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EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2006

Heavy burden on an aging town

The residents of Yubari city in Hokkaido are shivering not only from biting cold but also from the city's harsh financial reconstruction plan under the supervision of the internal affairs ministry. The former coal-mining center, now with a population of only about 13,000, must pay back 36 billion yen...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 12, 2006

Birthday travel offers

Birthday special In spring 2005, Marion availed herself of ANA's birthday special ticket, but has discovered the service not longer exists. "Is there any other? It was great. I went all the way to Fukuoka in Kyushu for just 10,000 yen."
CULTURE / Books
Dec 10, 2006

Guidance from a master brewer

THE BOOK OF SAKE: A Connoisseur's Guide, by Philip Harper. Kodansha International, 2006, 96 pp., 2,940 yen (cloth) How the global culinary pendulum does swing. It was not so long ago that drinking sake was considered as exotic, or even as ill advised, as eating raw fish seasoned with green horseradish....
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
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
Dec 9, 2006

Calling on the right brain for creative strategy

With his head shaved and outfitted in designer glasses and crocodile-style winklepicker shoes, Gordon Watson does not look like the stereotypical president of any type of company, let alone one selling life insurance.
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2006

Abe gets watered-down road-tax reform

The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party agreed Friday to a watered-down plan on road-related tax revenues that will move only the money not allocated to road construction projects into the general expenditures category.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 9, 2006

Painting the air baby blue

The world used to be more beautiful. The sky was bluer, the grass was greener, and good always triumphed over evil.
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2006

A change of direction in Iraq?

The long-awaited report of the Iraq Study Group was released Wednesday and it paints a grim picture of that war-torn country. The candor is refreshing; no policy can succeed if it is not based on reality. Not surprisingly, the conclusions constitute a fundamental revision of U.S. policy. But signals...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 8, 2006

He is Little Barrie

As painfully thin as a stereotypical 1970s British rock guitarist and sporting a roosterish haircut to boot, Barrie Cadogan drops into a chair in the lounge of the ANA Hotel in Tokyo and confesses to having drunk a little too much the night before.
EDITORIALS
Dec 7, 2006

Syria in the middle

It has become increasingly clear that Syria plays a pivotal role in Middle East politics. It has influence over -- some say control of -- Lebanese politics, and its support for insurgents -- "freedom fighters" is Damascus' preferred term -- elsewhere in the region makes it a key interlocutor when trying...
BUSINESS
Dec 7, 2006

Abe tax plan hits stiff LDP opposition

The Cabinet's plan to use road-related tax revenues for general expenditures ran into strong opposition Wednesday from members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which may force Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to revise his key fiscal reform.

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick