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JAPAN
Sep 20, 2001

BSE tests target a million cattle

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to test all of the nation's 1 million cows aged 30 months and over for mad cow disease by adopting screening methods used by the European Union, ministry officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 20, 2001

Almost like a hippo

In "The Origin of Species," Darwin describes how black bears in North America often swim "for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, almost like a whale, insects in the water." Darwin was making a hypothetical point about how evolution might work -- the swimming bear, he suggested, might be the...
JAPAN
Sep 18, 2001

Bin Laden followers may be here

The government has received information that 12 foreign Islamic extremists may have entered Japan shortly before last week's terrorist attacks in the United States, informed sources said Monday.
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2001

APEC nears compromise

The 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum have reached a compromise on the contentious question of revising its 1995 guideline for liberalizing trade and investment within the Pacific Rim by 2020.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2001

Probe begins into suspected mad cow case

The national and Chiba prefectural governments on Tuesday began probing the use of animal-based feed at a farm in Shiroi where the nation's first suspected case of mad cow disease has been found, government officials said.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2001

Mad cow disease suspected to have hit Chiba dairy farm

CHIBA -- A dairy cow in Chiba Prefecture is suspected to have contracted mad cow disease, government officials said Monday.
BUSINESS
Sep 7, 2001

Japanese bonds could receive lower rating

Moody's Investors Service Inc. may downgrade its Aa2 rating on Japanese government bonds, citing the nation's feeble economy, the rating agency said Thursday.
JAPAN / STAGING A COMEBACK
Sep 6, 2001

Japan's high-tech history sets scene for the future

Although the high cost of doing business in Japan has eroded the competitiveness of many manufacturers, some high-tech firms have managed to retain their edge.
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2001

Pressure on reforms likely as bleeding starts

The nation's unemployment rate, which hit an all-time high of 5 percent in July, may present the greatest threat to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms, begging the question, "Is reform worth the pain?"
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2001

'Two plus two' to get bilateral defense plan

A report on mutual cooperation planning under updated 1997 Japan-U.S. defense guidelines will be submitted to a bilateral defense meeting in New York next month, according to Lt. Gen. Paul Hester, commander of the United States Forces Japan.
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2001

Koizumi's unfinished business

HONOLULU -- Last week was rough for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The last thing he wants to do now is revisit the Yasukuni Shrine question, but there is unfinished business that he must attend to.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2001

Kim Jong Il's quaint trip to Moscow

BANGKOK -- Decades before European socialism crumbled, taking the Soviet Union down with it, young Russian communists were already having a hard time taking North Korea seriously. There on the distant Pacific coast was this bizarre and demanding little client state; extreme in its isolation, brutal in...
EDITORIALS
Aug 17, 2001

The first step toward reform

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's economic reform program is taking shape now that the government has set a spending framework for the fiscal 2002 budget. Policy-based general spending, not including debt servicing costs and revenue transfers to local governments, is pegged at 47.8 trillion yen, down...
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2001

Teachers lash out at new text selection procedures

The selection period for textbooks to be used starting in April in elementary and junior high schools across Japan draws to a close today, but the past months saw the selection procedure draw fire along with some of the texts on view.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 12, 2001

Victimhood in the national psyche

THE VICTIM AS HERO: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan, by James J. Orr. University of Hawaii Press, 2001, 271 pp., $22.95 (paperback). August 15 approaches, and once again Japan's neighbors are up in arms over the prospect of a prime minister's visit to Yasukuni Shrine. In...
COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2001

Now Koizumi's battle begins

HONOLULU -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi delivered on his promise to revive the fortunes of the Liberal Democratic Party the weekend before last. LDP candidates steamrollered their opposition, claiming 64 of the 121 seats that were contested in the Upper House ballot. After an independent candidate...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Aug 5, 2001

The perfect shape for sake

The question of what vessel to use when drinking sake is an important one. Not only do the shape and size affect how flavor and fragrance are presented and emphasized, but the appearance and feel of a vessel also influences the overall experience.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2001

The Thai dilemma: ethics or stability?

BANGKOK -- Is Thailand's prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra just an entrepreneurial businessman in a hurry, anxious to bring to the country the same benefits that he won in the telecom business, where he became a U.S.-dollar billionaire and very quickly, one of the world's richest 500 people? Or does...
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2001

Breathing new life into the Tories

A political party that suffers a major defeat after 18 years in power is obviously in need of serious self-examination. If it repeats the experience four years later at an election marked by an unusually high degree of abstention, the need for wrenching change may well become inescapable.
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2001

No more compromises on Kyoto

The Kyoto Protocol, which was once pushed to the edge of collapse, has barely survived. On Monday delegates to the U.N. climate talks in Bonn — the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change — reached a last-minute agreement on rules for implementing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2001

'Field of Dreams' schemes bleed taxpayers

A good deal of discussion on Japan's economic problems emphasizes the need to trim wasteful public works projects. Critics are quick to zero in on "hard" schemes such as bridges, highways, airports and dams that eat up huge chunks of tax money and are rarely used.
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2001

Aid and ethics must go hand in hand

The man who was called Peru's Rasputin is back behind bars. Mr. Vladimiro Montesinos, who backstopped former President Alberto Fujimori during his decade in office, has been caught in Venezuela after 10 months on the run and whisked to Lima. His life in exile was much like his years as Mr. Fujimori's...
COMMENTARY
Jul 16, 2001

Avoid temptation of populism

The July 29 Upper House election is effectively a national referendum on the "reform without sacred cows" program of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration. The central question is whether "Koizumi reform" will jump-start Japan's stalled economy and put it back on the long-term recovery course....
LIFE / Digital
Jul 12, 2001

Who gets to be a millionaire?

Now that more than a few dot-com companies have bitten the dust, the pressing business question of how you can make money on the Web is being taken a little more seriously.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2001

Remember Pearl Harbor?

There's been a lot of talk about historical revisionism in Japan lately, given the history textbook controversy and other attempts by rightists to gloss over past aggression in favor of a Reaganesque, feel-good imagining of history.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji