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JAPAN
May 11, 2008

Hu concludes summit with Osaka, Nara events

NARA — Amid the tightest security of his trip, Chinese President Hu Jintao concluded his visit to Japan in the Kansai region this weekend, dining with Osaka political and business leaders on Friday night and seeing the sights in the ancient capital of Nara on Saturday.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Mar 25, 2008

Hakusho Part II raises more questions marks

In the run-up to the Osaka Haru Basho, all eyes were on the "Hakusho" pair; a combination of the names of yokozuna Hakuho and Asashoryu that is increasingly being using to describe the recent era of sumo titans.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 13, 2008

Casio unveils its speediest camera; and every home gets its very own fireplace

Snappier snaps: A good-quality digital camera can take perhaps four or five photos a second, but Casio has left the competition in its wake with its just-announced Exilim Pro EX-F1, which boasts a staggering pace of 60 6-megapixel photos a second. It can also record video at an equally outlandish rate...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Nov 28, 2007

Hakuho notches another as the ozeki raise eyebrows

This year's Kyushu Basho, which ended Sunday, saw Hakuho stride through the muck and grime to claim the fifth title of his career with a 12-win, 3-loss record. When push came to shove, his class shined through. Hakuho, who is looking more and more like the second coming of the great yokozuna Futabayama,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2007

Shopping rules tourists

Tourist-wise, Japan has a somewhat divided character. Despite Japan's fascinating history and vast cultural treasures, tourists apparently come here primarily to go shopping. A recent Japan National Tourist Organization survey found that nearly 35 percent of the visitors were in Japan for the shops....
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2007

Early alert system for quakes launched

predict (the size of the quake) because only limited areas suffered major tremors," a Meteorological Agency official explained. The quake posted an intensity of lower 5 in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, where a 60-year-old woman fell and dislocated her shoulder. A 60-year-old man was taken to a hospital...
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2007

MUFG, Sumitomo reveal subprime losses

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. had unrealized losses of about ¥5 billion on investments related to U.S. subprime loans as of the end of July.
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jun 12, 2007

Sumo at the Olympics or a dohyo too far?

Sumo in Japan is on the up and up. We now have two yokozuna with a good half decade of rivalry in the tanks, one young enough to still be around in 10 years time. Irrespective of reports in the Japanese-language media, the sport is not sinking into the abyss with the continued success of its foreign...
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2007

Political pressure puts press freedom to test

, director of the Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization, announces during a news conference on March 7 the formation of a new subcommittee to prevent fabricated information from being broadcast by TV stations. KYODO PHOTO
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 26, 2007

In the darkness of our times

One night after visiting friends, I hopped on the local bus for a ride home. At the very first stop, the other passengers — a cane-clutching obaasan and a mother with her pre-schooler — stepped off, leaving me all alone as the bus barreled through the dark.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 22, 2007

Seeing from the Korean side

In February this year over 300 people attended the performing arts festival at a junior high school in Okayama. It was much the same as any other arts festival at any other junior high school in Japan; the students sang, danced, played music and performed skits for an audience made up of family and friends....
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2007

Lack of transparency spells trouble

China plans to increase its defense budget by 17.8 percent to $44.94 billion in fiscal 2007 from the previous year's actual level. The boost, announced a day before the start of an annual session of the National People's Congress, is the largest since a 19.4 percent jump in fiscal 2002. China's defense...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 30, 2007

Press clubs: Exclusive access to, pipelines for info

Because "kisha" press clubs provide easy access to information provided by the central and local governments and business associations, membership is considered essential for mainstream news organizations.
JAPAN
Dec 26, 2006

Four sent to the gallows

The Justice Ministry sent four death row inmates to the gallows Monday, inflaming lawmakers and protesters over the first executions to be carried out in 15 months.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2006

Russian elite still see U.S. as bogeyman

WASHINGTON -- An old saying in politics in Moscow is that relations between the United States and Russia are always better when a Republican rules in the White House. We are statesmen, and the Republicans are statesmen. Because we both believe in power, it is easy for the two of us to understand each...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 22, 2006

Exploring the cobwebs and exposing some dirt

ISTANBUL: Memories of a City, by Orhan Pamuk. Faber & Faber, 2006, 348 pp., £8 (paper). Turkey it seems has always inspired fear. The memory of advancing Turkish units camped outside the gates of Vienna haunted the European mind for centuries. "Where the Turk treads, no grass grows," ran one saying...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 30, 2006

Stayin' alive in health check 'stamprary'

I was recently asked to get a health check by one of my places of employment. On my planet, the United States, one doctor does the health check in 30 minutes. How boring.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 19, 2006

End of the Lion

The mythmaker Jim Frederick TIME Magazine The most difficult aspect of reporting on Koizumi was confronting the fixed, immutable and monolithic "Koizumi Myth." What started as a campaign plank -- "Koizumi is a reformer and a rebel who is destroying the LDP and reinvigorating Japan" -- somehow became...

Longform

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?