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JAPAN
Apr 23, 2008

Lawmakers visit Yasukuni festival

A group of lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties paid a visit to Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday for its annual spring festival, just one day after South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said in Tokyo he would focus on building friendly ties with Japan.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 23, 2008

Goose barnacle

Japanese name: Kamenote
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Apr 20, 2008

Oba blossoming as assistant coach

Yasuhiro Oba is exceptionally tall, but he is a humble and gentle man who never talks big.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 20, 2008

Belly-laughs boffin puts mirth to the test

When people laugh, it is often their cheery sounds or the wrinkles around their eyes that mark out their mirth. Yoji Kimura believes, however, that the key to determining the nature of laughter lies in the diaphragm.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2008

Safety comes first at nuclear plants

The Atomic Energy Commission's white paper on nuclear power for 2007 that has been adopted by the government says that a worldwide increase in nuclear-power generation is indispensable to fighting global warming. This is in line with the government's call for halving CO・emissions by 2050. But promoting...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 18, 2008

'Shaolin Girl'

Chihiro Kameyama, Japan's most successful film producer, is not a man to miss an opportunity. When Stephen Chow's comedy "Shaolin Soccer" became a smash in Japan in 2002, Kameyama had the idea of joining with Chow to make a Japanese spinoff. Now, six years later, we have "Shaolin Shojo (Shaolin Girl),"...
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Apr 16, 2008

Change sweeping North Korea

Drastic changes appear to be taking place in North Korea as its Korean Workers' Party (KWP) further strengthens its grip and its strongman Kim Jong Il tackles three major tasks: to pave the way for announcing his successor, to minimize whatever damage may result from the birth of a new conservative government...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 15, 2008

Method in the madness?

In November, Japan became only the second country in the world (after the United States) to introduce mandatory fingerprinting and photo-taking at all international entry points, as part of beefed-up "antiterrorism" measures by the Ministry of Justice.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2008

Mishima's literary mistress

MISHIMA ON STAGE: The Black Lizard and Other Plays, edited and with an introduction by Laurence Kominz, foreword by Donald Keene. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2007, xii + 328 pp., with photographs, $70.00 (cloth), $26.00 (paper) Though most famous as a novelist, Mishima...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 12, 2008

Bid to link Japan meets with growing reception

When Ken Ohno's Japanese mother-in-law asked him to keep an eye on the family business in Nagano Prefecture in the late 1990s, he had little idea where it might lead.
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2008

Developers seek to keep Tokyo ahead of rivals

The government picked two areas Friday in central Tokyo for development, seeking to revive the capital's attractiveness as a financial hub and fight off competition from Asian rivals Hong Kong and Singapore.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2008

Is Tibetan culture slated for extinction?

NEW YORK — Are the Tibetans doomed to go the way of the American Indians? Will they be reduced to nothing more than a tourist attraction, peddling cheap mementos of what was a once-great culture? That sad fate is looking more and more likely, and the Olympic year already has been soured by the Chinese...
COMMENTARY
Apr 9, 2008

Contrasting responses to crackdowns in Tibet and Burma

NEW DELHI — There are striking similarities between Tibet and Burma — both are strategically located, endowed with rich natural resources, suffering under long-standing repressive rule, resisting hard power with soft power and facing an influx of Han settlers. Yet the international response to the...
EDITORIALS
Apr 9, 2008

Few cheers for devolution

A 15-member government panel has submitted an interim report recommending the introduction of the "doshu" system of regional governments. The report, submitted to internal affairs minister Hiroya Masuda, calls for a complete shift to the new system by 2018, and proposes that the government submit a basic...
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2008

Official defends 'Yasukuni' screening for lawmakers

Defending the government's involvement in giving lawmakers an advance screening of a documentary on Yasukuni Shrine, a senior Cultural Affairs Agency official argued Monday it was appropriate to show Diet members a film partially funded by taxpayers' money.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 8, 2008

Fasting is Hefty's secret way of escaping metabo

I t's not often I get to watch my brother seethe and fume and look thoroughly uncomfortable — and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2008

U.S. debt isn't the bargain it used to be

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — As the world's financial leaders meet in Washington this month at the World Bank-International Monetary Fund annual meeting, perhaps they should be glad there is no clear alternative to the dollar as the global currency standard.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2008

Freedom-of-expression gantlet

Four movie theaters in Tokyo and one in Osaka have decided not to screen "Yasukuni," a documentary on Japan's war shrine. Rightist groups protested against the planned screenings with vehicle-mounted loudspeakers and harassing telephone calls. Most movie theaters cited possible inconveniences to the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / TAKING A CHANCE
Apr 5, 2008

Leaf-selling business helps small town rake in cash, find pride

Tomoji Yokoishi, 49, recalls how astonished he was 21 years ago by three pretty women sitting next to him in a sushi restaurant in Osaka's Namba district.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / ASIAN ECONOMY SYMPOSIUM
Apr 4, 2008

Spending on human capital an investment in Asia's future economic growth

If Asia wants to remain the world's growth center, it needs to invest more in education and skill training for its human capital, said Mahani Zainal Abidin, director general of Malaysia's Institute of Strategic and International Studies.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Apr 3, 2008

Kato makes rare coaching jump from high school to pros

Initially, he picked up a microphone to speak to some 50 assembled reporters. But he quickly put it on the table and resumed his speech in his loud, distinct voice.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.