Japan’s refugee policies failing

| Mar 25, 2003

Japan’s refugee policies failing

Erbil Suleyman has never read the Czech writer Franz Kafka, but he should. Since arriving in Narita Airport on Nov. 13, 1998, as a Kurdish refugee from Turkey, Suleyman’s life has resembled one of Kafka’s stories, with their hapless characters trapped in absurd situations ...

Building projects defy huge cash woe

| Mar 11, 2003

Building projects defy huge cash woe

Until a year ago, the tallest structure I could see from my apartment in Hashimoto, Kanagawa Prefecture, was the neon sign for the local Denny’s. Not any more. A forest of cranes now rings the site of one of the area’s largest redevelopment projects, ...

Japanese activists rally to antiwar cry

| Jan 14, 2003

Japanese activists rally to antiwar cry

For three days last month, Ayako Nishimura and hundreds of students, pacifists, leftists and religious groups took their banners and bullhorns to the port of Yokosuka in Kanagawa Prefecture. Their target was the Aegis battleship Kirishima, which the Koizumi government had controversially agreed to ...