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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2009

Policy hurts Japanese nationals too

In the debate about whether Japan should sign the Hague abduction convention, a serious consequence of Japan's failure to ratify the treaty is being overlooked. Japan's failure to sign the convention is extremely damaging to Japanese nationals living overseas, since it makes it far harder for them to...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 15, 2009

Children pay the price when parents put their own feelings first

It is hard enough for a child to be shuffled back and forth for scheduled stays like a puck over the ice that separates divorced parents. Difficulty turns to tragedy when one parent takes it into their head to abduct the child and keep it out of reach of the other.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Nov 15, 2009

Panda-poop prof scoops Ig Nobel honor

Bacteria extracted from the feces of giant pandas can be used to reduce food waste to less than 10 percent of its original mass. For making this stunning — and potentially invaluable — scientific discovery, Fumiaki Taguchi, Professor Emeritus of Kitasato University in Kanagawa Prefecture, was awarded...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 15, 2009

Father-and-son drama, hommage to Date Masumune and a mysterious TV mystery

TBS's drama special, "Chichi yo, Anata wa erakatta — 1969-nen no oyaji to boku" (Dad! You were great: Father and me in 1969; Mon., 9 p.m.), makes a clever play for two generations of TV viewers by featuring Shigeaki Kato of the idol group News in a time travel story that sends him to 1969, where he...
LIFE / Travel / WEEK 3
Nov 15, 2009

Opening a 'window' to Japan

As a seven-year veteran at the Narita Airport Tourist Information Center, Yuka Tsujimura is at ease handling all kinds of questions and requests for help from inbound tourists who have just set foot in Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 15, 2009

Children pay the price when parents put their own feelings first

It is hard enough for a child to be shuffled back and forth for scheduled stays like a puck over the ice that separates divorced parents. Difficulty turns to tragedy when one parent takes it into their head to abduct the child and keep it out of reach of the other.
JAPAN / TIES IN THE BALANCE
Nov 12, 2009

Futenma's defenders stress its regional security role

Second of two parts
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Nov 10, 2009

Will two of sumo's top dogs retire at Kyushu 2009?

Kyushu 2009 will, if for nothing else, be remembered as the tournament in which the old warhorse ozeki Kaio breaks former sekiwake Takamiyama's long-standing record of 97 basho in the sport's top flight. For Kaio — Kyushu will be number 98.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 8, 2009

A journey to Venice, eco-friendly toilets and special police drama

Vienna has always held a special fascination for the Japanese, who celebrate the New Year with Strauss waltzes and lieder as much as they do with mochi (rice cakes) and otoshidama (New Year gift money). A prime influence in this regard is the 1931 German movie "Der Kongress Tanzt" (Congress Dances),...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 8, 2009

Eco-tourism the camel-dive way

It's 4 a.m. and I wake up on a beach on the Sinai Peninsula of eastern Egypt. The moon has set and the mountains of Saudi Arabia just 18 km away across the Gulf of Aqaba are silhouetted against the stars. The camel I rode here is sleeping nearby, and it is still so warm even in late October that a single...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 8, 2009

A journey to Venice, eco-friendly toilets and special police drama

Vienna has always held a special fascination for the Japanese, who celebrate the New Year with Strauss waltzes and lieder as much as they do with mochi (rice cakes) and otoshidama (New Year gift money). A prime influence in this regard is the 1931 German movie "Der Kongress Tanzt" (Congress Dances),...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Nov 5, 2009

New faces down on the farm

Whether it's in a country field or on a high-rise rooftop, the self-sufficiency benefits of farming are inspiring more Japanese to till the soil.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2009

A-bomb cities offer Obama invite

A speech and a Nobel prize have raised hopes in Japan that Barack Obama will become the first sitting American president to visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the two cities devastated by U.S. atomic bombs in World War II.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 31, 2009

Dressage instructor knows how to get best out of horses, riders

In the rarefied atmosphere of Japan's equestrian competitive world, Gool Wadia is a highly respected name. She is the "eye and mouth" on the ground, the person behind, specifically, some of Japan's best dressage riders as they endeavor to improve their riding, their horses and raise their marks in competition....
CULTURE / Art
Oct 30, 2009

Verner Panton's colorful visions

Experimentation, playfulness, adventure. Through the example of maverick Danish designer Verner Panton, these words have entered the lexicon of many designers today.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 30, 2009

'Watashi Dasuwa'

"A fool and his money are soon parted" and all its many variations is a common theme in films, from the heist-of-a-lifetime that ruins so many lives in "Goodfellas" to Gary Cooper handing out his inherited fortune to total strangers in "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town" and then coming to regret it.
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Oct 28, 2009

Tarasova must go if Mao wants shot at Olympic glory

Sometimes you have to throw the game plan out the window.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Oct 27, 2009

Mystery train

How do you increase commuters when train fares are too high? Ask the land/transportation ministry for a break.
Reader Mail
Oct 25, 2009

ASDF people excelled in Iraq

Regarding the Oct. 15 editorial "Full military disclosure": While I can appreciate the constraints placed on Japan's Air-Self Defense Force mission in Iraq, many people seem to have forgotten that Iraq was a very dangerous place for much of the period from March 2004 to December 2008.
Reader Mail
Oct 25, 2009

Right of foreigners to leave Japan

In the Oct. 20 Zeit Gist article "Foreign parents face travel curbs?," why does professor Colin P.A. Jones write: "Japanese citizens have a constitutional right to leave their country. And foreigners? They apparently lack this right."
CULTURE / Books
Oct 25, 2009

Kafkaesque tale for the new porn era

THE APPRENTICESHIP OF BIG TOE P, by Rieko Matsuura. Kodansha International, 2009, 448 pp., ¥2,730 (hardcover) As Kazumi Mano awoke one morning from a troubled dream, she found her big toe transformed into a monstrous penis. So it starts — Kafkaesque but oh so Japanese. First published in 1993 as "Oyayubi...
CULTURE / Books
Oct 25, 2009

Ripping yarn of the oddball genius who uncovered China's greatest secrets

BOMB, BOOK & COMPASS: Joseph Needham and the Great Secrets of China, by Simon Winchester. Penguin, 317 pp., ¥2,100 (hardcover) There are certain extraordinary people whose lives are by no means pre-ordained. Joseph Needham was one such person. One of the world's leading biochemists, he would go on to...
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2009

N.Y., London, Paris still beat Tokyo

Factoring together culture, environment, economy and accessibility, Tokyo ranks fourth out of 35 major cities worldwide and only, but still, lags behind leader New York, No. 2 London and third-place Paris, but it has the potential to go higher, a report released Thursday by an urban development research...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 20, 2009

Seeking some advice, a lost father, friend

Where is my father? Yovichi (Yoichi?) Perez is "Japinoy," meaning of Filipino-Japanese ancestry. He saw a letter from a Japinoy like himself, also looking for his father, so he thought he would try his luck with us.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 18, 2009

Wildlife on your doorstep

To be brutally honest, wildlife photography is mostly about having the means to get to amazing places, where wildlife still abounds. Then it takes heaps of patience. And the final ingredient is a good eye to capture the moment.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo