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Features
Feb 27, 2005

New order in court

May 21, 2004, was an epoch-making day for Japan; it was the day the Diet passed a law to introduce a new criminal court system that will involve ordinary citizens in the administration of justice for the first time in postwar history.
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2005

Moment of reckoning for the alliance

When U.S. President George W. Bush began his second term, he said fixing relations with Europe would top his diplomatic agenda. A fence-mending trip to Europe has revealed how hard that will be. Both the United States and Europe must decide the purpose of their relationship and whether the trans-Atlantic...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 26, 2005

The woes of the misunderstood 'gaijin'

I've been a nonnative speaker of Japanese for 12 years now. I'll go weeks without speaking a word of English, since where I live, I'm the only "gaijin." But after several years of consistent hard work, I have trained the 700 people on my island to understand my gaijin Japanese. We are almost at the point...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 23, 2005

Lights up on gifted artist

The Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts is the ne plus ultra of honors in Canadian art. Some 2,000 of the country's cultural elite attend the annual awards ceremony, a black-tie affair held at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. But last year, organizers faced a dilemma:...
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 2005

New airport tilts toward Asia

With the opening of Central Japan International Airport (Chubu airport) last week, Japan's aviation industry entered a new age. The new terminal will serve as a gateway to the 2005 World Exposition (Aichi Expo), which opens next month. Chubu airport is a new symbol of Nagoya, a vigorous commercial and...
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2005

Pyongyang toeing 'red line'

North Korea shocked the world with its announcement Feb. 10 that it will "indefinitely" stay away from the six-party talks on its nuclear arms program and that it already has nuclear weapons.
Rugby
Feb 20, 2005

Toyota's old, young and brave hold off Toshiba in All Japan semifinals

If Toyota ever decides to branch out into making soap operas it could do no worse than call its show "The Old, the Young and the Brave," based on the performance of its rugby team at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya on Saturday, as it beat Toshiba Brave Lupus 24-19 in the semifinal of the 42nd All Japan Championship....
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Feb 20, 2005

Picture this domestic drama

One fine day in the middle of the night, the head of the Tonomura household in Kobe informed his wife and two grown-up daughters that he was in debt to the tune of more than 10 million yen.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 20, 2005

Sugar frosted, the Thai way

VERY THAI: Everyday Popular Culture, by Philip Cornwel-Smith, photographs by John Goss, preface by Alex Kerr. Bangkok: River Books, 2005, 257 pp., color illustrated, 995 baht (cloth). All countries have something of their own, something the dictionary calls "a kind or sort, especially in regard to appearance...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 19, 2005

Cosmopolitan stands for cultural understanding

A gaggle of students leaving Cosmopolitan Consultancy in Kawasaki's Shin-Yurigaoka point the way to the front door. "Up, up," they urge, to the third floor, where Suzan Matkin awaits with slippers and English tea.
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2005

Pyongyang ups the ante

North Korea has announced that it has nuclear weapons and that it is abandoning multilateral talks designed to keep the Korean Peninsula free of them. Still, there is less to Pyongyang's declaration than meets the eye. North Korea has indicated in the past that it possessed nuclear arms, and its disdain...
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2005

DHL poised to grab ever-increasing share of Asia-Pacific mart -- especially China

DHL, the world's leading international express and logistics company, is flying high over China, stepping up infrastructure investment geared to capitalize on fast-growing intra-Asia/Pacific trade, in particular Japan-China trade.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2005

Centrair chief brimming with confidence

Central Japan International Airport, opening today near Nagoya, will serve as a key center for the exchange of people, commodities and information between Japan and the rest of the world, said Yukihisa Hirano, president of the new airport's operating company.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2005

Prospective home owners warming to made-to-order condos

Made-to-order condominiums are gaining popularity in Japan as people seek more distinct housing.
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 16, 2005

Tale of the spy who loved Brandt

"Democracy" is an iconic buzzword of our times. What Webster's dictionary defines as "government in which the people hold the ruling power either directly or through elected representatives" is routinely held out, particularly by the current leader of the world's foremost military-industrial complex,...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 15, 2005

