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Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Insider lashes 'lip service to human rights'

Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 25, 2007

Will strategic retreat soon signal Australia's tardy advancement?

Apolitical wrangle, with Prime Minister John Howard as the prime wrangler, has begun in the rodeo ring of Australian politics -- and it certainly looks as if someone is going to take a spill.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2007

Tehran shows its contempt

Iran's contempt for international opinion could not be plainer. The government in Tehran has flatly ignored the Feb. 21 deadline set by the United Nations Security Council to suspend its uranium-enrichment program. The burden is now on those who desire a multilateral order based on respect for international...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 25, 2007

Upstairs, downstairs and inside old Japan

Companions of the Holiday by Donald Richie, with an introduction by Timothy Harris and an afterword by the author. Tokyo/New York: Printed Matter Press, 181 pp., $15 (paper) Donald Richie is known to readers of The Japan Times for his regular reviews of books dealing with Asia, and more particularly...
Reader Mail
Feb 25, 2007

Two 'ways' of intelligent design

In his Feb. 16 article "Unintelligent designs on real evolution," Edward Humes justly posits two theories of evolution -- the scientific and the popular "straw-man image of evolution." Sadly, he is less than just in positing only one contrasting theory, which he calls "an upstart movement" ("intelligent...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Ex-PM lauds his exit as a 'public service'

The ousted prime minister welcomed me to his spacious compound where I met his son and daughter, both home from studying overseas, and his muddy, wriggling puppies that quickly Pollacked my best chinos.
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Japanese NGOs focus on relief, reconciliation -- and coffee co-operatives

The violent troubles in 2006 drove many staff of Japanese nongovern- mental organizations out of East Timor. The NGOs I visited had modest offices and accommodations, and the staff lived frugally -- unlike the "lords of poverty" I have encountered elsewhere in the international development community....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 25, 2007

Women who give a rise to the man below them; it must be love

The big show business news last weekend was the wedding of model-actress Norika Fujiwara to comedian Tomonori Jinnai at a shrine in Kobe. The press were not permitted to attend the Shinto ceremony, but Fujiwara and Jinnai did come out a few times in their costumes to talk to reporters, which was nice...
Japan Times
LIFE
Feb 25, 2007

Back into the vortex?

East Timor is an ill-starred land that has endured more than its share of violence, neglect and deprivation.
SOCCER / J. League
Feb 24, 2007

Reds, Gamba on Cup collision course

Sick of the sight of Urawa Reds, Gamba Osaka sets out on the revenge trail again when it meets the J. League champion in the Xerox Super Cup on Saturday.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 24, 2007

Nobody willing to take blame for fiasco with fans in France

LONDON -- Supporters are told they are the most important people in football . . . the sport's biggest sponsors . . . yet when they are randomly batoned and bloodied by French policemen, as around 500 Manchester United fans were at the Champions League tie against Lille, nobody seems responsible.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2007

Still stuck in the Middle East

A trilateral summit between the U.S., Israel and Palestinians held this week yielded no statement and no progress apart from a pledge to keep talking. In the diplomatic morass of the Middle East, even the United States is willing to consider the mere fact that a summit was held to be "useful and productive."...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2007

Fallen submariners honored in Australia

SYDNEY -- The Australian and Japanese navies, in an unpublicized ceremony, jointly paid homage earlier this month to the bravery of two young Japanese submariners who raided Sydney Harbor in 1942.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 24, 2007

Young ice crystals on their best behavior

What do you think Hokkaido people do in the wintertime for entertainment? Being such a cold place, you'd think they'd specialize in trips to Tahiti. But no, all over Hokkaido during the coldest months of the year they hold snow and ice festivals.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 24, 2007

In Harlem, living on a prayer

On a chilly Saturday afternoon in a narrow, unassuming Harlem church, three sopranos fill the room with the first reluctant notes of a gospel hymn. "Lord, I will lift mine eyes to the hill," they sing.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 24, 2007

Telling the truth at Yasukuni

Since last summer, I have been engaged in the process of modifying exhibits at Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan history museum. The project is expected to be completed in July.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell