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BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2003

Desperate firms offer shareholders incentives

The number of companies offering shareholders special benefits, including compact discs and gold coins, has been increasing and now stands at three times the figure a decade ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2003

Welcome to the terrordome

"Terror" is much on our minds these days. Whether we believe that terrorist activity has made the world a more dangerous place to live, or condemn the "war on terror" as a mere cover for U.S. President George W. Bush's political ambition, the concept of terror has saturated our daily life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 19, 2003

Liars: "They Threw Us In a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top"

It takes more talent than guts to defy categorization, but Liars, an art-punk quartet based in Brooklyn, has done so seemingly through sheer force of will. Out of the band's blend of angular beats, grating effects, compressed vocals, and nonlinear song structures comes a recognizable sonic manifesto...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2003

Composer Joji Yuasa awarded Otaka Prize

Veteran composer Joji Yuasa has received the 51st Otaka Prize, which is presented to Japanese composers in recognition of outstanding orchestral pieces.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2003

When utopia went to hell

Although the 1920s and early 1930s were turbulent years indeed in the new Soviet Union forged out of 1917's October Revolution, despite civil war, famine, purges and mass deportations, many still clung to the dream of a workers' paradise promised by the revolutionaries who overthrew the Czarist regime....
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

236 sue over visits to Yasukuni

OSAKA -- A group of 236 people, including 124 Taiwanese, filed a lawsuit Monday seeking 2.36 million yen in damages over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visit to Yasukuni Shrine in January.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 18, 2003

A kind word, visa sponsorship and tax refunds

A kind word I was sitting in the NTT Telephone shop waiting to have a telephone repaired and a bit discouraged.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

ASEAN official eyes political, cultural cooperation

The relationship between Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations should encompass political, security and cultural cooperation, as well as economic concerns, a senior ASEAN official said Monday in Tokyo.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 17, 2003

The art of making excuses

Part of growing up in Japan is about naturally acquiring shoseijutsu -- phrases and expressions that get you through difficulties and make good impressions.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2003

An omiai conjurer of couples out of singles

Mitsuko Kai stifles a sigh as she watches her visitor, Yuko Saito, cross out one candidate after another.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 16, 2003

Enslaved and liberated by lust

CONSUMING BODIES: Sex and Contemporary Japanese Art, edited by Fran Lloyd. London: Reaktion Books, 2002, 224 pp., 134 color and 34 black-and-white illustrations, £16.95 (paper). In her introduction to this very interesting collection of essays, Fran Lloyd emphasizes that the portrayal of sex and consumerism...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 16, 2003

Songs of the sorta rich and famous

Daniel Johnston is apparently napping. His father, Bill, who answers the phone, says to someone, "Tell Dan it's his interview from Japan."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2003

Making a match all manner of ways

It wasn't so long ago that the Japanese ideal was to be married by age 25, typically to someone handpicked by parents. At its core, matrimony was an economic arrangement with all the romantic overtones of a mortgage contract.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 16, 2003

Hornets face penalty after shortfall in season ticket sales

NEW YORK -- By popular demand, this campground is employing new guidelines for the second half of the season: Making fun is out, making knowledge is in. Any hint of an association between the two is purely accidental.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 15, 2003

Local boy with a liking for the finer things in life

Living in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "furusato" (hometown), it seems likely that Hisataka (Issa) Koizumi is related.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2003

Chile president stresses need for fresh resolution prior to attack on Iraq

Visiting Chilean President Ricardo Lagos on Friday stressed the importance of the U.N. Security Council adopting a fresh resolution before any military action is taken against Iraq.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Loan sharks feasting on ballooning number of people deep in debt

With the economy in the doldrums for years and unemployment at a record high, Japanese are racking up debts, falling prey to loan sharks and declaring bankruptcy by the thousands.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Japan urged to take lead in easing of drug patents

As host of an informal ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, Japan should take the initiative in easing rules on pharmaceutical patents so developing countries can have better access to desperately needed drugs, according to Dr. Tatsuo Hayashi, president of Africa-Japan Forum.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2003

Former Eitai execs held for taking doomed loans

Police on Thursday arrested four former executives of the failed credit union Eitai who allegedly had their firm take over 7.8 billion yen in bad loans extended by an affiliated company to ailing borrowers, even though they knew the loans were unrecoverable.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2003

Time for a Japan-Chile free trade accord

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos is currently visiting Japan at the official invitation of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. I suppose that one of the aims of his visit is to ask Japan to begin a joint study with Chile on the possibility of a free trade agreement, or FTA, between Japan and Chile. I say,...
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2003

The 'vision thing' still matters

LONDON -- In the ideal Middle East "dream scenario," U.N. weapons inspectors, gently prompted by American and British intelligence information, stumble on stores of chemical and biological weapons hidden in Iraq.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 13, 2003

Have we got the will to survive?

"State of the World 2003," this year's edition of a report published annually by the Worldwatch Institute, arrived in my mailbox several days before the shuttle tragedy, but it sat on my desk unopened until the morning of Columbia's fiery descent.
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2003

Koizumi shirking top duty

Over the past year, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi appears to have all but lost his enthusiasm for military contingency legislation. Protecting the lives and property of the Japanese people from armed attack is the most important duty of the prime minister as the supreme commander of the Self-Defense...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 12, 2003

Starting all over again

Gowasan means "call off," "start again," or "bankruptcy." The term is originally derived from abacus calculation, where it refers to the shaking of the abacus to return all beads to their starting point after completing a calculation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 12, 2003

Bright white, big city

Something interesting I recently learned about anatomy: There are 26 bones in the human foot, and if you break just one of them, your entire leg is basically useless.

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