Compromised NHK needs closer scrutiny

As someone who toiled for several years inside NHK during the early 1990s, it is bemusing to see the simplistic criticism of the quasi-official broadcaster by the Japanese media.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 13, 2005

A brass band perfect for any occasion

One of the enduring images of New Orleans is the jazz funeral, a long procession of mourners walking toward the cemetery with a full-piece brass band playing along behind. On their most recent release, "Funeral for a Friend," the Dirty Dozen Brass Band re-creates this jazz funeral with gusto. Perhaps...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2005

Kitajima says that despite the fame, he is still the same

It has been nearly six months now since he shot to stardom at the Athens Olympics, but swimmer Kosuke Kitajima says that, in spite of all that has transpired since, fame has not altered his personality, though it has changed his life.
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2005

FamilyMart to introduce 'konbini' to Americans

When FamilyMart Co. opens a store in Hollywood, Calif., in July, the first Japanese convenience store in the U.S. might not be perceived as such by locals.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2005

Middle East truce opens a door

How many times has the world observed an Israeli-Palestinian handshake and breathed a sigh of relief that hostilities in that sliver of the Middle East finally appeared to be ending? The answer, of course, is far too often for the latest declaration of peace to promise much. Camp David, the Rose Garden,...
BUSINESS
Feb 10, 2005

Japan Telecom agents lying to woo clients, ministry told

Thousands of consumers are complaining that sales agents for Japan Telecom Co. are lying to them in order to get contracts for the company's new fixed-line phone service, sources said Wednesday.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 7, 2005

Sharapova takes Pan Pacific Open

Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova claimed the Toray Pan Pacific Open on Sunday by defeating top-ranked Lindsay Davenport in a third-set tiebreaker.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2005

Beijing's military buildup races ahead

HONOLULU -- China is modernizing its military forces faster than anyone expected only a few years ago, escalating the potential danger to the island of Taiwan, to American forces and bases in Asia, and to the overall balance of power in the region.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2005

Japan must end silence on structural problems to escape stagnation, economist says

Japan's economy is trapped in a vicious circle caused by excessive corporate domestic investment and debt that leaves exports as its only option for avoiding another, more serious, recession, a British economist told a recent seminar in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2005

Prohibition in Bhutan

The news out of the Himalayas last week was all about Nepal, where King Gyanendra on Tuesday dissolved the government and proclaimed a state of emergency. (The move was billed as an attempt to end an intractable Maoist insurgency; observers predict it will only feed the flames.) But if you think Nepal...
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2005

Boundary that won't stretch

LONDON -- Recent ceremonies at Auschwitz to mark the 60th anniversary of the liberation by Russian forces of Nazi Germany's main death camp have rightly made us think about man's inhumanity to man and ponder how such horrific acts could have taken place. The Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jewish race...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 6, 2005

Calls for change as WHS status threatens one of Japan's gems

The breathtaking mountain landscape of the Kii Peninsula, and its ancient temples, monasteries and shrines have captivated the Japanese people for more than 1,000 years.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 6, 2005

Tokyo as fragmented as its observers

KUHAKU & OTHER ACCOUNTS FROM JAPAN, by various artists, edited by Bruce Rutledge. Chin Music Press, 2004, 224 pp., 3,500 yen (cloth). TOKYO FRAGMENTS, by Ryuji Morita, Tomomi Muramatsu, Mariko Hayashi, Makoto Shiina, Chiya Fujino; translated by Giles Murray. IBC Publishing, 2004, 206 pp., 2,100 yen (cloth). "To...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 5, 2005

National Children's Centers cater to body, spirit

In July 2000, after 15 years heading the International Section of the Children's Castle, Teri Suzanne left the play and educational center in Aoyama, Tokyo, and became a freelance bilingual specialist. Two years later she was employed as program adviser to the 14 National Children's Centers of Japan's...

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