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JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Ex-Ishioka mayor, aide hit with fresh bribe charges

Prosecutors on Tuesday brought fresh charges against a former mayor of Ishioka, Ibaraki Prefecture, and a former aide to a lawmaker over a 2 million yen bribe allegedly made during bid-rigging for a public waterworks project.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Woman calls British ex-POWs to Japan

LONDON -- Keiko Holmes had expected hostility, but when she attended the annual conference of the British Far East Prisoners of War Association in London in 1991, the bitterness harbored by the more than 1,000 veterans and their families present nearly erupted into violence.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2002

Obituary: Takekazu Ogura

Takekazu Ogura, a former vice farm minister who once headed the government's Tax Commission and the Rice Price Council, died Thursday of a heart attack. He was 91.
Events
Feb 19, 2002

Hard times spark rare, fiery debate at annual Kansai Economic Summit

OSAKA -- For the past four decades, the Kansai region's business leaders have gathered annually in February to discuss a variety of local economic issues.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2002

Top ruling party officials should join Cabinet: panel

Top officials of the nation's reigning political party should join the Cabinet to put more policymaking power into the hands of the prime minister, a Liberal Democratic Party panel said in a proposal revealed Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2002

Taiwan, mainland jockey for influence

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- What is going on across the Taiwan Strait and within Taiwan becomes more of a puzzle with each passing day.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2002

Elementary schools snub Snow Brand

OSAKA -- Forty-two percent of some 14,000 municipally run elementary schools throughout Japan are boycotting products made by scandal-tainted Snow Brand Milk Products Co. and its group companies, according to the results of a poll released Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2002

North Korea through different prisms

SEOUL -- In his State of the Union address, U.S. President George W. Bush has managed to disappoint South Korea and enrage North Korea at the same time by lumping the latter with the likes of Iraq and Iran. As the president begins a Northeast Asian rain-check sojourn with stops in Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2002

Anthropologist uses food for cross-cultural communication

SUITA, Osaka Pref. -- Both as an explorer and an anthropologist, Naomichi Ishige has visited more than 100 countries since his days as a Kyoto University student.
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2002

Only way to restore confidence

The Foreign Ministry, its public image badly tarnished by scandals, has launched a comprehensive effort to put its house in order. A reform package unveiled by Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi on Tuesday, less than two weeks after she took up the post, conveys a sense of urgency. It is aptly titled...
COMMENTARY
Feb 16, 2002

Enron's pain will lead to future gain

WASHINGTON -- With the rubble still smoldering from Enron's bankruptcy, the U.S. Congress is attempting to score points by interrogating the international energy company's managers. Former CEO Jeffrey Skilling faced rough going before a congressional hearing; only by invoking the Fifth Amendment did...
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Feb 15, 2002

Lifting weights and building character

When Feng Ming received the official letter inviting him to come to Japan, he was prepared to say no. It was 1999 and China, the undisputed powerhouse in the weightlifting world, was preparing for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. As a coach at Nanking Athletic University, Ming was training some of the country's...
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2002

Prosecutors seek death for Aum's sarin maker

Prosecutors demanded the death sentence Tuesday for a former senior member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult charged with murder, including the deaths resulting from the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2002

Ozaki sought Kano's help for candidate

Michihiko Kano, former vice president of the Democratic Party of Japan who quit the party over his ties to a scandal-hit firm, was asked by an executive of the company to support a rookie candidate in the mayoral election in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, in fall 2000, sources close to the case said Saturday....
COMMUNITY
Feb 10, 2002

The street beat goes on -- but for how long?

Come 8 p.m., the nationalist black vans blaring polemics around Hachiko square outside JR Shibuya Station give way to an equally noisy, but far more friendly soundtrack.
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2002

Chef's Table event to aid street children projects

Karen Lewis is wary of placing herself in the spotlight. She is part of a team -- a committee -- so finds it embarrassing to be singled out. There again, she recognizes that publicity is good for the cause she serves: protecting and caring for street children in seven facilities in the Philippines, Vietnam,...
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2002

The only viable choice

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policy speech to the Diet on Monday could not have come at a worse time. The week before, he had invited public anger by firing Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, the most popular member of his Cabinet and the staunchest supporter of his reform plans. It was an "agonizing...
JAPAN
Feb 6, 2002

Ibaraki mayor arrested, suspected of bid-rigging

Public prosecutors Tuesday arrested the mayor of Shimotsuma, Ibaraki Prefecture, on suspicion of obstructing a public works tender by leaking information concerning a bid won by Toda Corp.
Japan Times
Events
Feb 5, 2002

Schoolgirls' soccer project exemplifies NPO's work

KOBE -- Three 12-year-old girls in Nagata Ward here are videotaping their classmates' soccer practice on the playground of their elementary school.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2002

Seoul to request Crown Prince open World Cup soccer finals

South Korea plans to unofficially ask Japan about the possibility of Crown Prince Naruhito attending the opening ceremony of the World Cup soccer finals on May 31 in Seoul, a source close to bilateral relations said Sunday.
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Sake brewed with a feminine touch

SHIBATA, Niigata Pref. -- Orderly chaos might be a good way to describe the Ichishima Sake Brewery on this bone-chilling January morning.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 3, 2002

It's not just who's cast but how they're cast out

A nother milestone in Japan-Korea cultural relations is achieved with the two-part drama special "Friends" (TBS, Monday and Tuesday, 9 p.m.). Japanese idol Kyoko Fukada and Korean heartthrob Wonbin portray a couple who meet in Hong Kong and then strike up a cross-Japan Sea e-mail exchange that turns...
SOCCER / J. League
Feb 2, 2002

Antlers, FC Tokyo to kick off season

J. League champions the Kashima Antlers will visit FC Tokyo at Tokyo Stadium on Saturday March 2 to kick off the 2002 J. League season, the league announced Thursday.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb