Japan Times :: Sunday, April 26, 2009

• 6. MEDIA MIX - PHILIP BRASOR :: Media silence on first lady's school visit shows Japan's education gap
  April 26, 2009
  By PHILIP BRASOR
  Earlier this month, while her husband, the president of the United States, met with other world leaders at the G20 summit, Michelle Obama visited a school for "disadvantaged" girls in North London and was moved to tears by the students' hard work and talent. In an emotional speech, she hailed the young women as the future of the world and identified with them, pointing out that she herself was not raised "with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of." continued ...


• 10. THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK - HIROAKI SATO :: Recalling 'the fall of the Yasuda Auditorium' and the end of Japan's student movement
  April 26, 2009
  By HIROAKI SATO
  At a friend's Easter Sunday dinner party, I asked, "What do you think the student movement of the '60s in the U.S. accomplished?" One guest answered, "Obama's election." Unexpected but true: in this country, the opposition to the Vietnam war went hand in hand with the movement that culminated, in federal legislation, in U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. continued ...


• 29. BOOK REVIEWS - MARK SCHREIBER :: North Korea: Even facts read like fiction
  April 26, 2009
  By MARK SCHREIBER
  BAMBOO AND BLOOD by James Church. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2008, 294 pp., $23.95 (cloth) NORTH KOREA KIDNAPPED MY DAUGHTER by Sakie Yokota. New York: Vertical, 2009, 208 pp., $16.95 (paper)
  During the shooting of the 1946 Humphrey Bogart film "The Big Sleep" — a noir movie notorious for its convoluted plot — director Howard Hawks cabled Raymond Chandler, author of the book on which the screenplay was based, to ask if Owen Taylor, the chauffeur, was murdered or committed suicide. "Dammit I didn't know either," Chandler was said to have replied. continued ...


• 39. OPINION - JONATHAN HOLSLAG :: Why China will continue to back Pyongyang
  April 26, 2009
  By JONATHAN HOLSLAG
  BRUSSELS — In another move to raise the stakes, the dictator of Pyongyang has just decided to restart his nuclear program. And who is going to stop him, now that his long-range rocket can hit parts of the American West Coast? At least in theory. During the recent test, it took him days to prepare the vehicle on its launch pad. During the takeoff there were once more problems with the liquid fuel system and the guidance configuration. continued ...