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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2003

China cedes leadership chance

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Although you could argue that the current U.S. leadership caused the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula, it is not really an American crisis. Whatever weapons North Korea has, biological, chemical or nuclear, it does not yet have the means of delivering them to the United States....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 18, 2003

Rachel Walzer

The play now in rehearsal for a Tokyo presentation "reflects in its crudeness the state of our world today," Rachel Walzer said. Preparing for her role in "What the Butler Saw," she has "strong opinions about this farce. In it, nothing is sacred, and it seems to offend everyone under the sun. Yet beneath...
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2003

Clamor for consumption tax hike getting louder

Cabinet ministers and business leaders have begun calling for a consumption tax hike to cover rising social security costs stemming from the aging population.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 16, 2003

When two hemispheres of the brain work as one

The French surgeon Paul Broca had a patient in his care in 1861 who had fallen and broken his hip. Eighteen months earlier the man, called Lelong, had collapsed with a stroke that left him unable to speak. When Lelong died on Broca's ward, a hip fracture being a fatal condition in those days, an autopsy...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2003

Berlin-Paris partnership faces challenges as EU grows larger

LONDON -- Forty years ago this month, President Charles de Gaulle of France and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany signed a historic agreement to consecrate the end of 75 years of conflict between their two nations. The Franco-German Friendship Treaty came six years after the establishment of...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 16, 2003

LeBron's new wheels really no big deal

NEW YORK -- What's all the frenzy and fury about LeBron James cruisin' around Akron in his new whip, a Hummer H2 purchased by mom, "To Son, With Love?"
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2003

Sidetracking the territorial issue

Japan and Russia remain far apart on the territorial dispute over the Northern Territories, a group of northern Pacific islands known to the Russians as the Southern Kurils. The meeting over the weekend in Moscow between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Russian President Vladimir Putin produced no...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 15, 2003

MoT showcases artists who draw deeply from real life

"Art," wrote the French artist Robert Filliou (1926-87), "is what makes life more interesting than art." And this, dear reader, is just about my favorite quote. Profoundly mystifying, it serves as an M.C. Escher-esque comeback when the old "What is art?" line is thrown out less as a question than as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 15, 2003

You've got to give a little

Tamao Kubota, the founder and lead singer of Apple Beat, has a powerful, slightly husky voice and carries herself with an attractive air of unself-conscious defiance. She sounds as good belting it out like an impassioned R & B singer as she does slow, quiet and personal.
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Jan 14, 2003

The Bad News Bearer: How to look good even if the tidings aren't glad

The scene was a lavish business function, the type we're seeing less and less of these days. Asked by an earnest professor at a prestigious business school what sort of unorthodox job skills he would wish on today's generation of MBAs, the CEO -- and the party's host -- thought a moment before flashing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2003

Britain's far right poses a rising threat

BRUSSELS -- The press in England has had a field day over the past 20 years chronicling the rise of the Continent's far right. The first chance came in the early 1980s with the emergence of France's National Front led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, a man who believes the Americans built the gas chambers in the...
COMMENTARY
Jan 13, 2003

Contain the nuclear genie

HONOLULU -- Some people are scratching their heads over the standoff over North Korea's clandestine nuclear-weapons development program. They point out that by the early 1990s, it was thought that Pyongyang already had one or two nuclear warheads. They note that the fundamental strategic calculus has...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jan 12, 2003

Countdown to a 4/4 beat

On New Year's Eve, while thousands of celebrants packed Tokyo's shrines and temples to hear the 108 bells ringing out the sins of mankind, many others crowded into Tokyo's jazz clubs to hear musicians offer their own prayers. For these ritual yearend jam sessions, the doors remain open all night so people...
BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2003

Government plans to up stock prices

The government will take all necessary steps to shore up stock prices, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 11, 2003

Luigi Cerantola

It is unusual to meet someone so unconventional as professor Luigi Cerantola. He has impeccable credentials in his publications of poetry, art and literary criticism, and in his collaborations with musicians for opera librettos. He presents himself with whimsy as a maverick who has a nonconforming wry,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2003

Opera in Manila to showcase famed Christian daimyo's life

A celebrated daimyo stands immortal in the middle of a plaza in the busy Paco district of Manila.
EDITORIALS
Jan 9, 2003

Don't play into Pyongyang's hands

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, has given North Korea one last chance to halt its nuclear weapons programs. Pyongyang should seize this opportunity and agree to negotiate. On Monday, the IAEA passed a resolution calling for North Korea to put its nuclear facilities...
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 8, 2003

'Mr. Reds' explains the reasons behind retirement

"I just thought it would be difficult for me to play in another uniform except the Reds' uniform," Urawa Reds and former Japan striker Masahiro Fukuda emotionally said of the reasons for his retirement on Tuesday at a Saitama hotel.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 7, 2003

Drunken driving, unhappy holidays, and shaping up

Under the influence Glen refused a drink with us on Christmas Eve with more than his usual reluctant zeal. He had just heard of someone who had been arrested in a car being driven by someone else. The acquaintance was relatively sober; the driver was not.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2003

Bacteria spreads across nation to create slimy, healthy treat

Across the country, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, bacteria brought back by a Japanese scholar from a remote village in the former Soviet Union have been multiplying like crazy.
COMMUNITY
Jan 7, 2003

Is crime taking the place of a political opposition?

The irony screamed -- so did I.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 6, 2003

Atavistic racism: greatest impediment

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A central argument of many observers of Japan, myself included, is that there has been very little change and no leadership. The two are interwoven: leadership is required to generate and manage change. The Japanese system that was quite appropriate, dynamic and robust in the...
EDITORIALS
Jan 5, 2003

The tale of a Spix's macaw

Two weeks ago, a lonely specimen of one of the world's rarest birds made a very special trip. "Presley," a male Spix's macaw, had been found last summer living quietly in a Denver suburb with his owner, a woman who had no idea of his importance in the scheme of things. Now Presley was finally on a plane...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 5, 2003

Milner the hottest new kid on the block

LONDON -- James Milner will celebrate his 17th birthday on Saturday by signing a new contract with Leeds United that will earn the forward £800 a week -- 10 times his current apprentice salary of £80.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 5, 2003

Rock 'n' roll that's as good as it gets

OK, the best album of 2002 goes to a bunch of teenage upstarts from Merseyside, England, but the place to be was underground in Japan. Veterans Shonen Knife and Guitar Wolf delivered their best albums to date, Salt Water Taffy and All Tomorrow's Party kick-started the indie-guitar revival with heart-melting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 5, 2003

All aboard: a nation in motion

Monday is the first business day of the new year, so on Sunday the nation's airports, highways and rail lines will be crammed to overcapacity by a mass migration known as the "U-turn."
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 4, 2003

Suns young star Stoudemire has NBA buzzing

NEW YORK -- Just when you think Stephon Marbury might finally be maturing, he proclaims Kevin Garnett doesn't compare favorably with Suns compadre Amare Stoudemire, who barbecued his former Minnesota teammate/best friend for 38 the other night.
COMMENTARY
Jan 4, 2003

Pluses and minuses of 2002

LONDON -- "It could have been worse!" say the pundits. There was no repeat of Sept. 11, and there has not been a major conflict. Nor has there been a world-shaking financial crisis. But 2002 was not a good year for many people, and 2003 may not be any better. The balance sheet is not easy to calculate,...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan