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November 24, 2024
 

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COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2008

Fukuda hounded out of office

Japan's PR-vulnerable public and lightheaded media have done it again. Between them they have got rid of yet another of Japan's better prime ministers. I have no brief for Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's policies. On two key issues I think he was wrong. One was his determination to force through legislation...
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2008

Fukuda gives LDP apology for quick exit

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda told his fellow Liberal Democratic Party members in the Diet on Wednesday he was sorry about his surprise decision to step down earlier this week.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 31, 2008

Surrogate path for dads not always as easy as for Ricky

When Puerto Rican pop star Ricky Martin announced on Aug. 21 that he was the father of twin boys born to a surrogate mother, the media reacted cautiously. Martin is single, and for years rumors have circulated that he is gay. Celebrity interviewer Barbara Walters once asked him about this, and he dodged...
EDITORIALS
Aug 30, 2008

Mr. Obama takes the ticket

The Democratic Party made history this week when it made Mr. Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, its nominee for the 44th president of the United States. Mr. Obama is the first African-American — his father was Kenyan, his mother a white Kansan — to claim a slot on the ticket of a major...
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2008

Insular view of raw excitement

Although I was excited about the Olympics after they started and enjoyed watching many televised events and the superb sportsmanship that was displayed, but those feelings were replaced by exasperation at Japanese broadcasters' incredibly insular, boring and petty coverage. Let me say, first, that I...
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2008

Challenge Ozawa for sake of DPJ, Maehara urges

The Democratic Party of Japan should hold a genuine presidential election next month in order to enliven policy debate, former DPJ President Seiji Maehara, who quit his post over a political blunder two years ago, said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 28, 2008

How to handle an angry bear

Experts and commentators have been pouring out books, pamphlets and articles in recent times telling us that conventional wars between states are a thing of the past and that all nations now instead face a kind of globalized, nihilistic terrorism requiring entirely new responses. Unfortunately the Russians...
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Aug 28, 2008

Why curators stay at home

When I interviewed 28-year-old curator Shinya Watanabe a month ago, he surprised me when he said his dream was to curate Documenta, the massive exhibition of international contemporary art held once every five years in Kassel, Germany. He might as well have said all he wanted was to be the most famous...
COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2008

Showcasing best of China

It's been like watching the coverage of the Beijing Olympics on a split screen. Much of the Western media comment in the main news and opinion pages has been written up by the "nattering nabobs of negativism," in the immortal words of Vice President Spiro Agnew (albeit written by William Safire). The...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Ready to defend Japan's interests

Having served in the U.S. military for nearly 30 years and been stationed in Japan for almost 20 of those years, I am deeply insulted by Yoshio Shimoji's Aug. 17 letter, "Victor's privileges to present day," in which he suggests that American military personnel would not put their lives on the line to...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 23, 2008

Barwick's departure comes as no surprise

LONDON — England's uninspiring 2-2 draw against the Czech Republic on Wednesday was overshadowed by the news that Brian Barwick is to leave his post as chief executive of the Football Association after four years in it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2008

'R246 Story'

Omnibus films — collections of segments, usually by different directors — are hard commercial sells, but rarely complete disappointments.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 19, 2008

Readers respond: Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin'?

The Community Page received a large number of responses to Debito Arudou's last Just Be Cause column on the use of the word "gaijin." Following is a selection of readers' views.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Aug 19, 2008

Regions, not prefectures

The 47 prefectures have been in place since the Meiji Era (1868-1912), but the system is seen as increasingly obsolete amid the vast demographic changes Japan has had since the war.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 16, 2008

Heavyweights poised to dominate again

LONDON — Predicting the top four clubs at the end of the 2008-09 Premier League season is relatively easy.
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2008

Cabinet trio visit Yasukuni

Cabinet ministers and at least 53 Diet members visited Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on surrender day Friday while Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and two key ministers opted to keep their distance from the contentious landmark, which served as Japan's spiritual pillar during the war.
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2008

Another chance for North Korea

North Korea has agreed to set up a committee to reinvestigate its abduction of Japanese nationals with the goal of completing the probe by this fall. Japan, for its part, has agreed to lift some of its sanctions against the North simultaneously with the start of the reinvestigation. North Korea should...
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2008

Aug. 15 — Japan's longest day — still resonates

Aug. 15, 1945, a scorcher without a cloud in the sky, is one of the most emotional dates for the Japanese people, as it is considered the day the nation surrendered and ended World War II.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2008

No-name arrests don't seem right

Regarding Robert McKinney's opinion ("No advantage in a media circus," Aug. 7 letter) of my July 31 letter ("A HREF="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/rc20080731a4.html">Mind boggles at police reports"): Perhaps the female slasher who attacked six at Hiratsuka Station is "mentally impaired" —...
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Aug 11, 2008

New justice minister has no problem with capital punishment

New Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka believes most Japanese approve of capital punishment because, he said, the country has a cultural background in which death is considered "gracious" for criminals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Aug 8, 2008

Machimura steels himself for another Diet session

The key to getting bills and personnel appointments through the divided Diet is "patience," says Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2008

Osaka governor rests but rough air on radar

OSAKA — After six months on the job, Osaka Pref. Gov. Toru Hashimoto will take his first extended vacation during the Bon holiday in mid-August.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 5, 2008

Schools aim to cultivate returnee students' 'second culture'

Yuki, 7, zooms around the school lounge in her neon T-shirt, hugging teachers, gesturing wildly, making jokes and chattering away in perfect English. Yuki is Japanese and learned English when her family lived in Los Angeles for two years. She is affectionate and expressive, or at least she is on Saturdays...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2008

In memory of dreamer Bronislaw Geremek

WARSAW — When a friend dies unexpectedly, we recall his face, his smile, the conversations forever unfinished.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 3, 2008

Jiang Rong: Writing in a world of wolves

Jiang Rong (pen name of Lu Jiamin), who is now 62, was born in Jiangsu Province, China, and educated in Beijing. In 1967, at age 21, he volunteered to go and work in Inner Mongolia, where he'd heard about the practice of people there paying homage to "wolf totems" erected in the rolling grasslands that...
COMMENTARY
Jul 31, 2008

Money can't buy Tibetan love

By all measures Tibet's economy is booming. In the past 30 years its growth rate has outstripped the rest of China's, 10.4 percent to 9.8 percent year on year. The result is that the vast majority of Tibetans have been pulled out of deep poverty.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 31, 2008

Who are you calling 'Mummy's boy'?

'This is some screwy way for an adult to be spending his career, right?" laughs Brendan Fraser.
U.S. aircraft carrier returns to Japan carrying navy’s ‘most capable fighter’
U.S. 7th Fleet Commander Vice Adm. Fred Kacher speaks to reporters shortly after the arrival of aircraft carrier USS George Washington at Yokosuka naval base in Kanagawa Prefecture on Friday.
Tokyo police care for lost umbrellas, keys and flying squirrels
An employee at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department Lost and Found Center in the Iidabashi area of central Tokyo bags, tags and organizes thousands of items.
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Woman dies after train collides with car in Tochigi
A Moka Railway train car
133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
After Shohei Ohtani bump, Iwate ironware maker sees brighter future
Kaito Kikuchi's decision to send superstar Shohei Ohtani one of his company's traditional ironware tea kettles has paid off with a surge of interest from general consumers.
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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The celebrated artist ‘updating’ the kimono

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