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SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jul 29, 2008

Asa might not have been all there, but Haku certainly was

When yokozuna Asashoryu withdrew from the July 13-27 Nagoya Basho on Day 6, public opinion was largely split.
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2008

Birth of a massacre myth

With the Beijing Olympics looming we see more attempts to remind the world about the alleged June 4, 1989, massacre of democracy-seeking students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2008

Incongruous with the facts

The Tokyo High Court has upheld a 2005 Mito District Court decision that granted a retrial to two men who were convicted of a 1967 murder-robbery and spent 29 years behind bars. The case lacked material evidence and the prosecution relied on confessions to build the case.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Social competition or pathology?

I like to swim and I have been known to run. I even like to kick and throw a ball around with friends or children for fun, for leisurely recreation. But as soon as anyone proposes re-shaping those simple pleasures into organized events featuring opposing teams that compete against each other according...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2008

What's the beef with Seoul?

NEW YORK — At the outset of the violent protests in South Korea over imported beef from the United States, the entire Cabinet of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak offered to resign. Last week, Lee fired three of them. But beef, it turns out, represents just the tip of the iceberg of grievances against...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2008

Are young people ready, willing to be adults at 18?

Kids just don't wanna grow up.
Japan Times
SOCCER
Jul 16, 2008

Uncertain future awaits as Ronaldo mulls options

LONDON (AP) While resting his injured ankle, Cristiano Ronaldo has had plenty of time to think about his future.
COMMENTARY
Jul 15, 2008

Guantanamo ruling may end the nightmare

NEW YORK — The recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that recognizes the rights of Guantanamo detainees to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts is a serious rebuke of the controversial detention policies of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. It also may pave the way for the...
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008

Japan's culture policy lingers in limbo

It's a fact that has long puzzled devotees and plain old tourists alike. Japan's manga and anime arts have been wowing the world for more than a decade, and yet the national government still hasn't got around to setting up a proper museum for their enjoyment, preservation and study.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 11, 2008

Picking a wine for the picnic spread

The smell of freshly mowed lawns and of gunpowder in the air signifies one thing: summer is now in full swing. Whether you're a peaceful soul who likes to spread out a plastic picnic mat in the local park under the tranquil shade of a decent-size tree, or a matsuri festival maniac heading down to the...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 9, 2008

Is there anyone out there?

W hat's the most incredible headline you could expect to read in a newspaper? For me, it would have to be something like: "We are not alone: Life found on other planets."
COMMENTARY
Jul 9, 2008

After a century has passed, Young Turks at a crossroads

The Ottoman Empire had already been in retreat for over a century when the Young Turk revolution broke out in July, 1908. Some of the Young Turks hoped to save the whole empire; others wanted to abandon the empire and rescue an independent Turkey from the wreckage. The latter group won the argument,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2008

Exorcising Musharraf's ghost

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Following its recent free elections, Pakistan is rebounding politically. But the euphoria that came with the end of the Musharraf era is wearing off, as the new government faces stark choices.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2008

Obama can't escape America's realpolitik

During the Democratic Party primary season, all those eons ago, Barack Obama deployed no more powerful line against Hillary Clinton than his insistence that "we can't just tell people what they want to hear. We need to tell them what they need to hear." More than just a catchy couplet, the phrase was...
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jul 4, 2008

Japan scrambling for any summit progress

With only a few days to go until the Group of Eight summit gets under way in Hokkaido, Japanese diplomats were still struggling to find ways to achieve progress — no matter how small — over last year's G8 gathering.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jul 2, 2008

Talks may heat up and go nowhere but global warming isn't waiting

Eleven of the 12 years between 1995 and 2006 ranked among the 12 warmest years since 1850, and since 1993 the global sea level has risen by an annual rate of 3.1 mm.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 1, 2008

Regaining trust key: insurance group chief

Nonlife insurers must do everything they can to regain the trust squandered by such industrywide missteps as failing to honor legitimate claims and overcharging on premiums, according to the new chairman of a nonlife insurers' industry group.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jun 28, 2008

The truth behind the 'Origin of the Species'

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 22, 2008

How can the press be free if it's used as a public-relations tool?

The Supreme Court's decision on June 12 to reverse a lower-court ruling that had found in favor of a women's group received a fair share of concerned media coverage. The suit involved a program NHK had produced about a 2001 citizens' tribunal, which prosecuted Japan's wartime leaders on behalf of sex...
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2008

What's Europe's next move?

The Irish have spoiled the party. By decisively voting down in a referendum the proposed Lisbon Treaty on the future organization and governance of the European Union, the Irish have brought the whole process of EU reform to a dead halt.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2008

Death sentences on the increase

Tuesday's hangings of serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki and two other inmates come at a time when courts are more inclined to mete out capital punishment.
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2008

Black Friday for the EU

Ireland has rejected the European Union reform treaty.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 18, 2008

Neither blatant benevolence nor silent giving

PRINCETON, New Jersey — Jesus said that we should give alms in private rather than when others are watching. That fits with the common-sense idea that if people only do good in public, they may be motivated by a desire to gain a reputation for generosity. Perhaps when no one is looking, they are not...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 17, 2008

Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global

In a September 2003 article for The Guardian newspaper, Michael Meacher, who served as Tony Blair's environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003, shocked the establishment by calling the global war on terrorism "bogus." Even more controversially, he implied that the U.S. government either allowed...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jun 17, 2008

King Kojien dictionary knights new words

The four writing systems utilized in Japanese (>kanji, katakana, hiragana and the Roman alphabet, known as romaji ) provide Japanese advertising copywriters, journalists and young people with an abundance of raw material from which to create new words. The great majority of these neologisms fade away...

Longform

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