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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2004

Various artists: "Beat of the Moment"

The title cut of the new Felicity sampler -- a jazzy drum 'n' bass joint effort by newish Japanese pop group Spangle call Lilli line and electronica outfit Spanova -- elicits a series of responses: familiarity (haven't I heard this before?), confusion (but where?), and finally amazement (oh my God, it's...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 21, 2004

Paradise to asylum, the city for storytellers

SHANGHAI STATION, by Bartle Bull. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004, 340 pp., $26 (cloth). A full listing of novels and short stories set in the International Settlement of Shanghai between the first and second world wars, and then again up to China's 1949 revolution, would fill a book in itself....
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2004

Peace movement revives for protests on Iraq war

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets around Japan on Saturday, the first anniversary of the start of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, to call for the end of the occupation and the withdrawal of Self-Defense Forces troops.
Japan Times
Features
Mar 21, 2004

One of a kind

The year was 1841. Japan was still the closed country it had been for two centuries by order of the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate; for a Japanese to go abroad, or return from abroad, were capital offenses. The arrival of U.S. Commodore Matthew C. Perry's four black-hulled steamships in Edo Bay -- and the...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Mar 21, 2004

Bush morphs into a scrappy candidate

WASHINGTON -- Mid-March is a time of significant anniversaries:
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 21, 2004

'Mister' is a god, but he's not immortal

Former Village Voice media critic Tom Carson once wrote an essay in which he blasted the style imperative subscribed to by American men's magazines. These publications had invested so heavily in a certain male image that they couldn't imagine anything else. "You want to strike terror in the hearts of...
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2004

Deal reportedly reached on U.S. military suspects

Japan and the United States are expected to agree soon to U.S. officials being present during interrogations of U.S. military personnel suspected of serious crimes such as murder or rape, negotiation sources said Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2004

New coalitions of the willing seek change

While I was in London in January, The Guardian newspaper ran a front-page story about an independent evaluation of some of Britain's leading international charities that tried to help southern Africa avoid a food crisis in 2002-2003. The evaluation concluded that the charities had overstated the seriousness...
MORE SPORTS
Mar 21, 2004

Fighters whip Giants in Sapporo

Fernando Seguignol hit a two-run homer in the fifth inning Saturday to lead the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters to a 10-4 win over the Yomiuri Giants in a preseason game at Sapporo Dome. Playing before a crowd of 41,000, the Fighters also got homers from Angel Echevarria, Michihiro Ogasawara, Makoto...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2004

Nothing lost in translation of mum music

It's important to say the band's name correctly: mum, which is always written without an initial capital letter, is pronounced "moom." The band itself is from Iceland, and the name has no meaning.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 21, 2004

Junior Senior

Danish duo Junior Senior may be difficult to describe, but their message is unmistakably clear: Get on the freaking dance floor. Their debut, "D-D-Don't Don't Stop the Beat," was last year's best party album, brimming with tracks that read like cheerleading chants: "Move Your Feet," "C'Mon," "Dynamite,"...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Mar 21, 2004

Little reason to gush about showy Sun King's fountains and gardens

King Louis XIV's finance superintendent, Nicholas Fouquet, decided to build himself a cha^teau on a grand scale. No expense was spared. The finest architects of the day were summoned and put to work. Landscape designers, too. And when the Cha^teau Vaux-le-Vicomte was finally complete, well, it was only...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 21, 2004

Gral's double lifts Jubilo

Brazilian striker Rodrigo Gral scored his first league goals of the season as Jubilo Iwata came from behind to beat Nagoya Grampus Eight 3-1 away in the J. League first division on Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 21, 2004

Wrong ways to a Shanghai potboiler thriller

SHANGHAI, by Donald G. Moore. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse Inc., 2003, 218 pp., $24.95 (cloth). ROBERT LUDLUM'S THE ALTMAN CODE, by Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds. New York: St. Martin's Paperback, 2004, 496 pp., $7.99 (paper). Brand-name thriller "Robert Ludlum's The Altman Code" is part of a growing...
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Avian flu genes match South Korea's

The genes of Japan's avian flu virus are almost identical to those of South Korea's, the farm ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Injunction upheld against latest issue of Shukan Bunshun

The Tokyo District Court on Friday upheld a temporary injunction banning publication of the latest edition of the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun, judging that one of its stories violates the privacy of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka's daughter.
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 20, 2004

Curfew-breaking Japan players dropped from World Cup squad

Eight Japan players who indulged in a drinking binge and acted improperly during a training camp in Kashima last month were dropped Friday by coach Zico for the national team's 2006 World Cup Asian zone Group 3 qualifier away to Singapore on March 31.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Koizumi, Fukuda repeat Iraq resolve

One year after the start of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, top Japanese officials are determined to keep ground troops in Iraq despite growing fears of terrorist attacks both at home and abroad.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 20, 2004

Ito elected to Hall of Fame

Japan's Midori Ito, the first female to land a triple axel in competition, was among three skaters who will be inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, the United States Figure Skating Association said on its Web site Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

More medical aid sought for sarin attack survivors

A group acting on behalf of surviving victims of Aum Shinrikyo's nerve gas attacks petitioned the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on Friday, asking it to expand medical aid programs so that they cover all sufferers.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Bulgarian envoy pushes bilateral trade

Bulgarian Ambassador to Japan Blagovest Sendov said Friday that reinvigorating economic and trade relations with Japan is his current priority.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

10% of wealthy households don't pay pension premiums

Around 10 percent of households of self-employed people with an annual income of at least 10 million yen have not paid premiums for the national pension system, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Friday.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past