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Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Oct 24, 2008

Visit the house that Ando built

'You need courage to make good architecture," says Tadao Ando. He should know. The self-taught architect — arguably Japan's most famous — has a current client list that includes the city of Abu Dhabi (he's building a maritime museum), French businessman Francoise Pinault (he renovated Palazzo Grassi...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 25, 2008

Untapped energy source fuels a paradox

SINGAPORE — Ice that burns? It sounds like a magician's trick. So do some of the exotic names given to gas hydrate — "flammable sorbet," "crystal gas" and "burning ice." But recent scientific surveys and test drilling in Asia and elsewhere have proven that this substance exists in massive, potentially...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 31, 2008

Results in Beijing prove that baseball has a place in Olympics

After watching that cliff-hanging, nail-biter, barn-burner of a victory by South Korea over Cuba in the gold medal game at the Beijing Olympics, I am more convinced than ever that baseball — and softball — belong in the Games.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Aug 26, 2008

Beijing exit must spur bout of soul-searching

The fall was as stunning as it was quick.
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 24, 2008

Japan leaves Beijing with nothing but regrets

BEIJING — What went wrong for "Hoshino Japan" at the 2008 Summer Olympics?
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2008

Prevention of suicides

The Diet in 2006 enacted a basic law to help prevent suicides. And in 2007 the Cabinet adopted the goal of reducing the number of suicides per 100,000 people by 20 percent by 2016 from the level of 2005.
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 13, 2008

Kitajima's swimming feats inspire a nation

BEIJING — With his head tilted back and his mouth wide open in a victorious roar, Kosuke Kitajima's fist-pump celebration after winning the 100-meter breaststroke final on Monday morning produced Japan's iconic image of the 2008 Summer Games so far.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 24, 2008

Yoshida, Hoketsu provide compelling story lines

In less than two weeks, the bright lights in Beijing will shine on thousands of athletes.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 18, 2008

Hoshino places faith in Olympic qualifiers

Japan announced its 24-man baseball roster for the Beijing Olympics during a press conference at a Tokyo hotel on Thursday afternoon.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 1, 2008

July forecast: rough, with ID checks mainly in the north

I have suggested before (Zeit Gist, Dec. 18, 2007) that Japan shouldn't host major international events. Unfettered police power and insufficient media scrutiny create a virtual police state, inconveniencing everyone.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 1, 2008

Arata Isozaki: Astonishing by design

If the entire Japanese architectural fraternity was one big royal family, then Arata Isozaki would be a king approaching the end of a long and glorious reign.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 1, 2008

Is aging Japan really ready for all the non-Japanese carers it needs?

One of the cliches most bandied about in the Japanese business world is yareba dekiru. An English equivalent might be the title of Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff's great 1972 hit, "You Can Get It If You Really Want."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 22, 2008

Summit wicked this way comes

You've probably heard about July's G8 Summit in Toyako, in my home prefecture of Hokkaido. In case you're unfamiliar with the event, here's a primer from the Foreign Affairs Ministry:
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2008

Are Putin and Medvedev allies or rivals?

PRAGUE — Vladimir Putin's decision to serve as prime minister should Dmitri Medvedev become Russia's next president has made their electoral success in March a virtual certainty.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ALSO OUT THERE
Feb 1, 2008

Referee row lifts handball's appeal

Team handball, the figurative water boy of sports, is suddenly in the game and earning the roaring approval of fans in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2008

Japan's Olympic prospects

The 2008 Summer Olympics are fast approaching. China will host the Games in Beijing from Aug. 8. The rising economic power will do its utmost to mobilize human and other resources to bolster its global image and prestige. In the games themselves, China will strive to grab the most gold medals. In the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 8, 2007

New MOT curator aims to do a lot with a little

Yuko Hasegawa delivers instructions to her staff in an even, polite manner that often belies the burden they impose. It's a style perhaps more suited to a corporate boardroom than an art museum. But, since she took over as chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT), in April last year,...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2007

Vladimir Putin, part two

LONDON — Opinions about Vladimir Putin run the gamut. In the West, he is regarded as an "authoritarian," an "autocrat," even as a "dictator," while in Russia a huge majority regard him as the most "democratic" of leaders, on the grounds that he has done more than his predecessors to improve the lot...
EDITORIALS
Sep 2, 2007

Aging bridges of Japan

The collapse a month ago of a freeway bridge over the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis offers an important lesson for Japan, where a large number of bridges are expected to reach the end of their useful life in the near future. The collapse points to the danger inherent in old infrastructure...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2007

Plan to move venerable Tsukiji market draws fire

Trucks transporting ice, fish and produce traverse a maze of narrow alleys, threading their way through throngs of visitors.
BASKETBALL
Jun 29, 2007

NBA, TV networks agree to deal

LOS ANGELES TIMES — Walt Disney Co.'s ABC and ESPN and Time Warner Inc.'s TNT agreed Wednesday to pay the National Basketball Association $7.4 billion over eight years for rights to televise the games and, in one of the first deals of its kind, stream game-related action on the Internet and mobile...
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2007

Worst student suicide rate yet

The National Police Agency says that suicides in Japan topped 30,000 for the ninth consecutive year in 2006. While the total number, 32,155, was down 1.2 percent from 2005, the number of suicides among students, 886 — up 25 (2.9 percent) from 2005 — was the worst since 1978 when the NPA started compiling...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2007

Despite economic recovery, suicide rate remains high

The hanging death of the farm minister this week grimly underscored the country's stubbornly high suicide rate — and the government's struggle to discourage large numbers of Japanese from killing themselves.
COMMENTARY
May 29, 2007

World's 'best' health care fatally flawed

NEW YORK — One of the most contentious issues of the U.S. presidential campaign will be how to fix what many agree is a malfunctioning health-care system. Adding fuel to the fire is a recent study detailing the shortcomings of the U.S. health-care system compared with those of Australia, Canada, Germany,...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?