Japan Times

Japanese Olympic hopeful Takashi Usami has had an offer to join German first-division club Hoffenheim from Bayern Munich, a Gamba Osaka source said Wednesday.
Usami, who had been on loan to Bayern from Gamba this season, made just three appearances in the Bundesliga and his deal expires at the end of June.

Top-ranked Novak Djokovic made a solid return to red-clay courts, dominating Australian teenager Bernard Tomic 6-3, 6-3 Tuesday night to open his Italian Open title defense.
On the women's side, Serena Williams beat 46th-ranked Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-3 for her 14th consecutive victory, following titles in Charleston, South Carolina, and Madrid — and two wins in Fed Cup. Also, Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova and defending champion Maria Sharapova won in straight sets at Foro Italico to reach the third round.

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba has sued major publisher Shinchosha, claiming his reputation was damaged by a magazine article quoting him as allegedly saying Japan could hand over the Senkaku Islands to China if Beijing wants them, it was learned Wednesday.
In the suit filed with Tokyo District Court, Genba is seeking ¥33 million in damages and an apology in print from the publisher.

FC Tokyo went down 1-0 away to South Korea's Ulsan Hyundai in the Asian Champions League on Wednesday, a first defeat of the competition costing the Emperor's Cup holders a home tie against J. League champions Kashiwa Reysol in the round of 16.
Both teams had already qualified for the next stage but Tokyo only needed a draw to secure top spot in Group F and home advantage against Reysol, who finished second in Group H after a gutsy 2-0 win at Jeonbuk Motors on Tuesday.

A group of astronomers has warned that some eclipse glasses sold in Japan have been found to be insufficiently lightproof to safely view the upcoming annular solar eclipse and could cause retinopathy when observers see the sun through them.
The Japan committee for the annular solar eclipse 2012, which comprises academic and amateur astronomers, called on observers to make sure they have proper glasses before the eclipse, expected to occur Monday.

Seventy-six-year-old theater director Yukio Ninagawa is famed and honored the world over for his magnificently visualized stagings of Shakespeare and Ancient Greek tragedies — as well as modern Japanese plays.
He was awarded a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002, and has been invited to present his latest interpretation of "Cymbeline," at the World Shakespeare Festival in London this month.

Once Kyrie Irving finished cracking jokes, thanking Cleveland's fans, his teammates and coaches, he looked down from the podium at the person who promised this would happen.
He was the NBA's Rookie of the Year.

Japan Post Holdings Co. is reporting that its group net profit for fiscal 2011 increased 11.9 percent from the previous year to ¥468.9 billion, the most since privatization of the postal system started in October 2007.
The increase was attributable primarily to the Japan Post group's bonus cut equivalent to 1.3 months' wages for the year to March.

NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday it will expand smartphone services, including offering unlimited access to "anime" and music as well as a text translation service.
The No. 1 carrier appears to be striving to reinforce its competitive edge and seeking new sources of revenue, as competition with rival carriers has intensified due to the rapid growth of smartphones.

Saying "the time is not ripe," Liberal Democratic Party chief Sadakazu Tanigaki rejected an overture by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for talks earlier this month to secure help from the main opposition party to pass a law raising the sales tax, political sources said Wednesday.
Noda, who heads the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, has said he is staking his "political life" on the tax hike plan, and was apparently aiming to break the deadlock in the opposition-controlled House of Councilors, the sources said.

Kisenosato took a big step toward becoming the first Japanese-born winner in over six years Wednesday, beating fellow ozeki Kakuryu on the second attempt to move two wins clear of the field heading into the final stretch of the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament.
Kisenosato, promoted to sumo's second-highest rank after the Kyushu meet last November, and Kakuryu (7-4) had to go through a rematch after both were deemed by ringside judges to have hit the dirt at the same time in their initial clash at Ryogoku Kokugikan.

Alberto Zaccheroni may have blotted his copybook with defeats in Japan's last two competitive matches, but the national team manager will only have eyes for the here and now as he begins his preparations for the final round of World Cup qualifiers this week.
Zaccheroni on Friday names his squad for next Wednesday's warmup friendly against Azerbaijan in Shizuoka, with the Italian set to draw heavily from his Europe-based contingent ahead of next month's qualifiers against Oman, Jordan and Australia. Losses to North Korea and Uzbekistan at the end of the previous round cost Zaccheroni the unbeaten record he had held since taking over in September 2010, but with the majority of his players arriving straight from the end of the European club season, the dynamic this time will be significantly different.

