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JAPAN
Feb 25, 2008

Think tank pushes stronger stand on Russian-held islands

Japan should never compromise in negotiations with Russia over the return of the four islands off Hokkaido, a private think tank has proposed.
Reader Mail
Feb 24, 2008

Promo piece light on research

The Feb. 20 article "Dyson urges youths to take interest in engineering, science" was a sad piece of journalism. The real story on British-born James Dyson (the founder of Dyson Ltd. who was in Tokyo this month to promote a new vacuum cleaner) would require a more time-consuming article on the quality...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 24, 2008

Rightwingers who scream the loudest allowed to win in Japan

Major media coverage of the legal standoff between the Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyoso) and the Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa in Tokyo had little effect on the standoff itself, mainly because coverage didn't really take off until everything was over.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 23, 2008

Theories vary on why Liverpool is so inconsistent

LONDON — The question has been asked countless times yet no one can come up with a satisfactory answer.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2008

Tyranny will be the biggest winner at the Beijing Games

LONDON — At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics, spectators will watch as athletes from the worst regimes on the planet parade by. Whether they are from dictatorships of the left or right, secular or theocratic, they will have one thing in common: the hosts of the games that, according to the...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Feb 19, 2008

Fukuda and Ozawa plotting

A generally accepted view is that the opposition Democratic Party of Japan is bent on forcing Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda to dissolve the Lower House and call general elections just as soon as possible, while the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito seeks to put off the elections...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2008

Facing off in family court

The Legislative Council of the Justice Ministry has handed Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama a report proposing that crime victims or family members of crime victims be allowed to attend juvenile court proceedings. In accordance with the proposal, the ministry plans to submit a bill revising the Juvenile...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / CLIMATE CHANGE SYMPOSIUM
Feb 18, 2008

U.S. begins to count cost of global warming

The momentum to take action against global warming is finally rising in the United States, although the nation still has a long way to go before a political consensus is reached on specific domestic measures — much less making an international commitment for cuts in its emission of greenhouse gases,...
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2008

China's path deserves respect, not fear

LOS ANGELES — Let's not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Congressional grumblings about currency and balance-of-trade issues, and equal grumps from the U.S. Democratic Party's leftwing (over human-rights issues), could leave the impression that U.S. policy toward China has been a dismal failure....
Reader Mail
Feb 17, 2008

U.S. needs to work on its PR

As an American living in Japan, I found the reports of this incident very disturbing. For once I would like to see headlines that say "U.S. Military Contributes to Rebuilding Post-Typhoon Damaged Areas," or "U.S. Military Seen as a Positive for Local Communities," or, better yet, "U.S. Military Officers...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 15, 2008

Chuck Brown is good to go-go

Chuck Brown doesn't know when to quit. That's not a character flaw — it's a trait that gave the world the musical equivalent of a marathon.
Reader Mail
Feb 14, 2008

Let tourists know where they stand

Regarding the Feb. 7 article "Tsukiji looks to curb glut of pesky tourists": There is no question that there are too many tourists in Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market, although whether they are "pesky" is a matter of opinion. It's a wonder it has taken the merchants this long to say something.
Reader Mail
Feb 7, 2008

Can't help being interventionist

Where does opinion-page columnist Tom Plate get his information regarding the respective positions of the American presidential candidates on U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq? At this point in time, none of the candidates actually shows any real intention or determination to make withdrawal an immediate...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 6, 2008

Acquiring Gasol latest coup for Lakers

NEW YORK — Wilt, Kareem, Magic, Jamaal Wilkes, James Worthy, Shaq and Kobe all became Lakers as a consequence of poor or pressured decisions by competing executives.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2008

Handling the Taiwan issue

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Opinion polls indicate that one-third of Americans believe that China will "soon dominate the world," while nearly half view China's emergence as a "threat to world peace." In turn, many Chinese fear that the U.S. will not accept their "peaceful rise." Americans and Chinese must...
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2008

Sapporo to reject Steel's buyout

Sapporo Holdings Ltd. said Monday its panel judged that U.S. hedge fund Steel Partners Japan's proposal to take over the nation's third-largest brewery could seriously harm its shareholders' interests.
COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2008

Tet offensive's long shadow

LONDON — Forty years ago this week, the American public realized that the United States was not going to win the Vietnam war. Lulled by assurances that "progress" was being made in the fight against the insurgents, Americans had patiently borne five years of growing military casualties in Vietnam,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2008

Gaza's past holds lessons for the future

PRAGUE — When the Gaza Strip was plunged into darkness last week as a result of the Israeli fuel blockade, many people around the world were surprised. But the optimism produced by the Annapolis peace process, which included U.S. President George W. Bush's promise of an agreement in 2008 to create...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2008

Condemned trio sent to the gallows

Three condemned convicts were hanged Friday and the government released their names and other details in line with the disclosure policy introduced by Justice Minister Kunio Hatoyama with his Dec. 7 approval of three other executions.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Q&A
Jan 30, 2008

Road taxes: Pork-barrel or necessity?

The government submitted a tax reform bill to the Diet Jan. 23 that includes a clause to continue the provisional higher rates imposed on auto-related levies for another 10 years, drawing opposition from the Democratic Party of Japan, which wants the higher rates that have been in place for more than...
COMMENTARY
Jan 28, 2008

Haves and have-nots in golf

Two recent scandals reflect the Japanese weakness for golf. In one, former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya allegedly provided favors to a Japanese trading company involved in defense contracts, after taking more than 100 one-day golf trips at the invitation of the company. In November, Moriya was...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 28, 2008

Watching the world's biggest roadshow

NEW YORK — I was recently amused to read the following observation quoted in an intellectual history of modern Japan: "The system in which people vie to get elected head of state through indulgence in garrulity and by flaunting gestures like those of low-class actors is a singularly bizarre custom...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2008

Racy approach to English picks up speed

"Your questions were hard," mails Darian Wilson, chief executive officer of FAQ, the day after we meet. "But I appreciate them as they caused me to rethink the meaning behind this project."
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 26, 2008

Grant, Ramos follow flamboyant predecessors with success

LONDON — In the ideal world the vast majority of Chelsea and Tottenham supporters would have preferred Jose Mourinho and Martin Jol to have remained their club's manager.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Jan 26, 2008

Pair mutually strive to broaden their horizon, perspective

Alexander Bright and Akiko Yamada first met at Cambridge University in 1999, when Bright was a graduate student majoring in materials science and Yamada, then a high school teacher, was taking a year off to study education in England.
COMMENTARY
Jan 25, 2008

Kuomintang won't flaunt election win

HONG KONG — The electoral defeat of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan was expected, but the magnitude of the loss took everyone by surprise, including the DPP itself and the opposition party, the Kuomintang.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2008

An Iranian lesson for Musharraf's critics

PRAGUE — As the future of both Pakistan and its president, Pervez Musharraf, wallow in uncertainty in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination, parallels are being drawn to the 1979 fall of the shah and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Once again, a "pro-American" autocrat seems to be rapidly losing...

Longform

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