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JAPAN
Nov 17, 2001

LPD group rises against Koizumi reforms

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi got a harsh dose of reality Friday when a group of 55 lawmakers in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party formed a group opposing his reform programs.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2001

Public seen in step with boosted SDF role

The Self-Defense Forces are finally crossing the line to participate in a real war for the first time in their history, even though their role will be limited to logistic support.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Nov 14, 2001

Mercury Rev: 'All Is Dream'

On Sept. 11, Mercury Rev released the presciently titled album "All Is Dream." It was perfect timing because, although Mercury Rev will never be fashionable, the terrorist attacks on the U.S. must have upped the sales of their albums significantly. Who in America wanted to listen to the abrasive Limp...
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Nov 11, 2001

Taking things one moment at a time

Monday night, the Nippon TV documentary series "Super TV" (9 p.m.) chronicles the last six months of a man with terminal cancer. Last year, the show's producers received a letter from the man's children, who explained their father's situation and asked them "to record his life right up until the last...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 11, 2001

Unlocking the 'qi'

Dressed in a white robe, a female qi master calmly stands in a room. Her face a mask of concentration, she puts her hands into a metal box. She quietly waits for three minutes. Then concentrates for seven minutes.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 11, 2001

Mizoguchi's street of shame

RED-LIGHT DISTRICT, the film by Kenji Mizoguchi, translated and annotated by D.J. Rajakaruna. Colombo: S. Godage & Brothers, 2001. 182 pp., $12.50 (paper) Kenji Mizoguchi's last film, the 1956 "Akasen Chitai" ("Red-Light District," aka "Street of Shame") may not be one of his best pictures but it is...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 11, 2001

Trying to sell the news to kids who don't care

We've heard a lot lately about the decline of literacy in the developed world, as more people turn to new technology as their principal source of information. Commentators often illustrate this claim with figures demonstrating how no one reads novels anymore or by citing the decline in advertising revenue....
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 11, 2001

How mold grew to be so unique

There are two things that make nihonshu unique among the world's alcoholic beverages. One is the process known as heiko fukuhakko, or multiple parallel fermentation. In short, this means that saccharification and fermentation take place simultaneously in the same vat, as opposed to sequentially, as in...
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2001

Welsh Society to sing its heart out for seeing dogs

Think Welsh and imagine small, dark, tough people with a passion for rugby and choral singing, the red dragon of the national flag, sunny daffodils (the national flower) and the green valleys of southern Wales. Yet here is Ursula Bartlett Imadegawa (known to friends as Ursula Bi) -- a blonde with green...
COMMENTARY
Nov 10, 2001

Brace yourself for the new McCarthyism

NEW YORK -- According to The Wall Street Journal I'm "probably the most bitterly anti-American commentator in America." The National Review calls me "a big fat zero, an ignorant, talentless hack with a flair for recycling leftist pieties into snarky cartoons that inspired breakfast-table chuckles among...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 10, 2001

Eiko Todo

Eiko Todo says there are "thousands of children in Japan suffering from unrecognized dyslexia. Even after it is recognized, the children have practically no support from teachers, nor local education authorities."
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2001

Howard ahead as election draws near

SYDNEY -- In these days of crisis -- as Australia sends troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan and thousands of boat people try to reach Australia illegally -- what more does Prime Minister John Howard need to win a national election this coming Saturday?
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2001

Jobless woes to worsen

The U.S. jobless rate climbed 0.5 percentage point from the previous month in October to 5.4 percent amid increasing concerns over fallout from the Sept. 11 attacks and the spreading anthrax scare.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2001

Alternative energy empowering consumers

With increasing demand for cost-efficient and environment-friendly energy, a growing number of hotels, hospitals and major industrial facilities are adopting cogeneration -- a system that makes more efficient use of heat and electricity generated from the same source.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 8, 2001

Partisan politics heat up

WASHINGTON -- You can feel the change. It is not back to politics as usual -- pre-Sept. 11 variety -- but the partisan blood is flowing again in the body politic. In the spirit of accommodation that has marked the post-attack period, Congress has been passing major measures of great consequence on a...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Nov 8, 2001

Take your golf game with you

"ESPN Final Round Golf 2002" from Konami for the Game Boy Advance may surprise you.
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2001

Just how low can they go?

Swordfish Rating: * Director: Dominic Sena Running time: 99 minutes Language: English Now showing
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2001

Imperial eyes shielded from reality of homelessness

The homeless at Ueno Park were up early Monday, with hundreds of the park dwellers quietly disassembling their tents and packing their belongings onto carts soon after dawn.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2001

Fighting for independence in the shadow of a Goliath

ALMATY, Kazakstan -- The phone calls started last May, after the body of an ethnic Uighur activist was found strangled and dumped in a water reservoir.
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Nov 6, 2001

In sport, beauty sells

The recent uproar about the nontennis activities of Anna Kournikova shows no signs of abating. Already steamed up by the contrast between her extraordinary endorsement earnings and her actual tournament ranking, self-appointed pundits have lately taken to denouncing her for her exercise video. Since...
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Nov 6, 2001

Ten years old and counting

Last Thursday, the J. League celebrated its 10th anniversary at a Tokyo hotel, inviting about 500 soccer officials, sponsors and past and present players.
EDITORIALS
Nov 5, 2001

China's growing dilemma

Two historic transitions are beginning in China: the rise to power of its fourth generation of leaders and the economic transformation leading to membership in the World Trade Organization. They are pulling the country in different directions and creating conflicting priorities for the Beijing government....
EDITORIALS
Nov 4, 2001

A new benchmark for terrorism

Peace of mind is not the only thing to have been shaken by the events of Sept. 11. Language has been, too -- or at least our casual assumption that we know what we mean by the words we use.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 4, 2001

Charlie Watts Tentet: Nothing but a jazz thing

In the 1960s, The Rolling Stones led the way in forging a rougher, rootsier style of rock out of R&B, '50s rock 'n' roll and Chicago blues. As the band's drummer, Charlie Watts helped set a new standard of rhythmic structure for rock, and his tight, anchoring beat was widely imitated. After that, what's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 4, 2001

In love with the Harley legend

It's Sunday afternoon in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, and the local Harley-Davidson shop, American Street, is playing host to a stream of visitors in black leather jackets.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2001

Japan offers judge for Khmer Rouge trial

Japan plans to nominate Kuniji Shibahara, a professor of law at Gakushuin University, to serve as a judge at a United Nations-assisted tribunal to be set up in Cambodia to bring leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime to justice, government sources said Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 3, 2001

Japanese relieve stress in strange ways

Westerners typically take a vacation to relieve stress. We might go to the Caribbean, lie on the beach, read trashy novels and sip cocktails. Not so the Japanese.
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Nov 2, 2001

Serbian tennis ace giving it his best shot

It was gunfire that Nikola Stula thought he heard the first night he arrived in Gifu.
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Nov 2, 2001

No fundraisers or bake sales? Sign me up!

I agreed to serve on the PTA of the Japanese elementary school my children attend, but on one condition: that I didn't have to do any fundraising.

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