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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2010

A vote for Hong Kong as most livable city

HONG KONG, PACIFIC PERSPECTIVES — For me, there is no question that Hong Kong is one of the world's most wondrously livable cities. After 30 years of having Hong Kong as my home, I would challenge anyone to claim that — on balance — any other city can deliver the same combination of virtues.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 1, 2010

TV examines the morals of the story

The new Hollywood spy thriller "Salt" has received good reviews, even if a sizable portion of them admit that the plot is preposterous. What critics appreciate is the protagonist's uncertain nature as a hero. Angelina Jolie is a CIA operative outed by a Russian defector as a sleeper agent. The question...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 1, 2010

Lee Ufan: Korean at the forefront of Japan's modern art

For the last several years, Benesse Art Site on the island of Naoshima in the Seto Inland Sea has featured prominently in rankings of Japan's best tourist destinations.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 1, 2010

Depression takes hold as promises of Utopia fade away

Why isn't this Utopia? Why, given material and technological advantages beyond the wildest dreams of our most visionary ancestors, are we floundering in a sea of despair?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 30, 2010

'Nihon no Ichiban Nagai Natsu (Japan's Longest Summer)'/'Ishii Teruo: Eiga Tamashi (Teruo Ishii: The Soul of Film)'

August is the season in Japan for a never-ending stream of films and TV programs about World War II. Quite naturally, from the Japanese perspective, most of this outpouring examines the war's closing days, particularly the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some outsiders (including this one)...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2010

A new era for U.S. finance

The U.S. Congress on July 15 approved the most substantial reform of the country's financial system since the Great Depression. The measures, put into place to prevent another crisis like the one that slammed the global economy in 2008, have been hailed by supporters as a virtual overhaul of the financial...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2010

Lebanon's Hezbollah finds itself in a corner

BEIRUT — The future of Hezbollah, Lebanon's powerful Shiite political and paramilitary organization, has never looked more uncertain. Indeed, given rising tension with Israel and possible indictments of its operatives by the international tribunal investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2010

Sumos and the yakuza

OSAKA — Perhaps no other sport is pursued as religiously as sumo wrestling. Before a match, referees — who double as Shinto priests — purify the seaweed, salt and sake. Wrestlers wash their faces, mouths and armpits before entering the dohyo (ring), on whose sacred sand neither shoes nor women...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Jul 26, 2010

Eel economics: Why unagi is so popular (and expensive)

On the 'hot day of the ox' Japanese traditionally eat eel, and often pay a lot of money to do so. Why eel? Glad you asked.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2010

Claims of U.S. financial reform presuppose great leap of hope

LONDON — Champagne cork headlines were popping all over the United States the week before last when the Senate passed financial reform measures variously described as "a sweeping overhaul of the big banks" . . . "the biggest changes for generations" . . . "the greatest cleanup since the Great Depression"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 23, 2010

'Seraphine'

When a woman values her art over personal happiness, the result can yield sheer, mesmerizing beauty. Tolstoy wrote that women prevail because of their "ingrained talent" to achieve happiness, but at the same time this talent becomes their downfall in achieving true greatness. Indeed, had Frida Kahlo,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 23, 2010

Events spur on a new generation of sake drinkers

At 5:30 p.m. on a recent Saturday evening, the line of people at the entrance to the Smile Nihonshu sake event was six deep. Inside the bar, groups of young people in their 20s and 30s clinked glasses and nodded along to a bouncy rendition of Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" under a green-lit disco ball....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2010

Immelt's China meltdown

HONG KONG — General Electric Co. Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt has certainly stirred up a hornet's nest in China with his words of wisdom about doing business there. In the most publicized supposedly private speech of the year, Immelt grumbled that it was getting very difficult for big companies...
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2010

Rwanda: Kagame's dilemma

Did Paul Kagame really stop the genocide in Rwanda 16 years ago, or did he just interrupt it for a while? That question frightens him so much that he will not risk everything on the outcome of a democratic election.
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2010

Don't underestimate ASEM

One of the less-noticed initiatives in the world is the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), designed to foster closer cooperation between the old economic giants of Europe and the new economic powers of Asia — the two diverse but culturally rich continents that together represent half of the world's GDP and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 20, 2010

Immigration procedures face huge shakeup

As of July 1, there are big changes afoot for the laws governing foreign residency in Japan. Not since 1990, when the categories of residence increased from 18 to 27, has the Ministry of Justice's Immigration Bureau undergone such a wholesale reordering of its operations.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jul 19, 2010

DPJ, finances victims of own conspiracy, cock-up, complacency?

Conspiracy or cock-up? That is the question that invariably comes to mind when something goes very badly wrong in business or politics. As it has done in both of these two worlds in Japan lately.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Jul 16, 2010

Big (only) in Japan? Free fans

When the dog days are upon Japan, there's always a good chance that somebody, somewhere will be passing out free fans.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2010

Rakuten's all-English edict a bold move, but risky too

Internet shopping mall operator Rakuten Inc. surprised the public by announcing early this year it will make English its official language by 2012.
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2010

Progressive agenda stuck in the mud

Happily for Yoko Sakamoto, she didn't have to argue with her husband — also a Sakamoto — about whose last name they'd use when they married.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2010

Okinawa's sole LDP lawmaker, now a Futenma foe, is returned

OSAKA — Okinawa voters returned the prefecture's only Liberal Democratic Party Diet member, Aiko Shimajiri, to the Upper House in a contest closely watched by Tokyo and Washington for its connection with U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2010

Your Party no party to ruling bloc

Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe said Monday that his group, which scored great gains in Sunday's Upper House election, has no intention of joining the ruling coalition and urged Prime Minister Naoto Kan to dissolve the Lower House.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 11, 2010

Japan's great gamble

Sheldon Adelson, crusading chairman of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, was in Singapore last month to launch his company's latest casino-anchored mega-resort, the $5.5 billion Marina Bay Sands Singapore.
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Jul 10, 2010

Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper' album cover mystery a piece of Japanese history

Who owns the Sony TV that appears on the cover of the Beatles' famous "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album?
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 10, 2010

Winning, confidence return to Fighters

The Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters are showing people that once their cogwheels are engaged, they can once again be as good as any other team.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 10, 2010

Crisis a chance for consolidation

The European debt problem triggered by the Greek crisis this year provides a good opportunity for both Japan and Germany to start fiscal consolidation efforts in the face of mounting public-sector debts, experts from the two countries told a recent symposium in Tokyo.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat