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COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2003

Bolster will to defend Japan

Last month the government published an outline of draft legislation aimed at protecting the lives and property of Japanese people during a military attack from abroad. Such legislation could also apply in the event of a large-scale terrorist attack. The Diet will discuss the draft during the next regular...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 2, 2003

Green cards, tenant rights and sewing

Immigration worry Dear Lifelines; My wife and I are returning in January from the U.S.; I am a U.S. citizen and she is Japanese. We had lived in Japan together for 7 years prior to my 2 year U.S. assignment. (I am a regular employee of the Japan branch office.)
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2003

Diplomats' vehicle riddled with bullets

The four-wheel-drive vehicle used by the two Japanese diplomats killed in Iraq on Saturday had a "great number of bullet holes," reflecting the violence of the attack, according to the Foreign Ministry.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2003

Despite deaths, Koizumi determined to send SDF

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi indicated Sunday that the deaths of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq, possibly at the hands of terrorists, will not change his plan to send troops to the war-torn country.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 30, 2003

Power and glory of temple ruins

ANGKOR: Celestial Temples of the Khmer Empire, text by Ian Mabbett, Eleanor Mannikka, Jon Ortner, John Sanday and James Goodman; photos by Jon Ortner. New York: Abbeville Press, 2003, 289 pages, $95 (cloth).
COMMENTARY
Nov 30, 2003

Fear, posturing cloud Sri Lanka's fate

HONG KONG -- The latest Sri Lankan political crisis is still unfolding. The peace process, expected to end the state of civil war, is endangered. So is the future of Sri Lankan democracy. At the very moment when foreign-aid pledges worth more than $4 billion are waiting to be fulfilled, some Sinhalese...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 29, 2003

Modern feng shui offers clarity in work, at home

Mark Ainley has the coolest Web site. Simple, clear and concise, it is designed (by Spin the Moose Media) in three sections: Clear Space (about feng shui), Clear Body Mind (a one-brain system based on the ancient belief that body and mind are connected) and Clear Spirit (the inspirational and meditative...
BUSINESS
Nov 28, 2003

Electronics shipments jump 5.9%

Domestic shipments of consumer electronic products rose 5.9 percent in October from a year earlier to 175.3 billion yen, logging a fifth straight monthly gain, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said Thursday.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2003

Official to visit angry emigrants in Caribbean

Masatoshi Abe, senior vice foreign minister, said Thursday he will visit the Dominican Republic next week to meet with Japanese emigrants who have filed a damages suit against Tokyo over its emigration policies in the 1950s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
Nov 28, 2003

Tales of new year tastes

What do you do on New Year's Day? Some people follow the custom of hatsumode and head off for their first visit of the year to a shrine; others simply stay in and have a party with relatives and friends. For almost every Japanese family, though, one of the highlights of this holiday is eating osechi...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 26, 2003

Pottery to get on a plane for

Two unprecedented Japanese ceramic exhibitions now taking place far from Japan's shores show just how influential are the artistic ripples from this grand potting paradise. Distanced by centuries, but just a dozen New York City blocks, are two of the greatest Japanese definers of clay: eclectic Furuta...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Nov 24, 2003

Japan's economic momentum reveals private-sector progress

Japan's gross domestic product for the July-September quarter, according to preliminary figures released by the Cabinet Office on Nov. 14, grew 0.6 over the previous quarter for an annualized expansion of 2.5 percent. Some have pointed out that this was slower than in the April-June quarter, when the...
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2003

Japan, China to conduct tests on broadband mobile phones

Japan and China are planning a joint experiment on a new generation of Internet-capable mobile phones for high-speed data transmissions between the two countries, telecommunications officials said Sunday.
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2003

Three held over killing of journalist

Police on Saturday arrested a man on suspicion of abandoning the body of freelance journalist Satoru Someya, who was well-known for his stories about the activities of Chinese crime gangs in the capital's Kabukicho district and was found murdered in Tokyo Bay in September.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 23, 2003

Artistic survivors of a cultural revolution

MEMOIRS FROM THE BEIJING FILM ACADEMY: The Genesis of China's Fifth Generation, by Ni Zhen, translated by Chris Berry. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2002, 234 pp., £14.94 (paper). Ni Zhen taught film theory at the Beijing Film Academy where in the 20 years between 1980 and 2000 he instructed...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 23, 2003

N. Korea: where NGOs fear to go

PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS: The NGO Experience in North Korea, edited by L. Gordon Flake and Scott Snyder. Praeger Publishers, 2003, 176 pp., $45 (cloth). Pity the poor nongovernmental organizations trying to work in North Korea. They face a monumental challenge -- aiding a society that is starving and...
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2003

Web can aid U.S.-Japan relations

SENDAI -- Understanding of Japan-U.S. relations can be enhanced in classrooms by making better use of educational materials on the Internet and multimedia technologies, leading scholars of the two countries said here Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2003

Lawmakers seek Pyongyang sanctions

A group of nonpartisan lawmakers said Friday it will try to submit a bill to the Diet next year that would allow the government to impose economic sanctions on North Korea.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2003

Ministry targets hotel that snubbed patients

The Justice Ministry filed a criminal complaint Friday against a Kumamoto Prefecture hot spring resort hotel that refused to accept former Hansen's disease patients as guests earlier this month.
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2003

On a slow but steady track

Japan's economy, though beset by uncertainties, is recovering steadily. That is the message of the latest government report on the gross domestic product (GDP), which was published last week by the Cabinet Office. In the third quarter, July through September, the real GDP -- excluding effects of falling...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2003

Wiretap law -- hard to use, easy to abuse?

In September, a 35-year-old Kawasaki mobster was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for selling 269,000 yen worth of stimulants to seven people between December 2001 and February 2002.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2003

Turn the screws on North Korea: Ishiba

Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba told visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly on Tuesday that pressure should be used when trying to ensure peace with North Korea.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 17, 2003

U.S. should restore corporate governance market: Niskanen

The collapses of Enron and other major U.S. companies in recent years are highlighting the need to amend corporate governance rules that overemphasize management protection so that an effective market for corporate control can be restored, said William Niskanen, head of the Cato Institute, a U.S. think...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 16, 2003

'Home-drama' in your own home

THE FILMS OF YASUJIRO OZU (Box One; Five DVD Discs). Shochiku Home Video, Japanese dialogue, no subtitles, illustrated booklet, 23,500 yen. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963), one of Japan's finest and most influential film directors. Shochiku Co. Ltd., the...
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2003

Takefuji exec, four others arrested in wiretapping case

Tokyo police arrested five people Friday, including a former senior managing director of the consumer loan firm Takefuji Corp., over the alleged wiretapping of a journalist.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2003

Economy grew 0.6% in second quarter

Japan's economy grew a real 0.6 percent in the July-September period, logging a seventh straight quarterly expansion, backed by strong exports and corporate capital investment, the government said Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2003

Special Diet session may be extended to a week

The government and ruling coalition parties are considering extending an originally planned three-day special Diet session to about one week, partially meeting requests by opposition parties, government sources said Thursday.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight