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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Feb 24, 2002

Going places depends on where you're from

Two thirtyish Japanese junior execs both applied for an opening at "Worldbeater Tech," a subsidiary of an offshoot of a spinoff of a fat-cat blue-chip company.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 21, 2002

Silver lining in Enron scandal: campaign finance reform

WASHINGTON -- It may look like Enron Corp. is the only game in town, but that would be far from the truth. A lot is going on these days, although Enron certainly has taken a big chunk of the capital's attention. There are hearings galore and press conferences in between. To what end? Good question. This...
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2002

Fixing the Foreign Ministry

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid a high price for sacking Makiko Tanaka as foreign minister — a free fall in his Cabinet's popularity ratings. The debacle highlighted three major problems involving the Foreign Ministry:
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2002

Lackluster debate hinders reform

Japan faces an urgent need to make a sweeping transition comparable in magnitude to the periods that followed the Meiji Restoration and the end of World War II. But judging from the plenary debates conducted in both Houses of the Diet this week, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's program of national...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WORKING IT OUT
Feb 5, 2002

Are 'freeters' result of slump, source of next one?

Tomoko Noguchi, 22, got her first bar hostess job about three years ago, while studying to become an aesthetician at a vocational school.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

SAS route expansion plan halted

Scandinavian Airlines System has suspended a plan to extend its routes in Asia in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, but it will go ahead with a plan to introduce bigger airplanes to the region, Jorgen Lindegaard, president and CEO of SAS Group, said in Tokyo.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 3, 2002

It's not just who's cast but how they're cast out

A nother milestone in Japan-Korea cultural relations is achieved with the two-part drama special "Friends" (TBS, Monday and Tuesday, 9 p.m.). Japanese idol Kyoko Fukada and Korean heartthrob Wonbin portray a couple who meet in Hong Kong and then strike up a cross-Japan Sea e-mail exchange that turns...
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2002

Yet more political corruption

The issue of political corruption is again coming to a head. This time around, a former secretary to Mr. Koichi Kato, one-time secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, is suspected of tax evasion, while an ex-aide to Mr. Michihiko Kano, deputy chief of the Democratic Party of Japan, is charged...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 30, 2002

Prizewinner who's passing on the torch

When I mentioned in a column last year that Lee U Fan had won the Japanese Art Association's Praemium Imperiale award for painting, this provoked a number of questions from readers.
COMMENTARY
Jan 28, 2002

Toughen the antigraft law

"The establishment of political ethics is fundamental to parliamentary politics," states the code of political ethics approved by the Diet in 1985. "We must conduct ourselves with integrity and strive to eradicate political corruption."
COMMENTARY
Jan 21, 2002

Rule out leadership change

At the beginning of 2002, the political situation in Japan appears relatively stable. Compared with 2001, which witnessed a series of radical changes, the new year is likely to see Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi pushing his reform plans ahead on the back of his huge popularity.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2002

Ladakh: India's timeless Buddhist jewel

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Once again tensions are mounting on the famous Line of Control that separates India and Pakistan. The crisis brings to mind images from an earlier pilgrimage I made to that area when I visited Ladakh, an almost inaccessible region in the state of Jammu and Kashmir that is known...
JAPAN / PROTOCOL PURSUIT
Jan 18, 2002

Emissions-trading plan put on back burner

Staff writer Until recently, trading in carbon dioxide emissions seemed destined for early introduction in Japan. The launch of such a system, however, is being put off as the government postpones key policy decisions to curb global-warming emissions.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Jan 10, 2002

TSE rebound may prelude longer struggle

The continued firmness of share prices in New York in recent weeks has helped the Tokyo stock market rebound.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2002

Euro faces economic snags

LONDON -- The introduction on Jan. 1 of the euro currency into everyday use across 12 countries in one of the world's big three economic zones marks the accomplishment of a 50-year-old project to bring the continent together in partnership and mutual well-being as an alternative to the past periodic...
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2002

New national goal for Japan

The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent developments have brought home to Japan a critical challenge it faces in the post-Cold War world: Establishing a new national goal and designing a national strategy geared to international cooperation.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2002

Excerpts of Baker interview

The following are excerpts from U.S. Ambassador Howard Baker's interview with The Japan Times:
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 30, 2001

Rescuing Orientalism from the School of Said

FIGURING THE EAST: Segalen, Malraux, Duras and Barthes, by Marie-Paule Ha. Albany: State University of New York, 2000, 160 pp., $17.95 (paper) In its consideration of the East, the West has been accused of Orientalism, a theory developed by Edward Said to explain the way the West "constructs" the Orient...
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2001

Jobless rate climbed to 5.5% in November

The unemployment rate climbed to 5.5 percent in November, setting a record high for the third consecutive month with job losses by middle-aged, full-time male workers showing a marked increase, the government announced Friday.
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 2001

No public faith in Koizumi reforms

The first year of the 21st century has seen a great change in Japan's political landscape with the appearance of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Mr. Koizumi, who in April won the post of prime minister with an ardent call for "reforms without sacred cows," has been maintaining an unprecedentedly high...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 27, 2001

Get ready for Xbox

The last time an American company successfully launched a game console in Japan, Jesse Takamayama was the famous Hawaiian Sumo wrestler and Chad Rowan (aka Akebono) was still in high school. The last time an American company successfully launched a video game console in Japan, a famous hanafuda card...
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2001

Another security reminder for Japan

For the first time in the country's postwar history, there has been an armed clash between Japan Coast Guard patrol boats and an unidentified vessel. The truth of the incident, which took place in the nation's exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea over the weekend, is still largely shrouded in...
COMMENTARY
Dec 26, 2001

Building on the euro's success

PARIS -- Created in 1360 to help pay the ransom for King John II the Good following his capture by the Black Prince's English forces at the battle of Poitiers, the French franc is living its final days. From Jan. 1, it, along with the currencies of most other Western European nations, will be replaced...
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Dec 25, 2001

And the winner is . . .

My grandmother used to tell us that Christmas is a time for forgiveness, not just binge drinking and belching your way through the Bond movie as the 6 pounds of turkey you scoffed at dinner threaten to reappear from the nearest available orifice.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 19, 2001

2001 -- A sound odyssey

It was a year for rocking, for boppig, for grooving, for moshing, for swaying and of course, for listening. Taking one last spin through the sounds of the past 12 months, our music writers tell us what they heard.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 16, 2001

Bringing young and old together

GENERATIONS IN TOUCH: Linking the Old and Young in a Tokyo Neighborhood, by Leng Leng Thang. Cornell University Press, 2001, 209 pp., paper ($39.95) As Japan's traditional three-generation households go nuclear and fewer young couples have children, the care of the nation's elderly has become an increasingly...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 13, 2001

Global warming: WWF expert tells it like it is

Have difficulty getting your head around global warming? Join the club.

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.