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BUSINESS
May 14, 2001

Koizumi's chance to change privileged corporate entities

Now that Mr. Junichiro Koizumi has been elected Prime Minister on his campaign to "Change Japan," one issue that should not be overlooked is how Japan approaches its government-run special corporate entities, or "SPEs."
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
May 4, 2001

Heresy of Koizumi key to his Cabinet's soaring popularity, Fukuda says

It is the heretical style of new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that has sent his Cabinet's approval ratings soaring, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2001

South Korea weighs a constitutional revision

SEOUL -- In private, even his friends acknowledge that South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has passed the peak of his term. With the opposition increasingly less inclined to cooperate, it has become ever more difficult for the "government of the people" to enact domestic reforms.
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2001

Official Yasukuni visit requires coalition approval: Yamasaki

The No. 2 leader of the Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday said the agreement of the LDP and its two coalition partners is required before new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can visit Yasukuni Shrine, which honors about 2.5 million Japanese who have died in wars since the mid-19th century.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 26, 2001

Vaccine theory of HIV debunked

A tempest that has been raging in the outwardly dignified world of academia is set to die down with the publication today of three papers in Nature and one in Science. The story -- about the origin of AIDS -- is one of intrigue, mystery and death. Mostly, however, it is about death.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2001

Mori wins 3 million yen in magazine libel suit

Outgoing Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, whose tenure can be described as one long run-in with the media, won 3 million yen in damages Tuesday in a libel suit against a monthly magazine.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Globalization does its work on Japan

GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, edited by J.S. Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2000. 295 pp., 3,250 yen (paper). The word "globalization" is used with increasing frequency these days. It is variously employed to describe the increasing degrees...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 19, 2001

Earthlings, meet your parent

The four planets closest to the sun are siblings of a sort. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars have similar core properties and densities, suggesting that they probably formed from the same dust cloud in the early solar system, but they have very different surfaces and atmospheres. Mercury is hot, has low...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 18, 2001

Confucius rescues China's communists

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Sometimes it takes a while for the significance of statements made by Chinese leaders to sink in. At a propaganda conference organized by the Communist Party Central Committee on Jan. 10, President Jiang Zemin said that the rule of law alone is not enough; there must also be rule...
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2001

Imperial Household irked by photo

The Imperial Household Agency said Monday it will consider demanding an apology or a correction from a German newspaper for publishing a picture of the Crown Prince with a caption inferring he may be impotent.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Feb 21, 2001

Spud the magic surfer

www.geocities.com/Baja/4954/ This is how Spudster entertained himself this past weekend, trawling through sites like Internet Magic and challenging the online wizard to do things like figure out what Pokemon character he was thinking about. The wizard can also tell you who you were in a past life and...
COMMENTARY
Feb 14, 2001

The 'freeter' phenomenon

LONDON -- An article in the Jan. 31 issue of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun began with these words (my translation): "It was afternoon when he woke up. There was nothing he had to do. To avoid meeting his parents he got up without making any noise and went out of the house. It was the same thing for him every...
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2001

No-Action Letter System to serve as globalization bridge

Fourth in a series
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Researchers find method to identify infertility in men

A joint Japanese-U.S. medical research team has developed a new method for detecting malfunctioning sperm that may be contributing to male infertility problems.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 29, 2001

Was Pearl Harbor really a surprise?

My young colleague at work, Donald Howard, comes to me and wryly asks: Why is this Japanese office having a Christmas party on Dec. 7? Impressed by his historical acuity, I only manage: Well, from the Japanese perspective, the Pearl Harbor assault didn't take place on Dec. 7, but on Dec. 8 in the predawn...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 18, 2001

Meet your future friend, Mr. Roboto

One of the formative experiences of my childhood was the New York World's Fair of 1962-63, where America's great and beneficent corporations introduced consumers to the future. The memory that sticks with me most is of Bell Telephone's "picture phone," which we were told would be widely in use by the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2001

No wonder Seoul's politicos get no respect

SEOUL -- Some days ago I received a telephone call from the Office of the Chief Spokesman of the National Assembly. A friendly public-relations officer invited me to write an article for the National Assembly Review with personal observations regarding the challenges for parliamentary politics in South...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2001

Magnet find opens IT possibilities

Japanese scientists have discovered a new type of transparent magnet with the same properties as a permanent magnet that could increase the versatility of information technology, according to the U.S. journal Science.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2001

Ex-mob boss, cop critic sue police, claim freedom of speech violations

OTSU, Shiga Pref. -- In what may be the first case of its kind in Japan, a retired yakuza boss and a vocal police critic are suing Shiga Prefectural Police for what they consider a violation of their constitutional rights.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

Wanted: a leadership strategy

Japan has stepped into the 21st century under not-so-comfortable political circumstances. Public approval ratings for the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori remain extremely low, and half of the nation's voters say they have no political party to support. While the government has launched one stimulus...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 4, 2000

Judging history's 'single most violent act'

At a midtown bar, Wolcott Wheeler, whom I call a historian without portfolio, tells me a story about Robert Oppenheimer: how the physicist, meeting President Harry Truman in the Oval Office, said, "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands."
COMMENTARY
Nov 27, 2000

Japan reconsiders the free trade agreement

Next January, Japan and Singapore will kick off a round of government-to-government negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement. The plans in the works reportedly call for signing the pact by the end of 2001 so that it will take effect in 2002.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 27, 2000

Hague climate change talks getting lost in niggling details

They say "the devil is in the details," and so it was at The Hague recently during negotiations of the sixth Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change. Two weeks of stonewalling and hairsplitting, and we are really no closer to dealing with the global warming problem...
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2000

Liberals aiming to promote debate over Constitution

The opposition Liberal Party has decided to specify its basic views on Japan's Constitution by the end of the year as a step toward proposing a new Constitution for the country, party sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2000

Mori says Police Law prohibits him ordering probe into Nakagawa

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Wednesday dismissed demands from the opposition that an investigation be launched into allegations that Hidenao Nakagawa, his former chief Cabinet secretary, leaked police information to warn his alleged mistress that she was going to be the target of a drugs bust.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 30, 2000

U.S. reporter misses the mark on Japan

"Given America's willingness to avert its eyes from the most troubling chapters of its history and to resist critical self-evaluation and discussion of the country's atrocities against native Americans and African Americans . . ."
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 14, 2000

Cambodian media: cowed and corrupt

PHNOM PENH -- They don't have to worry as much as before about getting shot on the street or having grenades thrown at their houses. But Cambodia's journalists still labor under a government that doesn't like dissent. And the country still has to put up with journalists who create problems for themselves...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan