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COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2005

What about the billions given?

LONDON — The popular pressure being mobilized and brought to bear on the Group of Eight countries, including both Britain and Japan, to increase aid substantially to Africa and cancel poorer countries' debt, is certainly having an impact. But it is not quite the one at which the campaigners were aiming....
COMMENTARY
Jun 28, 2005

Pitching a Japan that can

A clash of interests among major U.N. member states is clouding the prospects for reform of the Security Council. While Japan, Brazil, Germany and India, known as the Group of Four (G4), seek permanent membership on the council, the Uniting for Consensus coalition, including Italy, South Korea and Pakistan,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 27, 2005

Shining a light on Turkish-Japanese ties

NEW YORK -- Selcuk Esenbel was in town. For many years now a professor of history at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Selcuk was, when I met her more than 30 years ago, studying Japanese history at Columbia University. The fruit of that study is her 1998 tome, which she gave me during her previous visit...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 19, 2005

The community in mind as a matter of practice

RITUAL PRACTICE IN MODERN JAPAN: Ordering Place, People, and Action, by Satsuki Kawano. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 152 pp., with b/w photos, $17.00 (paper). "Ritual" has meanings other than the primary dictionary definition, which insists upon the prescribed order of a religious ceremony...
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2005

Sewing up a textile deal

China and the European Union last weekend worked out a deal that limits Chinese exports of textiles and heads off a dangerous trade confrontation between them. Both sides, as well as Beijing's other trade partners, are hailing the arrangement as a "win-win" solution to trade disputes. Ultimately, however,...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / U.S. BUSINESS SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM
Jun 16, 2005

The unfinished business of recovery

Japan needs to keep up the momentum of economic reforms and accelerate them in the face of long-term challenges such as an aging population and increased global competition, scholars from U.S. business schools said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 14, 2005

What's the deal with leaving Japan?

Leaving Japan DAVE WRITES: I am considering whether or not to return to my country after having worked in Japan for almost 10 years. I would like some information on what official procedures are necessary to end my stay here, particularly with respect to my visa, income taxes, pensions, and health insurance....
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 2005

Deciding on the best defense

Thanks to the recent high-profile battle between Fuji Television Network Inc. and Internet service provider Livedoor Co. over control of Nippon Broadcasting System Inc., the phrase "poison pill" has become a household word even in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 2005

The real state of the economy

Japanese corporations, by and large, chalked up their biggest profit gains ever in the financial year ended March 31, breaking previous records for the third straight year. But numbers can be misleading. Earnings statistics indicate economic movements and trends but do not necessarily tell what these...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 7, 2005

Have you heard the one about . . ?

'And then, when he saw the other side of the car, where his date had been sitting not 15 minutes earlier, on the door handle, hung . . . a bloody . . . HOOK!"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 5, 2005

Seiji Hirao: Mr. Rugby

At the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Hong Kong in March, a group of eminent rugby journalists were talking about Japan's bid to host Rugby World Cup 2011.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 1, 2005

A voyeur for today

The photographer Richard Kern grew up in a small town in North Carolina, the son of a newspaperman. As a teenager, Kern had a part-time job changing the marquee at the local cinema, and one of the perks was free films. It was during a screening of Roger Vadim's camped up 1968 sci-fi flick "Barbarella"...
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2005

Pyongyang eyes nuclear test

The issue of North Korea's nuclear-weapons development could reach a critical stage in June, one year after the suspension of six-party talks. U.S. intelligence says Pyongyang might conduct a nuclear test that month.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 18, 2005

Man United fans being irrational about Glazer's takeover

I was asked an interesting question recently.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 15, 2005

Race not a factor in Nash's MVP victory

NEW YORK -- Miami Herald columnist Dan Le Batard played the race card last week and, despite the fact there was no one else sitting at his table, he couldn't resist dealing from the bottom of a deck obviously not near full.
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2005

Revitalizing the startup spirit

Small businesses play an important role in creating jobs and invigorating markets. Since the mid-1990s, however, the number of small-business startups has declined, according to this year's white paper on small and medium-size enterprises. The question is how to reverse the trend. The report calls for...
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2005

A 'Eurasian Union' on deck

LONDON -- Where does Europe end and Asia begin? The question is of more than academic interest because the answer will determine what sort of entity the European Union is to be. There are those who talk about "the final completion" of the EU as though a line can be carefully drawn between the states...
EDITORIALS
May 7, 2005

Roots of corporate value

What makes a good corporation? The answer depends partly on whether it takes a long-term and broad-gauged view of its activities. This may help clarify a question raised during the recent takeover battle for Nippon Broadcasting System: To whom does a corporation belong? The question may also serve as...
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2005

A historic visit to China

China closed a chapter in its history this week with the visit to the mainland by Mr. Lien Chan, the head of Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT), or Nationalist Party. Mr. Lien's trip was the first by a KMT leader since Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan in 1949, abandoning the country to Mao Zedong and the Chinese...
COMMENTARY
May 5, 2005

Britain's apolitical election

LONDON -- So powerful has been Prime Minister Tony Blair's dominance of British politics that Thursday's General Election has resolved into one question: Are you for or against his leadership?
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2005

Strong apology needs a willing recipient

HONOLULU -- The issue of Japan's apology for invading China from 1931 to 1945 and occupying Korea from 1910 to 1945 just won't go away, for two reasons:
EDITORIALS
Apr 27, 2005

Human rights transcend nationality

Japanese media have given prominent coverage to the nationality issue in the past two weeks. The Tokyo District Court ruled April 13 in favor of a lawsuit seeking confirmation of Japanese nationality for a boy born to a Filipino woman and a Japanese man who are not legally married. According to the ruling,...
COMMENTARY
Apr 16, 2005

Is Asia moving forward or backward?

LOS ANGELES -- Settling old scores is the characteristic of small minds; moving forward is the stuff of vision and leadership. Despite the growing trade among China, Japan and South Korea, much political activity appears to focus on the settlement of grudges.
EDITORIALS
Apr 15, 2005

Road to corporate turnaround

The Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan (IRCJ), a body created in 2003 to turn around failing corporations, completed part of its mission at the end of March after buying the loans owed by selected businesses. The remaining part of the mission of the semigovernmental agency, due to disband three...
Japan Times
Features
Apr 10, 2005

Drop-dead gorgeous

Eiko Koike is a leggy, lushly upholstered Japanese celebrity, famous for her doe eyes and D-cup breasts.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Apr 3, 2005

Ryu Murakami: Straight-talking wordsmith wields his pen like a sword

For nearly three decades since his seismic debut with "Almost Transparent Blue," which delved into the sex- and drug-fueled lives of Japanese youths in a town hosting a huge U.S. military base, author Ryu Murakami has often used his trademark explicit, offensive and guiltlessly cheerful language to dig...
COMMENTARY
Mar 18, 2005

China flaunts wish to control

HONG KONG -- At the very moment that the world is captivated with the promise of China rising economically, China itself has provided two vivid examples of the danger that it is plunging politically.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 11, 2005

Man United fans questioning Ferguson after recent results

LONDON -- Unthinkable as it may seem, given that he has made the club the most successful in Premiership history, but a significant number of Manchester United fans are turning on manager Sir Alex Ferguson, their view that the Scot should step down this summer hardened in the wake of the Champions League...
COMMENTARY
Feb 3, 2005

Fear of rips in the EU fabric

LONDON -- The fear here is that the whole of Europe has succumbed to the virus of racism and that new political parties based on some variant of racism will swell in popular support, win elections, run institutions of state -- including the European Union -- and destroy the civilization that has been...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.