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BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 18, 2002

Reality check in order for 'antideflation' plan

The comprehensive package of so-called antideflation measures spelled out by the government late last month incorporates steps for revitalizing Japan's financial and industrial sectors, stimulating economic activity and bolstering the safety net for workers.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Nov 18, 2002

Benefits of opening up to foreign labor

HONG KONG -- In the previous article in this series, I asked whether capitalism would be sustainable into the 21st century. In the article before that, I emphasized that never had the world seen so many democracies, but warned that there were risks that the conditions for maintaining the momentum of...
BUSINESS
Nov 18, 2002

British law firm capitalizes on thirst for global tools, investment advice

Despite Japan's much-publicized economic problems, independent financial advisers Towry Law are "very pleased" with the performance of their Japan operations, according to John Simmonds, managing director of the Britain-based company.
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2002

Winds of change in South Korean politics

MANILA -- What did I miss most after I had left South Korea nearly a year ago, a South Korean journalist asked me during a recent visit to Seoul. "Actually, it is Korean politics," I answered to his disbelief.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2002

Threads bared: Tokyo's Spring/Summer collections

Think Zen: the spirit of darkness; the essence of white. This was one of the main themes from Tokyo's fashion designers, who have just presented their Spring/Summer 2003 collections.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 17, 2002

Media refuses to aim spotlight on prison life in Japan

At a news conference Nov. 12, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama apologized for an incident that occurred at Nagoya Prison in September, when five guards allegedly used excessive force on a prisoner, who subsequently spent three weeks in hospital. Moriyama told the press it wouldn't happen again. She also...
EDITORIALS
Nov 17, 2002

A green light for ivory merchants

Japan said nothing in the runup to the 12th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the 160-nation forum that met in Chile last week to reconsider, among other things, the 13-year-old ban on ivory sales. It didn't have to, really. Everyone...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 17, 2002

Sit up and beg, there's a good boy

The fatal stabbing of an independent-minded Diet member by an unbalanced ultrarightist last month raised the specter of the kind of political terrorism seen in pre-World War II Japan. If the global economy should worsen, could Japan once again fall into ultranationalism?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Nov 17, 2002

Getting syrupy about music

When I first heard the term "self-cover," I thought it referred to errant politicians or bureaucrats making excuses for themselves when caught with their pants down, metaphorically speaking or otherwise.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 17, 2002

Conveying messages of unity

It is estimated that an average of 220 people "evaporate" every day in Japan. The reasons are many, but can mostly be reduced to debt, love affairs, personal tragedy and involvement in crimes. And with no end in sight for the recession, the number is increasing year by year. Last year, about 80,000 Japanese...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Nov 15, 2002

Perfectly at home with the local culture

Fame comes easy to Doug Brittain, a four-year resident of Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. Last August, the 28-year-old assistant language teacher became the grand champion in the island's annual Akadomari Sumo tournament.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2002

U.S. could still join Kyoto: Yale professor

A U.S. environmental studies professor said Wednesday in Tokyo that the United States could still meaningfully participate in the framework of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 14, 2002

SEC's post-Enron reforms pose challenge for Japanese multinationals

NEW YORK -- As if Japan's corporate sector didn't have problems with long-term economic deterioration and deflation, the stock market disaster and nonperforming loans, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has added another headache. The issue at hand is the extent to which Japanese companies will...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2002

The garden of Escher delights

"Mathematicians," wrote M.C. Escher in a 1958 essay, "have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain, but they have not entered this domain themselves. By their very nature they are more interested in the way in which the gate is opened than in the garden lying behind it."
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 12, 2002

Japan draws first blood

The fans may have come out to see major-league stars like Ichiro Suzuki, Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi, but it was a local boy who stole the show.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2002

A straight-shooter wherever she goes

With her Nikon camera, dozens of film rolls and a strong social conscience, photojournalist Natsuko Utsumi travels the world to capture the human face of the issues that shape public debate.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 2002

Instruments of pain

You have to love scientists. Diligently they toil away at their abstruse projects, oblivious to such important issues as war and peace and terrorism and who's going to win the Kyushu Basho. We pay them next to nothing, ignore their pointy-headed little reports and cheer them on only when they score the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 10, 2002

Ishihara could be spiked with his own barbs

Exactly a year ago in the weekly women's magazine Shukan Josei, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara shot off a few of his patented provocative statements. His remarks about middle-aged women were particularly noteworthy. "Old ladies have proved to be the biggest obstacle to the progress of civilization," he...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2002

A wretched winter for Tories and royals

LONDON -- This is proving to a wretched winter for two of Britain's most hallowed institutions. The reasons say much about the way the country has changed -- and is changing.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 10, 2002

Clueing in on death, crime and happiness

The three dominant themes of this season's crop of drama series are detectives, fathers and hospitals, all of which can be found in this week's "Monday Mystery Theatre" (TBS, 9 p.m.). In "The Man Who Pursues the Truth," a brilliant surgeon investigates the death of a man who, like himself, lost a daughter...
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2002

Industry crusader to proceed with care

Newly appointed industrial revival minister Sadakazu Tanigaki pledged Friday to proceed carefully with his new mission, stressing the difficulty of balancing public and private forces in selecting viable companies.
EDITORIALS
Nov 9, 2002

Changing of the Beijing guard

China is set to have a new generation of younger leaders. The Chinese Communist Party will announce a sweeping reshuffle at a plenary session of the Central Committee following the 16th Party Congress, which opened Friday for a weeklong session. The National People's Congress next spring will also choose...
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2002

Group for mentally ill admits subsidy abuse

A public-interest organization for families of the mentally impaired used more than 200 million yen in subsidies for purposes other than their original intent, group officials said Thursday.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Nov 8, 2002

F.A. in free fall as Premier League clubs make play for power

LONDON -- It was Ron Saunders, the former Aston Villa manager, who once said: "If you're going to commit suicide, do it yourself."
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 8, 2002

Lil' Angel packs big league punch

The knock on Japanese players used to be that they were too small and underpowered to make it in North America's big leagues. But with the recent success of the Seattle Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki, that argument has been laid to rest.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Nov 8, 2002

Fishing for parental help on field trips

For me, a major benefit of moving to Japan was not having to chaperone school field trips anymore.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 6, 2002

Feminist charts no-woman's-land between peaceniks and the SDF

On Sept. 3 and 4 this year, soldiers at a Ground Self-Defense Force base in Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu were joined by an improbable guest: Japan's premier feminist and antiwar artist, Yoshiko Shimada.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2002

A message of tolerance set in stone

History is never short on irony. The Indian subcontinent, now one of the world's most unstable nuclear hotbeds, once cradled a religion founded on nonviolence. And what is today a breeding ground for sectarian fundamentalism was the birthplace of a rich artistic heritage that drew deeply on the tolerant...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 6, 2002

Blanche the tormented focus of a fractured world

In this production of "A Streetcar Named Desire," the classic Tennessee Williams drama of human relationships, gone are all the hues and shades of human relationships bar one -- the relationship of its "heroine," Blanche DuBois, to the fragmented and fragmenting world she inhabits. As staged by director...

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