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EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2003

In search of the real al-Jazeera

The war in Iraq hasn't been easy for nonparticipants such as Japan to sort out. The most obvious villains were also technically the victims, and the perpetrators of hostilities have looked like invaders one minute, liberators the next. Perceptions and judgments could, and still do, shift like the wind....
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2003

Thailand seeks an advantage

HONOLULU -- Southeast Asian politicians and business professionals continue to insist that China's rise is "an opportunity, not a threat" to their future. That sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard. The Chinese market is so big and has such a wealth of human and material resources that conventional...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Apr 13, 2003

Kubo's strike sends Yokohama top

Tatsuhiko Kubo celebrated his recall to the Japan squad by scoring his first goal for Yokohama F. Marinos as his new club beat Tokyo Verdy 3-0 to go top of the J. League first division on Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2003

Japanese play down foreigners' rights: survey

Japanese people are inclined to play down the rights that foreign residents of Japan are entitled to, according to a government survey released Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2003

4.9 magnitude quake hits Kagoshima

An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 4.9 jolted Kagoshima Prefecture and surrounding areas on Saturday afternoon, the Meteorological Agency said.
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2003

Rebuilding Iraq to be better than before

ISLAMABAD -- U.S. President George W. Bush has repeatedly spoken of creating an environment of political freedom for the people of Iraq, where at least one generation, if not two, has grown up under the shadow of President Saddam Hussein. But there are a number of unanswered questions influencing Iraq's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Apr 13, 2003

Extracurricular cool at Hitorizawa

Hitorizawa High School in Kanagawa appears to be a normal Japanese high school. Plentiful shoe-boxes jam the entryway, a sign-in sheet for visitors dangles alongside the nub of an old pencil and lists of rules hang accusingly in the wide and somewhat dusty halls. After classes, administrative staff work...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2003

Six months on, access to abductees remains an issue

OSAKA -- On Tuesday, six months will have passed since the five Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea in 1978 returned home, an event that most Japanese media rated the No. 1 news story of 2002.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003

Making a stanza for life

HOW TO HAIKU: A Writer's Guide to Haiku and Related Forms, by Bruce Ross. Tuttle Publishing, 2002, 167 pp., 1800 yen (paper); TAKE A DEEP BREATH: The Haiku Way to Inner Peace, by Sylvia Forges-Ryan & Edward Ryan. Kodansha International, 2002, 129 pp., 1,800 yen (cloth); THE NICK OF TIME: Essays on Haiku...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2003

From polarization to U.N. reconstruction

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- A future historian will almost certainly view the current tragedy in Iraq more calmly than so many of today's analysts and commentators. As the drama is screened from sophisticated command rooms to the remotest television-equipped hut in a far corner of the world, emotions prevail...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 2003

Black where they belong

Rewind to September 1986. Yasuhiro Nakasone, prime minister of a self-assured, economically powerful Japan, was taking swipes at American minorities -- especially African-Americans.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 13, 2003

SARS can't stop world of rugby's grand wake for fallen mates

Thursday, March 28, 2003, and noted Australian commentator Chris "Buddha" Hardy asks for quiet from the players and spectators gathered at the Hong Kong Football Club for its annual tens tournament.
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 13, 2003

Marines' Fukuura, Short bomb Lions

Kazuya Fukuura went 4-for-5 including a two-run homer and starter Naoyuki Shimizu tossed eight solid innings to pick up his third win as the Chiba Lotte Marines downed the Seibu Lions 9-2 at Seibu Dome on Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003

Laying the ghosts of doubt in Laos

LOST OVER LAOS, by Richard Pyle and Horst Faas. Da Capa Press, 2002, 239 pp., $30 (cloth) In American hands, the deadly serious business of warfare, the very way war is conducted, can seem at times more like an extension of its own pop culture, a cartoon warp of the real grotesqueries.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 2003

Siam's Greek Faulcon

FALCON: At the Court of Siam, by John Hoskin. Bangkok, Asia Books, 2002, 275 pp., 425 Baht (paper) Constantine Phaulkon, a famous Greek adventurer of the 17th century, who had a meteoric rise in King Narai's Siam (former name of Thailand) and an equally dramatic end, seems to continue attracting the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 2003

Taking people as she finds them

Maki Tsuchie has been a television reporter and documentary film director in Okinawa for the past 10 years. Fully versed in the intricacies of U.S. and Japanese defense policy, she knows where the U.S. military stores depleted uranium and which U.S. troops in Okinawa have been sent to the Middle East....
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2003

DPJ to hold talks on Liberals merger

The Democratic Party of Japan will hold individual meetings this week with all of its rank-and-file lawmakers over a proposed merger with the Liberal Party, DPJ lawmakers said Saturday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 13, 2003

Matsui, Matsui . . . and a little more Matsui

Because of coverage of the invasion of Iraq, it feels as if we're being spared the all-Matsui-all-the-time media blitz we were promised last fall when the former Yomiuri Giants slugger, Hideki Matsui, signed with the New York Yankees. We aren't. Matsui madness is everywhere, but because the war has engaged...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 13, 2003

New heroines: women at work

The spring television season has arrived, and with it a new crop of dramas. Most of the leading characters are women, but whereas heroines once meant romance or family themes, this year the theme is work.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2003

Chinese deserve grown-up party leaders

SEOUL -- The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party want the world to believe that the government they control is fit to be accepted as a full-fledged mature member of the global community. But is it? There have to be some doubts.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 13, 2003

Who copped my hip-hop?

On a visit to Tokyo's trendy Shibuya Ward several years ago, I came across a Japanese teenager dressed from head to toe in baggy hip-hop wear, one of the first "B-Boys" I'd ever seen here. Still relatively new to Japan, I was curious about whether this young man represented some growing awareness of...
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2003

Bringing stability to Iraq

By all indications, the war in Iraq is about to end. Baghdad has fallen, with U.S. and British forces having seized key government buildings in the city. Surprisingly, they have met little organized resistance from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's loyal troops and militias. It comes as a great relief...
MORE SPORTS
Apr 12, 2003

Wainaina to run in Nagano Marathon

Sydney Olympic silver medalist Eric Wainaina will compete in the April 20 Nagano Marathon, race organizers said Friday.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person