW YORK -- The death of Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, on Dec. 10, Human Rights Day, marks an appropriate coincidence: the end of one of the bloodiest tyrants in recent Latin American history at one of the most significant human-rights celebrations.
BUSINESS / CONSUMER LOAN CRACKDOWN
Dec 14, 2006

Lending legislation reforms spell industry shakeout

It was early last month at moneylender Aiful Corp.'s midterm earnings news conference, and the mood at the Tokyo venue was grim.
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2006

Current account surplus up 5.2% in October

Japan's current account surplus in October grew 5.2 percent to 1.51 trillion yen from the same month a year ago, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 13, 2006

Polonium, peacocks -- and a dead spy

It's one of the biggest stories of the year -- and certainly the most unusual. I'm talking about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy living in London who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope last month. Nothing like this has been seen for nearly 20 years, back when the Cold War...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 12, 2006

Pluck, trim, extend -- making up is hard to do

The word kesho (makeup) is beautiful to look at -- made up of the kanji characters ke (to metamorphose) and sho (to decorate). Combined, they evoke far more than the mere act of making up. Novelists have poured much ink over the depiction of a woman applying powder, dabbing rouge or performing that special...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Dec 12, 2006

Heizaburo and Reiko Kawaguchi

Heizaburo and Reiko Kawaguchi, 84 and 81, from Kobe, believe that simple meals and large servings of complex ideas from Japanese manga, anime and classical literature pave the way to a long and happy life. Trained as a fukuryu (underwater kamikaze diver), and later head of a 300-year-old family business...
BUSINESS
Dec 12, 2006

Nissan developing its own hybrid lineup

Nissan Motor Co. said Monday it plans to launch its own hybrid vehicles in North America and Japan in fiscal 2010 as part of a five-year environmental plan.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 10, 2006

Setting it straight about Matsuzaka's free agency status

As the deadline (Dec. 14) approaches for the Boston Red Sox to sign posted Seibu Lions Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, let me clarify -- once and for all -- one key point seemingly misunderstood by many.
EDITORIALS
Dec 10, 2006

Our words of the year

Once again, it's the season when the dictionary and language people are hard at work winnowing words -- new ones, catchy ones, much-looked-up ones, over-used ones -- in preparation for crowning their latest Word of the Year (WOTY). This year, we thought we might do a bit of winnowing of our own.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 10, 2006

Politics at the grass roots

Judging by the society pages of certain publications in Japan, politicians at both the local and national levels seem to spend a lot of their time being photographed with ambassadors, captains of industry, assorted aristocrats, passing film stars and all manner of other folk.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 10, 2006

What remains 'Japanese' in such climates of change?

What is national character, and how does it differ from custom, manners and fashion? People talk about "the Japanese" as if referring to a nationality with an immutable quality that has existed and will continue to exist throughout the ages; and yet, Japan and the Japanese of the past are so different...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 10, 2006

SMAP's Kimutaku a different breed of idol

Six years ago this month, the public learned that Japan's most popular male showbiz personality, Takuya Kimura, was set to marry former singing idol Shizuka Kudo, already pregnant with his child at the time.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 9, 2006

Premier League benefiting from foreign ownership of teams

LONDON -- By early 2007 a third of the 20 Premiership clubs will come under foreign ownership.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 9, 2006

Unmasking life's many battles

I finally did it. I wore one of those masks because I caught a cold. Actually, not a cold, but a vicious stomach virus. But I couldn't help wondering: Who dunnit? Who didn't wear a surgical mask and passed their virus on to me?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 9, 2006

Yoshiyuki Iwamoto

Yoshiyuki Iwamoto recently published in New York a book in English.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo