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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 26, 2004

Japan's abandoned kids live with the label

The murders of 4-year-old Kazuto Hayashi and his 3-year-old brother Hayato by an acquaintance of their father two weeks ago in Tochigi Prefecture has sparked outrage over Japan's insufficient child-welfare system. Though local police and child-welfare officials were aware the two boys were being beaten,...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 3, 2004

Signing of Rooney a big gamble for Manchester United

LONDON -- Incredible.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 31, 2004

'I want to clear my name and the name of my country'

One morning Islam Mohamed Himu woke up to find the Japanese media camped outside his home, and plainclothes police officers banging on his front door.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2004

Broken promises a blot on Myanmar's regime

A s Myanmar's government prepares to take over the chairmanship of ASEAN for 1996, opposition groups have stepped up their campaign for reform in the country by appealing to the bloc's leaders, reminding them that the regime in Yangon has violated all its promises, including human rights reform, better...
COMMUNITY
Aug 15, 2004

Barbed organ of delights

"Whereas women were created solely for amusement of men it ill becomes them to emancipate themselves," begins an article in an 1873 edition of Japan Punch. "As our slaves they are the most delightful of animals, but when they attempt to assume airs of superiority, then they become hateful."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 15, 2004

Still waiting for the final whistle in this Japan vs. China 'game'

A war of words is always preferable to any other kind of war, and for what it's worth the recent controversy over the behavior of Chinese soccer fans toward the Japanese national team at the Asian Cup tournament did offer an opportunity for the governments of the countries involved to express their views...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 15, 2004

Barbed organ of delights

"Whereas women were created solely for amusement of men it ill becomes them to emancipate themselves," begins an article in an 1873 edition of Japan Punch. "As our slaves they are the most delightful of animals, but when they attempt to assume airs of superiority, then they become hateful."
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 26, 2004

Separate but equal acts of reconciliation

NEW YORK -- In "My Life" (Knopf, 2004), former U.S. President Bill Clinton writes: "Elizabeth Eckford, who at 15 was deeply seared emotionally by vicious harassment as she walked alone through an angry mob, was reconciled with Hazel Massery, one of the girls who had taunted her 40 years earlier."
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2004

Struggling UFJ pursues merger deal with MTFG

Ailing UFJ Holdings Inc. on Wednesday asked rival Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. to merge with it in a deal that would create the world's biggest banking group, with 190 trillion yen in assets.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 13, 2004

The big squeeze

The news from Japan these days is untypically sunny. The economy is performing at its sharpest clip for 13 years, investment and profits are up and analysts are gingerly forecasting a sustained recovery.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 15, 2004

Casualty of war

"I do understand why that girl could do such a brutal thing, because I myself treated people cruelly during World War II, without any hesitation," says 82-year-old Masaichi Nishiguchi, a former military policeman (MP) in the Japanese Army.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 1, 2004

'No sex please, you're teachers'

"I feel offended that anyone would tell me who I can or can't hang out with," says Brendan (not his real name), one of 6,000 foreign language instructors employed by Nova Corp. in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 7, 2004

Ozawa suggests DPJ chief Kan should quit over pension scandal

Ichiro Ozawa, deputy president of the Democratic Party of Japan, suggested Thursday that DPJ chief Naoto Kan should resign because he failed to pay the mandatory premiums for the basic pension system while serving as health minister in 1996.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 1, 2004

Reverend mom gives a good name to activism

Quite how the Rev. Claudia Genung (a surname of French Hugenot origin) fits everything into 24 hours is beyond all understanding.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 14, 2004

Lessons still unlearned

Timely or what! Just as Japan's autocratic leaders appear to have junked war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution -- with news last week of SDF aircraft even having transported armed U.S. soldiers into Iraq -- along comes "Taiko Tataite Fue Fuite (Playing Drum and Flute)," which vividly portrays...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2004

Prime minister pledges Yasukuni return

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday that he will keep visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine despite a Fukuoka District Court ruling that his August 2001 trip there, the first of four, violated the Constitution.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 21, 2004

New coalitions of the willing seek change

While I was in London in January, The Guardian newspaper ran a front-page story about an independent evaluation of some of Britain's leading international charities that tried to help southern Africa avoid a food crisis in 2002-2003. The evaluation concluded that the charities had overstated the seriousness...
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Ishiba sorry for 'autistic forces' jibe

Defense Agency Director General Shigeru Ishiba apologized Friday for saying earlier this week that the Self-Defense Forces are sometimes referred to as "the autistic forces."
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 7, 2004

Levitation, drug claims and, er, melons blur reality in Asahara trial

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out exactly nine years ago this month is often cited as the first mass terrorist strike against civilians, and like al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Aum's former guru Shoko Asahara is accepted as the mastermind...
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2004

China creeps toward a culture of openness

HONG KONG -- Last month, in a small but significant move toward greater openness and transparency, China for the first time made available to the public a portion of materials from its diplomatic archives for the period between the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and 1955.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 11, 2004

Dreams with wings

Last month, Brooklyn-born director Robert Allan Ackerman was in New York for the prestigious Golden Globe Awards, for which he had nominations for his TV movie of Tennessee Williams' "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" and his TV miniseries, "The Reagans," which CBS refused to screen. This month he is in...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 11, 2004

Japan's 'Seabiscuit' shows losers can be winners too

There are few cliches as dubious as "Everybody loves a winner." Does everybody love a winner? The fans of the Hanshin Tigers certainly don't love the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 8, 2004

Corporate America's attack on common sense

Common sense may keep us out of harm's way and save us from terminally bad deciEsions, but a recently leaked chemical-industry memo inEsists that common sense is bad for business. Elsewhere in the corporate sector, too, common sense is increasingly seen as a dogged nuisance that hinders mindless conEsumption...
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2003

Behind the veil in France

Sometimes when we read about a political decision being taken in another country, the response seems both easy and obvious. Chechen independence, an Iraqi trial for toppled leader Saddam Hussein, approval of the Kyoto treaty to slow global warming, disapproval of the Israelis' land-gobbling border fence:...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji