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BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 6, 2002

What's this about Piazza and Griffey Jr.?

The Feb. 27 edition of the Nikkan Sports Japanese language newspaper carried a front-page banner headline, complete with blaring blue, yellow and red kanji characters featuring the names of major league superstars Mike Piazza and Ken Griffey Jr. Photos of the two sluggers were included on Page 1 as well....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Mar 6, 2002

Bush's incendiary pulpit

MOSCOW -- It would be interesting to know who attended U.S. President George W. Bush's talk at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Feb. 22. Obviously planned as a mixture of calculated propaganda and heartfelt preaching, the talk targeted Chinese youth who hopefully will make China democratic, tolerant...
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 6, 2002

Troussier names 34-man squad for next week's training camp

Japan manager Philippe Troussier has named a 34-man squad for next week's training camp in Shizuoka Prefecture ahead of this month's World Cup buildup matches against Ukraine and Poland, the Japan Football Association announced Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Uniqlo sales plunge record 36%

Fast Retailing Co., which operates the Uniqlo chain, said Tuesday its sales plunged a record 36 percent on a same-store basis in February from a year earlier, down for the fifth straight month.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Tobishima to speed up debt cut

Construction company Tobishima Corp. said Tuesday it has devised a new rehabilitation plan to cut its group interest-bearing debts of 135 billion yen by 50 billion yen over three years.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Isetan to help out ailing Iwataya by buying new shares

Department store chain Isetan Co. said Tuesday it will provide financial and operational support to struggling Iwataya Department Store Co. to help the Fukuoka-based retailer rehabilitate under its wing.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Second antideflation plan on way

The government will try to release a second antideflation policy package by the end of this month, Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Mar 6, 2002

Getting back to the beginning

How I love to drift off to sleep in cars and on trains. But invariably, when they stop, I wake up. Someone once told me that the reason moving cars and trains are so soporific is because they subconsciously remind us of the time we spent inside our first-ever mode of transport, which was, of course,...
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Yoshinoya to open up in Shanghai

Fast-food chain operator Yoshinoya D&C Co. said Tuesday it and Shanghai's Xinya group will launch a joint venture early next month to run a "gyudon" restaurant chain.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

METI drafts e-commerce guidelines

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said Tuesday that it has drafted guidelines on how the Commercial Code and other laws should be applied to the growing field of e-commerce.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 6, 2002

The Cooper Temple Clause: 'See This Through and Leave'

Every year at the Fuji Rock Festival there comes a time when you've reached the point of sonic overload. You're searching for a place for a quiet lie-down when you stumble into a field and are aurally ambushed by a band you've never heard of that blows your head off. Last year, the psychedelic punk-rock...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 6, 2002

Ali Hassan Kuban: 'Real Nubian'

Sadly, this third international release from the godfather of Nubian soul, Ali Hassan Kuban, will be his last. Kuban died in June of last year, having spent his life singing and playing his particular brand of raw, earthy, energetic music. Fortunately, "Real Nubian" catches Kuban at the height of his...
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2002

Shady politico-bureaucratic ties

A Foreign Ministry investigation of influence-peddling by Liberal Democratic Party legislator Muneo Suzuki has revealed an appalling pattern of politico-bureaucratic collusion. A report released Monday indicates that Mr. Suzuki, a self-styled foreign policy guru, behaved like a "shadow foreign minister"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 6, 2002

Of life's mystery and joy

He lived through the best and worst of times. His life spanned a century of tremendous change, as Japan's focus shifted from rural to industrial, from East to West, from peace to war. He experienced poverty and success, respect and recrimination. He was Taikan Yokoyama (1868-1958), one of Japan's most...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 6, 2002

Comedy that doesn't always translate

After decades of playing Shakespeare "straight," Japanese directors and actors are now taking stagings of his works to a different level. A move away from pure "translation drama" toward an approach rooted in Japanese experience has been the exciting hallmark of productions such as Hideki Noda's "Much...
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Mitsubishi Estate expects big losses

Mitsubishi Estate Co. said Tuesday it anticipates a consolidated net loss of 72.5 billion yen in the business year through March, a reversal from an earlier forecast profit of 20.5 billion yen, as it will write off latent losses on real estate holdings.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 6, 2002

A syllable becomes a word -- and a world

"When you say the word 'dog,' " the Swiss founder of modern linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) once remarked, "everyone imagines something different." But as Hasse Mitsuko's new one-woman show, "Voice," triumphantly demonstrates, even the simplest sounds, too, can be full of meaning.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Mar 6, 2002

Clinic: 'Walking With Thee'

Despite the surgical masks and scrubs that the members don for publicity photos, the Liverpool art-punk quartet Clinic is fairly gimmick-free. Their up-to-the-minute DIY aesthetic -- built around melodicas rather than guitars, drum kits rather than drum machines -- places familiar musical ideas in a...
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Special zones weighed to boost economy

The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy plans to discuss the creation of special economic and other zones in an attempt to revive the slumping Japanese economy, trade minister Takeo Hiranuma said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

New firm gets into sticky situations

GumBusters Japan, a Tokyo-based venture business, said Tuesday it has launched a service to instantaneously remove chewing gum from pavement, walls and other surfaces with a specially designed cart.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Lawson Inc. names new president

Convenience store chain Lawson Inc. said Tuesday that trading house Mitsubishi Corp. executive Takeshi Niinami will become its next president on May 29, replacing Kenji Fujiwara who will become a chairman the same day.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2002

Mitsubishi Electric shuffles top posts

Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced Tuesday that Tamotsu Nomakuchi, an executive vice president, will take over its presidency on April 1. Ichiro Taniguchi, the current president, will become chairman.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Mar 6, 2002

Be true to your old school

Suddenly, it's hip to be trad. Japanese traditional music is now in vogue, as artists such as Chitose Hajime, Hiromitsu Agatsuma, the Yoshida brothers and Shinichi Kinoshita strike a chord with music fans looking for something more rootsy and down-home to listen to than run-of-the-mill J-pop.
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Mar 5, 2002

2002 on hold as JAWOC ponders making a decision

My Korean girlfriend has come to the conclusion that the Japanese couldn't organize a bun fight in a bakery, let alone a World Cup.
EDITORIALS
Mar 5, 2002

The ever-widening Atlantic gap

There has long been a divergence of views between the United States and its European allies, but the distance between the two appears to be expanding. The most recent contretemps concerns expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but the roots of the dispute are more fundamental. The real...
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2002

Hazama shrugs off rumor of Sato Kogyo linkup

Construction firm Hazama Corp. rejected suggestions Monday that it is considering integrating its management with Sato Kogyo Co. or other companies, or that it is seeking additional financial aid from its creditor banks.
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2002

Tepco plans 7% rate cut

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday it will cut electricity rates by an average of 7.02 percent in April under a three-year business plan aimed at bolstering its competitiveness.
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2002

Bush, Jiang draw closer to their divide

HONG KONG -- It is ironic that both Washington and Beijing consider the 30-hour visit to China by U.S. President George W. Bush a great success. After all, neither party got what it wanted most from the other. The United States did not get the antiproliferation agreement it wanted from China and the...
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2002

Narrow field helps Koizumi

Immediately after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi fired Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka early Jan. 30, the public approval rate of his government plummeted to about 50 percent from the unprecedentedly high 80 percent it had maintained for nine months since its inception in April. There may be no rebuttal...

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