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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2009

'Plastic City'

You can take the boy out of Tokyo but you can't take Tokyo out of the boy. Jo^ Odagiri, currently described by the Japanese media as "the most Tokyo-like of actors" stars in "Plastic City," an ambitious, multicultural project by Nelson Yu Lik-Wai (best known as director Jia Zhang-Ke's cinematographer)...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 6, 2009

'Doubt'

A parish priest stands in front of his flock, sets his features sternly, and then launches into his weekly sermon. He tells of a woman who goes to confession, and asks her priest if gossip was a sin. Of course, replies the priest, and for penance, he instructs the woman to go onto the roof of her house...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Mar 3, 2009

Working holidays and Amerasian roots

Mareen, an 18-year-old German citizen, spent three weeks in Japan, loved it, and now wants to come back.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 3, 2009

Rape victim fights for justice against U.S. military, Japan

Around the nondescript Tokyo suburb where she lives with her three children, Jane is a well-known face. Foreign in an area crowded with Japanese, she has taught English for years here among neighbors who greet her warmly on the street. Few know that her life is consumed by a fight against one of the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
Mar 3, 2009

Frenchman's flavorful twist on green tea has good of farmers at heart

Stubbornness and prudence seem to have paid off for Stephane Danton, a 44-year-old French entrepreneur who runs Ocharaka, a Japanese tea shop in Tokyo's trendy Kichijoji district.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2009

There's no deleveraging the illusions of politicians

BALI, Indonesia — In response to the current financial and economic turmoil, U.S. politicians wanted to be seen as "doing something" legislatively, even if costly and ineffective, in order to endear themselves to those voters who received benefits. This is evident in that the "stimulus spending" provides...
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 2009

Mr. Obama's vision

Technically speaking, U.S. President Barack Obama's address to a joint meeting of Congress on Tuesday was not a state of the union speech. The president has been in office a little more than a month and he felt that was not enough time to render a judgment on the state of the nation. In fact, the speech...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2009

Nakasone to seek 'gyoza' poisoning update on China trip

Japan will seek an update from Beijing on its probe into last year's food poisonings linked to frozen "gyoza" dumplings made in China, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2009

Mr. Aso goes to Washington

Prime Minister Taro Aso met with U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday in Washington, just a week after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during her visit to Tokyo, invited him to meet with the president as the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House since Mr. Obama came to...
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2009

Barack Obama's Taliban itch

How gun-toting Islamists are expanding their hold on western Pakistan has been laid bare by Islamabad's U.S.-condoned peace agreement effectively ceding the once-pristine Swat Valley to the Taliban to set up a mini-state barely 160 km from the Pakistani capital. The deal came even as Pakistani President...
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2009

Good interns where needed

An advisory panel for both the health ministry and the education ministry has proposed abolishing the current training system for medical interns and creating a new one. While the new system, expected to start in fiscal 2010, appears geared more toward securing enough doctors in the countryside, it carries...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Feb 24, 2009

Christianity's long history in the margins

Prime Minister Taro Aso may be a proclaimed Christian, but as far as the spread of the faith among the populace, it finds only a marginal presence.
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2009

Crisis hits the weak spots

The worst crisis in a century is eroding the Japanese economy as a growing number of "nonregular" workers lose their jobs. The unemployment rate in December reached 4.4 percent, up 0.5 percentage point from the previous month — the steepest increase ever. The labor ministry estimates that by the end...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2009

Success of Kosovo is Europe's responsibility

PRAGUE — On Feb. 17, 2008, Kosovo declared its independence and has so far been recognized by more than 50 countries representing close to 60 percent of the world's economic power. Interethnic violence — which many feared — has largely been avoided and the mass exodus of Serbs that some also predicted...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 22, 2009

Sarasota seeking a Japanese team to fill training void

A wire story from The Associated Press dated Jan. 9 indicated the city of Tucson, Ariz., is looking for a Japanese club to play about 15 spring training games there in 2010, replacing the American League's Chicago White Sox who have moved their spring training base to the Phoenix area.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 22, 2009

'Sustainability' in a Japanese way

Takeshi Hara is an accomplished journalist, author and educator, and at 70 years of age he could easily choose to rest on his laurels.
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2009

Kyoto got what it asked for

Regarding the Jan. 13 article "Respect 'maiko' privacy, don't act like paparazzi, Kyoto tells tourists": All of Kyoto has aggressively promoted tourism to the international community. The city.kyoto.jp Web site provides a pamphlet that dedicates two pages to the maiko (apprentice geisha), the same amount...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 19, 2009

Tokyo Taste summit provides food for thought

These days, the mere mention of Tokyo is enough to make gourmands drool. After garnering a staggering 227 Michelin stars this year, the city became the focus of the culinary world. So for several internationally renowned chefs who look to Japan for inspiration, traveling here last week to participate...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2009

Myanmar refugees to try resettling

As Japan prepares to take in Myanmarese from Thai refugee camps, it is important that the communities they resettle in fully support their integration into society, experts said at a recent Tokyo symposium held by the Foreign Ministry.
COMMENTARY
Feb 18, 2009

Tsvangirai has likely made the wrong choice

On Feb. 11, in Harare, Morgan Tsvangirai drank the poisoned chalice, knowing that it was poisoned. He was sworn in as prime minister of Zimbabwe, in a government that is still controlled by his deadly enemy, President Robert Mugabe. He must know that his chances of success, even of political survival,...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 17, 2009

Dealing with a death abroad

Reader S.B. seeks advice on how to deal with arrangements following the death of a foreign relative in Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 17, 2009

Berlitz launches legal blitz against striking instructors

It has been 14 months since members of the Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto) first downed chalk and launched rotating strikes against the language school Berlitz Japan.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Feb 17, 2009

Kanagawa Prefecture can be Japan's clean-air trailblazer

Dear Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa,
Reader Mail
Feb 15, 2009

Suggestion for teaching English

In the Feb. 5 article, "What's wrong with the way English is taught in Japan": It would have been better if writer Gregory Clark had admitted that neither he nor anybody else is capable of dismissing the efforts of teachers and students alike without a comprehensive grasp of the situation in every school...
Reader Mail
Feb 15, 2009

Not just another castle piece

Simon Bartz's Feb. 8 Timeout Travel article, "Storming the keep of Himeji Castle," which I just read on The Japan Times Web site, is a fantastic piece of writing. I've done a small amount of travel writing about Japan and have always struggled to find an appropriate style to cover the traveler- fun-seeker-British-drinker...
Rugby
Feb 14, 2009

Loamanu suspended for using pot

The Japan Rugby Football Union on Friday indefinitely suspended Christian Loamanu after the Tonga native tested positive for marijuana.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2009

U.S. expert urges death penalty rethink

While 80 percent of the Japanese public is in favor of capital punishment, support for executions would drop if life without parole sentences were also an option, according to an American criminologist who visited Tokyo recently.

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