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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 23, 2008

Goose barnacle

Japanese name: Kamenote
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Apr 22, 2008

Do you expect the Nagano leg of the Olympic torch relay to go smoothly?

Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Greasing the wrong wheels

In "Leviathan" Thomas Hobbes wrote, "Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money." These words apply to the tentative law of road construction included in the gasoline tax. The word "temporary" means "semi-permanent" in the crooked world of politics, and this huge budget has snowballed to...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 20, 2008

A Tibetan terror rules the waves

THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. New York: Warner Books, 2007, 388 pp., $25.99 (cloth) Tales of suspense that incorporate obscure aspects of the supernatural from ancient civilizations have long enjoyed a popular following. Take William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" (1971), a...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 20, 2008

Soccer that's played the wheely way

I like soccer. I like to watch it. I even tried to play it a few times when I was a kid, though I was not good at sports that didn't require me to use my hands, so I switched to tennis and basketball. But I can imagine how skillful you have to be to play football well, and how much fun and how exciting...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 19, 2008

Liverpool perseveres as owners air dirty laundry in public

LONDON — It says much about the new wave of Premier League owners that a hugely popular manager who feels his position is being undermined is considering his future despite continued success, while one jeered by the club's fans seems set to remain in charge.
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2008

Officials' rally urges reinstatement of gas surcharge

Diet members, governors, mayors and local assembly members gathered Friday in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward to call for the reinstatement of the provisionally higher levies on gasoline and auto-related taxes that expired on March 31.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2008

Rightists' 'Yasukuni' preview gets thumbs down

At a special preview of "Yasukuni" demanded by rightwing groups, some of the 150 members criticized the controversial, but award-winning, documentary about the so-named Tokyo war shrine and even threatened to sue the state for subsidizing part of its production.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2008

Divided Diet forecloses on Fukuda's May Europe trip

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has canceled planned visits to France, Germany and France in early May due to the expected continuation of the political standoff in the divided Diet, government officials said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 17, 2008

Enduring anime reveals Japan's ghoulish spirit

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the debut of "GeGeGe no Kitaro," an animated children's TV series about the supernatural that's become a Japanese institution.
BASKETBALL
Apr 15, 2008

Osaka's Lottich is special guest

Osaka Evessa point guard Matt Lottich is slated to join sports reporter Ed Odeven from noon to 1 p.m. on Tuesday for The Japan Times' sports chat. Lottich, a former Stanford University player, will discuss his team's quest for a third straight bj-league title, help break down the upcoming playoffs and...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 13, 2008

Japan's tragic 'Titanic of Turkey'

The jagged rocks off Oshima Island break the surface of the ocean like so many knives strewn across the shallow water. Even on a calm day, they are a menacing reminder of the maze of reefs that surround this island in the Pacific just off the coast of Kushimoto, Wakayama Prefecture, in central Honshu....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 13, 2008

Confusion reigns after 'Yasukuni' doesn't tell us how to feel

The big media-related news story on April 1 was the ongoing controversy over the documentary feature "Yasukuni," screenings of which had been canceled by a number of movie theaters in Tokyo and Osaka out of fear of rightwing protests. That night, NHK's regular 7 p.m. news bulletin did not mention the...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2008

Gambari's battle in Burma

SINGAPORE — The United Nations special envoy to Burma is coming under fire for failing to nudge the country's military rulers in the direction of real political reform. But it is wrong to blame the envoy, Ibrahim Gambari. After all, his mandate is from the United Nations and he reports to the U.N....
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2008

Ruling coalition agrees to free up road revenues

The government and ruling coalition said Friday revenue from gasoline and other auto-related taxes will be freed up for purposes other than road construction from fiscal 2009, which starts next April.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2008

'Yasukuni' director suspects political meddling

Li Ying, the Chinese director of an award-winning documentary on Yasukuni Shrine, said Thursday he was perplexed to hear that a key figure in the film, sword smith Naoji Kariya, has reportedly asked that his appearance be entirely deleted.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2008

Details unveiled on Tokyo congress of architecture

With the stated aim of determining how architecture should evolve to meet the challenges of the 21st century, the 24th triennial World Congress of the International Union of Architects will be held in Tokyo in 2011, organizers announced.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 9, 2008

A renaissance of hand-held power

Crank up the music: Giving electronic devices mobility is the easy part. Empowering them to function for any length of time before you have to recharge them is quite another challenge. Local gadget whiz Thanko is helping out with its functionally titled Cranking MP3 Player, a new digital- music player...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Apr 9, 2008

Pike gudgeon

Japanese name: Kamatsuka
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2008

The man who came to dinner

Russia is not a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Mr. Vladimir Putin is a lame duck president, but he and his country threw a long shadow over the just-completed NATO summit that convened last week in Bucharest, Romania. Not only did Mr. Putin show up uninvited at the NATO heads dinner...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 8, 2008

Tokkotai survivor Hideo Suzuki

Eighty-five-year-old Hideo Suzuki is a reluctant survivor. A former tokkotai (Special Forces Unit) member of the Jinrai Butai (Thunder Gods Corps), Suzuki volunteered to be the pilot of an Ohka, a manned rocket-powered aircraft, during World War II. For sailors on U.S. warships in the Pacific, the Ohka...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 8, 2008

"Yasukuni" director Li on his tough-love letter to Japan

"Yasukuni" director Li Ying shares his thoughts with John Junkerman and David McNeill on the contentious Tokyo shrine, the motivation behind the movie, and his reaction to the furor in Japan over the documentary's release.

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