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JAPAN
Apr 15, 2005

Human-trafficking at record 79 cases but number more likely in thousands

Police either made arrests in or turned over to prosecutors 79 cases of alleged human-trafficking involving foreign women forced into the sex industry or other forms of exploitation last year.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Apr 15, 2005

Matsuba Chaya: Buddha, soba and the great outdoors

Spring is here, the sap is rising, buds are budding and the Food File's fancy turns to . . . noodles? Out in Chofu, heartland of Tokyo's bed-town suburbia?
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 14, 2005

Could change be the only constant in the cosmos?

In David Mitchell's compelling novel "Cloud Atlas," two of the characters climb the dormant Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii, and find giant domes -- observatories -- at the peak of the great mountain. The novel -- published last year -- is comprised of six interweaved strands, starting in the 1800s and moving...
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2005

For rent: Mount Fuji weather station; nice view

The Meteorological Agency is looking for tenants to rent a vacant weather monitoring station at the summit of Mount Fuji, according to an agency official.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 13, 2005

Kent Nagano conducts former collaborator Takemitsu

Kent Nagano is nothing if not a very busy man. The musical director of the Los Angeles Opera, the artistic director and chief conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, Berlin, and the guest director of many world-famous orchestras, the California native is in demand as one of the most popular opera...
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2005

Troubling events in China

The recent wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China raises questions about Beijing's will to stabilize the situation. At the beginning of this month, demonstrators went on a rampage in Sichuan and Shenzhen in southern China, smashing windows of a Japanese supermarket and committing other acts of...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 11, 2005

You can lead a market to bonds, but you can't make it drink

The government budget for fiscal 2005 has been enacted, but the amount dependent on government bonds, although slightly lower than in fiscal 2004, is still above 40 percent.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 10, 2005

Schiavo case deepens America's divide

ONTARIO, Calif. -- Seldom can I recall any issue in America producing as much emotion and division as the case of Terri Schiavo. The Iraq war has not come close to reaching this level of emotional expression. After being denied food and water for 13 days, her death on March 31, at 41 years of age, brings...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 10, 2005

Corporate deregulation: Fear, loathing, firms losing the plot

Ever since the Japanese government started deregulating the economy in the '90s, there has been talk of an emerging income gap (kakusa). To a country that likes to think of itself as being uniformly middle class, social stratification means trouble, since it is often related to increasing crime, alienation,...
MORE SPORTS
Apr 9, 2005

Ramos to captain beach soccer team

Former Japan international midfielder Ruy Ramos will steer the national squad at next month's beach soccer World Cup, Japan Football Association President Saburo Kawabuchi said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2005

Watanuki draws 95 foes to postal reform

The political tug-of-war over the government's postal privatization plan continued Thursday as a senior Liberal Democratic Party official gathered 95 LDP Diet members for a protest meeting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Apr 8, 2005

Honest, Doc, I can still dance

I missed everything in the doctor's explanation of my condition after she used the "A" word.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Apr 8, 2005

A new cellarful of tipples

The dot-com era saw an unfortunate number of foreign wine promoters descend on Japan. They were armed with snappy Powerpoint presentations and talk of quick riches, but their only apparent success was in relieving investors of their excess cash before moving on.
EDITORIALS
Apr 7, 2005

Australia's leader 'discovers' Asia

The hallmark of Australian Prime Minister John Howard's eight years in office has been an unblinking orientation toward the United States. At one point, there was even talk of Australia acting as the U.S. "deputy sheriff" in East Asia. That outlook appears to be changing.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2005

U.S., Vietnam draw closer

HONOLULU -- An American warship steamed slowly up the Saigon River last week to mark the gradual forging of normal political, economic and even military relations between the United States and Vietnam 30 years after the end of their long and bloody war.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 6, 2005

From Zen to story, a tale of artists East and West

The Mori Art Museum in Roppongi is not yet two years old but the two new Mori shows that opened last weekend -- "The Elegance of Silence: Contemporary Art from East Asia" and "The World is a Stage: Stories Behind Pictures" -- suggest a space now comfortable with its potential and its limitations.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2005

A dicey hypocritical streak

LONDON -- I am glad that March is over. The problem with the month is that it begins with the release of the U.S. State Department's annual reports on human rights violations worldwide (except in the United States, of course). Just as you come to terms with that, in the middle of the month, the six-week...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 5, 2005

Made in Japan

The Nintendo
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2005

Ex-Defense Agency engineer suspected of leaking sub info

Police have questioned a former senior Defense Agency engineering officer and searched his home on suspicion he gave copies of confidential submarine documents to an acquaintance who may have leaked the information to China, according to informed sources.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 3, 2005

Giants no longer packing 'em in at the Big Egg

Perhaps this is a sign of the times indicating the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, the once-almighty Kyojin team, does not have the overwhelming popularity it once had.
Features
Apr 3, 2005

Does language 'difficulty' speak of a sense beyond mere words?

I have often been told by Japanese people that theirs is the most difficult language in the world. Virtually all the Japanese people who have said this to me, I might add, have spoken no other language than their own.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 3, 2005

So much food that we don't know what to do with it

The media didn't quite know what to make of that bizarre story last month about the elderly Sapporo man who allegedly killed his wife following a dinnertime spat. One might expect a husband to become angry over not getting enough food, TV commentators implied, but in this case the situation was the opposite....
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2005

Tokyo talks of a challenge, not a threat

Tension between China and Taiwan are heating up again, but Japanese government officials seem not as hot and bothered about it as one might expect. Perhaps they have taken a measure of China and decided that Japan will do just fine and is very capable of holding up its own end of Asia.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 2, 2005

Life coaching helps you move on with momentum

"People have personal trainers to keep them fit and healthy," says Wendy Kerr. "It seems perfectly logical to have personal coaches to keep life moving in the right direction."

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