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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 18, 2003

There's a green revolution on high

Rice will be harvested in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district this fall.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 18, 2003

Tama-chan's secret link to white-robed cultists

You have to hand it to Tama-chan. The superstar bearded seal has caused some lively public discussion about important social issues. Because of Tama-chan, people have started talking about the disgusting state of the country's rivers, the cavalierly cruel treatment of animals, the impact that rubber-stamped...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 18, 2003

Battleground Japan: crows, N. Korea and corporate rents

TV Tokyo's weekly financial documentary series, "The Dawn of Gaia," moves from Sunday to Tuesday this week with a special program about "The 2003 Problem" (May 20, 10 p.m.).
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 17, 2003

APEC calls for urgent SARS action

Business leaders from member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum wrapped up on Friday a four-day meeting in Tokyo, urging their governments to take decisive action to combat the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Asia.
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2003

Al-Qaeda's warning to Riyadh

The series of car-bomb attacks that devastated Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week is a horrific reminder that victories in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to have only a limited impact on the war against terrorism. More troubling is the likelihood of attacks intensifying in the weeks ahead. Although...
BUSINESS
May 15, 2003

Brisk exports widen nation's trade surplus

The nation's current account surplus expanded in fiscal 2002 for the first time in four years on the back of brisk exports to other parts of Asia, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday in a preliminary report.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2003

Australia antimonopoly pact eyed

Japan and Australia agreed Wednesday to consider signing a cooperation pact on antimonopoly policies, a Fair Trade Commission official said.
BUSINESS
May 14, 2003

Business lobbies push for creation of career centers

Two major business lobbies asked the government Tuesday to help create career centers to help boost employment among the young.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2003

Higher oil prices need not doom a nation to inflation

UBUD, Indonesia -- With high and volatile oil prices, it appears that a rough road is ahead for those countries with currencies that have become weaker relative to the U.S. dollar. Perhaps one of the biggest concerns is that Taiwan, as an importer of oil, may face a new wave of inflationary pressures...
BUSINESS
May 13, 2003

Mobile-phone output logs increase

Domestic shipments of mobile phones, including car phones, surged 58.4 percent in March from a year earlier to 4.96 million, logging their fifth straight monthly increase, an industry association said Monday.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2003

Coddling of Asian bond marts urged

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa and Jamaludin Mohamed Jarjis, Malaysia's second finance minister, agreed Monday that Asia's bond markets should be nurtured to stabilize regional currency swings and bolster economic growth, according to a ministry official.
EDITORIALS
May 12, 2003

A great leap forward in China?

Back-to-back calamities are forcing China's leaders to adopt new approaches to governance. A government accustomed to ruling without challenge is now under pressure to restore public confidence in its leadership. Hopes that this might lead to more broad-based political reform are premature, however....
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 12, 2003

Flush with victory in Iraq, Bush sets his sights on defending the White House in 2004

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush last week became the first American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare victory in a foreign war. FDR named May 8, 1945, V-E Day for victory in Europe, and Aug. 14, 1945, V-J Day for victory over Japan. Bush proclaimed May 1, 2003, V-I Day, in grand...
COMMUNITY
May 11, 2003

Shaking off the shogun's shackles

"The world is wider than we can imagine," said the novelist Iharu Saikaku (1642-93). It's a pregnant thought under a regime doing its utmost to narrow the world. A contemporary of Basho's, Saikaku shows us a restlessness of spirit quite different from the monkish poet's. "There's nothing," declared Saikaku,...
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2003

Deals on wheels

There are 60 Japan Cycling Association-sponsored Cycling Terminals throughout Japan, including 11 in Hokkaido and five in Kyushu, with the rest scattered fairly evenly throughout Honshu.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 11, 2003

Bailing the banks while letting the debtors die

Reportedly, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to address suicide, which has becomes something of an epidemic over the past decade as the economy continues its skid into the void.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003

Changes in consumer concerns

CONSUMER POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism, by Patricia Maclachlan. Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, 270 pp., $18.50 (cloth) This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 9, 2003

Gaming industry revolution falls through

A potential revolution within the gaming industry fell apart Thursday, with Sega Corp. announcing it has scrapped integration talks with Sammy Corp. and video game maker Namco Ltd. saying it has dropped a merger proposal submitted to Sega.
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2003

Positioning for the next crisis

In my last column in late April, I treated critically the transformation of America's foreign policy between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war against Iraq, focusing on the unilateralist policy of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. At the end of that column, I gave...
EDITORIALS
May 7, 2003

Ease lending to small firms

Small businesses in Japan continue to languish in the midst of a protracted economic slump. Compounding their predicament is the tight lending policy of private banks, which are said to be more selective toward smaller borrowers than larger ones. Banks may have their own reasons to restrict lending,...
BUSINESS
May 7, 2003

Qualified IT staff still thin on ground

At least one in four major Japanese companies lack qualified information-technology staff despite the high unemployment rate amid the sluggish economy, according to a Kyodo News survey released Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
May 5, 2003

Rudderless world economy

From 1993 to 2001, the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton based its policies on the Democratic Party's platform of compassion toward the underprivileged and tolerance toward dissent. In the past, this ideology had prompted Democratic administrations to try to legislate an end to racial discrimination....
BUSINESS
May 5, 2003

Japanese government committed to promoting foreign investment

On April 22nd, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry selected five regions in Japan that are making special efforts to attract foreign direct investment.
BUSINESS
May 5, 2003

Wireless broadband market to hit 92 trillion yen in 10 years: panel

The market for wireless broadband services in Japan is projected to reach 92 trillion yen in a decade, according to projections released Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2003

Hong Kong's blurred sense of identity had a role in SARS fiasco

HONG KNG -- In the end, it took the Chinese Communist Party's nine-member Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) 5 1/2 months to take a public stand on handling the current atypical pneumonia crisis with much greater openness. Guangdong Province experienced the first outbreak of the previously unknown disease...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 1, 2003

Flailing Japanese companies, government turn to U.S. recovery 'guru'

Japan, still struggling to find a way out of its bad-loan quagmire, is looking for salvation from a "guru" credited with turning around whole sectors of U.S. industry.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2003

Reform is key to keeping Asia on top

MANILA -- Asia's future is bright, but it is not preordained. Policy reforms that augment investment, lead to the adoption of new technologies and enhance productivity must be pursued to increase the growth potential of developing economies in Asia. The urgency of these reforms is accentuated by the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 30, 2003

Now (and forever) a girl's best friend

Once the home of a prince, the Teien Art Museum is now playing host to a king's ransom in jewelry comprising a truly sparkling survey of the bijoutier's art in the four centuries spanning 1540-1940.

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