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BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2001

Current account surplus fell 25% during first half

Japan's current account surplus declined 25.2 percent from a year earlier to 4.99 trillion yen during the first half of 2001, the Finance Ministry said Monday in a preliminary report.
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2001

GMO ingredients found in 11 goods

Eleven of 59 soy bean and corn-processed products subject to a government investigation were found to contain ingredients with genetically modified organisms, according to the farm ministry.
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2001

52.5% of firms have shed workers since '98

The labor ministry said 52.5 percent of companies it surveyed in September carried out layoffs and other employment-related adjustments between September 1998 and August 2000.
JAPAN
Aug 14, 2001

Reactions vary to Yasukuni Shrine visit

Opinions were divided among the thousands of people gathered at Yasukuni Shrine on Monday over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visit the same day.
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2001

Airlines urge more funding for airports

The government should inject more public money into airport construction in urban areas, particularly into expansion of Tokyo's Haneda airport and Kansai International Airport near Osaka, an association of 12 domestic airlines said Monday.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2001

Koizumi pays visit to Yasukuni early

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was set to make his planned controversial visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on Monday afternoon instead of on Wednesday's anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender, sources close to him said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 12, 2001

The lure of Amelia Earhart

Life abounds with mysteries, both profound and trivial, and if we were to spend all our time pondering them we would never get any work done. Yet some tug more forcefully at our imaginations than others -- and of these, the mysteries surrounding disappearances are the most forceful of all. Nature abhors...
SOCCER / World cup
Aug 12, 2001

Japan off to Europe for World Cup prep

Japan manager Philippe Troussier on Friday said that Japan will head for Europe from Oct. 2-10 as part of its World Cup preparations.
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2001

Yasukuni issue shows little has changed

August used to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the focus for Japan's wartime remembrances. But this year the focus has violently shifted to Yasukuni Shrine. Either way we see Japan's inability to come to terms with its militaristic past.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

Going the distance and beyond

OSAKA -- When the late Abebe Bikila represented Ethiopia in the men's marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympics, he shrugged off shoes in favor of his own bare feet. He took the gold, but were he running today, he might not make the same choice.
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2001

Daughters of hijacker seek Japan citizenship

Two daughters of one of the Japanese who hijacked a plane to North Korea are seeking to obtain Japanese nationality, sources close to the pair said Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

If the shoe fits . . .

Good shoes are no good if they aren't a good fit. Everyone knows that, of course, but most people have at least once bought a fine pair of footwear only to consign it to a cupboard because wearing the shoes was just too painful.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

Don't let it happen to you

You might think that athlete's foot is a man's problem and the bunion, or hallux valgus, is a woman's problem. You'd be wrong. There are many female patients who knowingly or unknowingly carry the fungal infection on their feet, while some male bunion patients live with a painfully deformed toe.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 12, 2001

Giants edge Swallows as Martinez blasts two

Domingo Martinez' second home run of the night gave Yomiuri the go-ahead run as the Giants propelled past the Yakult Swallows for the second straight game, 5-4 at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 12, 2001

Treat your feet

Be they fashion- or health-related, there are products galore to answer our every foot need. In Japan, many are wrapped up in trends, traditional culture and daily habits.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Aug 12, 2001

Rich experience on a poor man's budget

Although hogaku is an important part of Japan's cultural identity, concerts and other opportunities for exposure are often difficult to track down. Meanwhile, the range of hogaku genres, instruments and performance styles is vast, and concerts expensive. So to experience hogaku in its totality involves...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2001

Kim's final destination remains a mystery

SEOUL -- For Korean watchers, the overriding question regarding North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's visit to Moscow is whether it has brought him any closer to Seoul. Beyond receiving accolades for a summit in Moscow last weekend, the exact purpose behind the trip or, more precisely, Kim's final destination,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 12, 2001

'Model' family vs. maternal love: a nation judges

Last week, the Japan Office of the Nevada Center for Reproductive Medicine announced that a 60-year-old Japanese woman gave birth to a healthy baby at Jikei University Hospital in Tokyo. Though the woman's identity and the child's gender were not revealed, the mother released a statement through the...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 12, 2001

War and remembrance

This Wednesday marks the 56th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, but, as usual, only NHK is commemorating it in any significant way.
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2001

Indonesian failure not an option

LOS ANGELES --If Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had but one wish, it might be for the far-off West, especially the United States, to put itself in Australia's shoes for a second. Imagine, if you will, that north of the U.S. hovers not stolid and sensible Canada, which has a population...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 12, 2001

To know us is to love us

ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE KEY WORDS FOR UNDERSTANDING JAPAN (Nippon o Shiru Hyakugosho). Tokyo: Corona Books/Heibonsha, 2001, bilingual (Japanese/English) edition. 328 pp. 205 plates, color, b/w. 2000 yen. This country has an abiding faith in the power of understanding. If we just understood each other,...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic