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JAPAN
Jun 15, 2009

Welfare ministry official arrested over postal fraud

OSAKA (Kyodo) Prosecutors arrested a senior Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry official on Sunday over a case of postal system abuse involving a fabricated ministry document.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 14, 2009

Yokohama shops kick off '150' sales campaign

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Yokohama port and stimulate local shopping areas, more than 100 shopping areas in Yokohama on Saturday kicked off a sales event linked to the number 150.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / ONE-ON-ONE WITH ...
Jun 14, 2009

Pierce looking to build on successful first season with Lakestars

The Japan Times will be featuring periodic interviews with individuals in the bj-league — Japan's first professional basketball circuit — which wrapped up its fourth season in May. Head coach Bob Pierce of the Shiga Lakestars is the subject of this week's profile. Pierce guided the team to a 19-33...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 14, 2009

Dazai's final novel, Father's Day drama and 'animal fantasy' anime

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of novelist Osamu Dazai, who committed suicide in 1948 following the publication of his masterpiece "Ningen Shikkaku" ("No Longer Human"). This week, NHK's documentary series "Rekishi Hiwa Historia" ("History's Secrets: Historia"; NHK-G, Wed., 10 p.m.)...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 14, 2009

New university library puts focus on the fans

Perhaps no single cultural product is held more dear in Japan than manga. It was a dominant form of pulp entertainment in the early post-World War II period, a forum for social dissent in the 1960s, then for female creativity in the '70s. By the '80s, manga was at the center of a mass market that outstripped...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 13, 2009

Words mean very little these days in soccer world

LONDON — "Do you think I'd get into a contract with that mob? Absolutely no chance. I wouldn't sell them a virus.'' — Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson when asked about selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid in December 2008.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2009

Hatoyama quits Aso Cabinet

Internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama resigned Friday after rejecting Prime Minister Taro Aso's request to approve Yoshifumi Nishikawa's reappointment as president of Japan Post Holdings Co.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2009

Nomura fuses science, mysticism in artworks

If Pythagoras, Aristotle or any of the other axial luminaries of the Classical World were alive today, they might just be working as conceptual artists in the mold of Hitoshi Nomura, rather than philosophers and scientists. This is because the science and philosophy that these intellectual giants practiced...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 12, 2009

Soda takes a pop at taboos

Kazuhiro Soda made his name with his first documentary film "Campaign," which follows the director's former classmate Kazuhiko Yamauchi as he campaigns for a city-council seat in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. The film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in 2007, broadcast on TV in around 200 countries...
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 12, 2009

Play portrays Afghanistan's 30 tragic years

A play about the history of Afghanistan inspired by former Afghan ambassador to Japan Haron Amin will be staged on June 16 and 17 at Space Zero in Shinjuku.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jun 11, 2009

Bangladeshi minister pushes for investment

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hashina's special envoy, Foreign Minister Hasan Mahmud, called on Japan Wednesday to increase direct investment in his country, which is aiming to emerge as a midlevel developed country by 2021.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 11, 2009

Executive Pastry Chef Shinsuke Nakajima

Shinsuke Nakajima, 50, is the Executive Pastry Chef at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo. Nakajima's delicious creations earned him star status long before he led the Japanese team to the top at the International Patisserie Grand Prix 2009 in Tokyo this March. His signature Super Dessert Series includes masterpieces...
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2009

Reaching out to the Muslim world

Few speeches in recent history have been as widely anticipated as the June 4 address of U.S. President Barack Obama to the Muslim world. The speech, delivered in Cairo, was the high point of a four-nation trip to the Middle East and Europe. The speech is intended to signal a "new beginning between the...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jun 9, 2009

Big sticks wield power for Giants

The usually formidable Yomiuri Giants had a rough time hitting home runs last week.
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2009

Feasible anti-emission goal

In July 2008 the Japanese government adopted a target for 2050 of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 60 to 80 percent from 2005 levels. At the same time, a special panel was created to deliberate midterm reduction goals (through 2020).
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2009

One every 15 minutes

For the last 11 years, one Japanese person has committed suicide every 15 minutes. This suicide rate, compiled by the National Police Agency, means that more than 30,000 suicides occur every year, a third of a million people in a decade. This astonishingly high rate, by far the highest for all developed...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 7, 2009

Apichatpong Weerasethakul: No ordinary Joe

Perhaps no Asian film director since Akira Kurosawa has received the critical attention bestowed on 39 year-old Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. His "Blissfully Yours" won a major Cannes Festival prize in 2002; "Tropical Malady," took the 2004 Jury Prize and the Tokyo FilmEx first prize; and...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Jun 7, 2009

It's so cool to play an oily toad

Actors who direct and star in their own films may be motivated by something other than vanity, but they usually manage to make themselves look cool — or at least cooler than they would have if someone else had been in the director's chair.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 7, 2009

Hakuho's sumo origins, Yonemura's kitchen science, and Tamaki's acting transformation

Mongolians are dominating professional sumo even more decisively than the Hawaiians did back in the 1990s. It almost seems too easy the way they overpower their Japanese counterparts, and in almost all their cases the challenge has been more than just physical.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 7, 2009

Hakuho's sumo origins, Yonemura's kitchen science, and Tamaki's acting transformation

Mongolians are dominating professional sumo even more decisively than the Hawaiians did back in the 1990s. It almost seems too easy the way they overpower their Japanese counterparts, and in almost all their cases the challenge has been more than just physical.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 5, 2009

Did media go too far on swine flu?

The swine flu scare seems to be over, at least in Japan and at least for now.
COMMENTARY
Jun 5, 2009

Suspect in stabbing death a national hero

HONG KONG — A public outcry in China over the case of a woman arrested for stabbing to death a local official who assaulted her after she refused to provide sexual services reflects the widespread distrust of officials and sympathy for the underdog — even someone who may face murder charges.
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2009

Toyota to lease lithium-ion plug-in hybrids

Toyota said Wednesday it will start leasing plug-in hybrid cars that are even more efficient than its popular Prius by the end of the year in the United States, Japan and Europe.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2009

Diet extension gives Aso breathing space

Now that the Diet session has been extended until July 28, the spotlight has shifted back to Prime Minister Taro Aso as politicians and analysts try to predict when he will dissolve the Lower House and call a snap election.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2009

Squeeze Pyongyang gently

HONG KONG — North Korea demonstrated last week that it knows how to blow an atomic-bomb-size hole through the hot air and pretensions of the so-called rulers of the world. U.S. President Barack Obama was exposed as the outraged huffer and puffer in chief against North Korea's nuclear test, but he was...
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 31, 2009

Open mind key to Hillman's success

First excerpt in a two-part series of updated "You Gotta Have Wa"

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