Hanshin Tigers catcher Kenji Johjima, who has been sidelined with pain in his sciatic nerve, said Wednesday he will have back surgery sometime next week.
The 35-year-old, who aims to return to action this season, will require a month of recovery before he can resume practice after having his hernia removed.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's bus operations, running in the black since 2003, probably lost money for the first time for fiscal 2011, and the major reason is the dividends from Tokyo Electric Power Co. shares have dried up.
While many bus operators, public and private, have been losing money for more than a decade amid the declining population and rise in other transportation options, the metropolitan government's bus operation has logged profits since 2003.

This does not sound like a winning formula. Miss 24 of 29 shots in one stretch, on the road. Watch an 11-point second-half lead turn into a deficit. Have your entire team get outscored by two players in the fourth quarter.
Somehow, it worked for the Indiana Pacers.

The ongoing ruckus between Manila and Beijing over Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea exposes China's penchant for bullying and contempt for international law. This gives other countries that have territorial disputes with Beijing, including Japan, an idea of the standoffs they might expect with China in the future.
There should be no other way to resolve this territorial dispute except through a rules-based diplomatic mechanism, preferably adjudication by international tribunals. This is exactly what Manila proposes, which Beijing wantonly rejects.

Images of Pastor Maldonado celebrating his Formula One victory in the Spanish Grand Prix are being replayed to patriotic music on Venezuelan television, and President Hugo Chavez is heaping praise on the driver.
But while F1 fans on both sides of Venezuela's polarized political landscape are lauding Maldonado's performance, some critics have also been questioning how many millions of dollars Venezuela's state oil company has spent in sponsorship money for the team it's now touting, and whether it makes sense.

Shinji Kagawa's future destination appears to be in England, the Japan midfielder saying on Wednesday he wants to play in the Premier League after meeting Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson.
"It was good to meet and actually talk to him. He had some nice things to say to me," Kagawa said of Ferguson, who was on hand to watch the 23-year-old in Borussia Dortmund's 5-2 victory over Bayern Munich in Saturday's German Cup final.

With contributions by 171 artists from the Tokyo Illustrators Society, this exhibition showcases works under the general theme of "food," spanning a wide range of subjects that include cooking ingredients, chefs and people enjoying eating.
Every illustration is accompanied with an explanation so that visitors have a better understanding of the artist's intentions. Also, talk sessions about food with Japanese celebrities, such as rakugo storyteller Kokontei Shinsuke and playwright and film director Koki Mitani, will be scheduled during the exhibition period. Reservations are necessary for the talks; May 19 till July 1.

Chinese and South Korean leaders turned a deaf ear to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's request that they ease restrictions on Japanese food imports imposed last year because of the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear, Japanese government sources said Tuesday.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and South Korean President Lee Myung Bak did not respond to Noda's request during their meeting in Beijing on Monday, the sources said.

The combined consolidated net profit of five major Japanese banking groups rose 36.3 percent in fiscal 2011 from the previous year to ¥2.403 trillion, primarily boosted by temporary benefits from government bond trading, according to their earnings reports released through Tuesday.
But profits from core banking business remained sluggish during the year through March amid lower interest rates, even as corporate demand for fresh loans showed signs of recovery, especially amid the acceleration of earthquake and tsunami reconstruction work.

The doctor who operated on Derrick Rose's knee insists the Chicago Bulls' star can dominate again.
It will take time, though.

An antiwar activist in Okinawa convicted of torching the Hinomaru flag at a 1987 national athletic meet in his hometown is determined to continue his battle for "peace and equality" in the island prefecture, where the U.S. military maintains a heavy presence 40 years after its reversion to Japanese sovereignty.
Shoichi Chibana, a 64-year-old Buddhist monk from the village of Yomitan, says there is a "grim reality" in Okinawa: The heavy U.S. military presence compared with other parts of Japan means islanders still suffer from "structural discrimination."

Forty years after the U.S. returned Okinawa to Japan after a 27-year occupation, the public agreement ensuring American bases would remain after reversion and the secret agreement allowing the U.S. to reintroduce nuclear weapons continue to create anger in Okinawa and problems for the Japan-U.S. security alliance.
But as declassified U.S. cables and other documents related to the negotiations that led to the 1971 agreement to return Okinawa to Japan clearly show, opposition in Okinawa to the U.S. bases long before 1972 was the major factor that forced both Washington and Tokyo to act. They also made clear the U.S. desired to remain in Okinawa after the reversion and retain the right to bring in nuclear weapons.

Orbital doesn't seem to have changed much since the 1990s — but their audience has. At last weekend's Metamorphose event in Chiba, pant sizes among the crowd were noticeably less baggy than they were 20 years ago — and there were a few more gray-haired heads bobbing to the beat.
But everyone in attendance went wild when the duo played "Chime," both the generation who were around when the track was released in 1989 and, well, their children.