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COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 8, 2001

With Cabinet approved, Bush gets down to business

WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush is off to a good and fast start. In his first days as U.S. president, he has begun to soften his relationships with his adversaries, organize his control over the vast bureaucracy of the federal government, initiate innovative programs and promote his promised legislative...
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2001

And the restructuring begins

There are two ways to look at this week's announcement that DaimlerChrysler is retrenching operations and laying off 20 percent of its workforce by 2002. On the one hand, it is another move by an auto manufacturer that has had trouble responding to a rapidly changing market. On the other, it reflects...
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

Jobless rate unchanged at 4.8% for December

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent in December, unchanged from November and keeping the monthly average jobless rate for 2000 at the annual record high of 4.7 percent logged in 1999, the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Tuesday....
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2001

The view from Davos

The pompous and the powerful are wrapping up their annual get-together in Davos, the Swiss alpine village made famous in recent years by the World Economic Forum. This year, there were as many police and security officials as attendees, an indication of the real dangers that threaten the global economy....
COMMENTARY
Jan 4, 2001

Britain frets its economic ills

LONDON -- There was nothing unusual about this Christmas. Well, snow fell, which hasn't happened for years and it was hard traveling; but Britain's transport woes -- not enough trains or buses, too many cars -- began months ago. Passengers at one airport did riot after waiting four days for a plane,...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2001

Foreign workforce movin' on up

For a long time, workers coming to Japan from the Third World have been associated with the cheap blue-collar labor that supports industrial societies at the lower strata.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

An Asia-Pacific checklist for Bush administration

George W. Bush's greatest foreign policy challenges over the next four years may well originate in the Asia-Pacific, where two-thirds of the world's population reside, and where probably two-thirds of the world's major geopolitical crises fester.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Female students faring poorly in job search

A record-low 52.2 percent of female high school students hoping to work after graduation in March had found a job as of the end of October, according to the results of an Education Ministry survey released Monday.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Cracked earth: A journey through Thailand's arid and impoverished Northeast

"In a bad year, it is not only the plows that break, but the hearts too." -- Pira Sudham, "People of Isan"
EDITORIALS
Nov 3, 2000

Amazon flows into Japan

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has declared that he wants to build an "e-Japan." He may find that his wish comes true sooner than he thinks. This week's launch of Amazon.com's Japanese Web site will push the electronic envelope as much as any government initiative. But the Amazon.com venture also highlights...
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Ex-JICA chief volunteers for the trenches

Upon retiring after a 38-year career with the Foreign Ministry followed by six years as head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kimio Fujita was naturally expected to accept an honorary post, such as on a government panel.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2000

Tokai residents fear more accidents

Nearly a year after the nuclear accident in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, which resulted in the deaths of two people, 60 percent of town residents surveyed are still concerned about further nuclear accidents but say they need their jobs in the nuclear industry, a Kyodo News survey showed Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 22, 2000

Sabah -- unfinished business between Malaysia and the Philippines

SINGAPORE -- The kidnap-for-ransom hostage crisis triggered by the Abu Sayyaf rebels in a remote corner of the South China Sea has attracted worldwide attention. But of even greater significance, it has further strained ties between the Philippines and Malaysia, as each country blames the other for allowing...
EDITORIALS
Sep 19, 2000

A welcome slowdown

The biggest concern among economists in the last year has been the prospect of a "hard landing" for the high-flying U.S. economy. They feared that either because of a crisis or by design, the United States would stall and knock the wind out of the global economy. That danger seems to be abating: The...
BUSINESS
Sep 17, 2000

Government lifts ban on hiring high school students

The government on Saturday lifted a moratorium on corporate recruiting of high school students amid a near-record low ratio of job offers to job seekers, opening the way for employers to start a series of job exams and interviews.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2000

OECD calls for life-long learning

Academic achievement was the goal of Japan's exam-oriented education system when life-time employment was intact.
JAPAN
Sep 7, 2000

Miyake evacuees move into new housing

About 130 evacuees from Miyake Island moved into public housing Wednesday after spending three nights at the Miyake evacuation headquarters in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2000

Students turn tables on employers

Takashi Okubo, a student at Ibaraki Prefecture's University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences, gives a presentation to a corporate recruiter Monday in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward. In a reverse of conventional recruitment practices by Japanese businesses, a group of college students hosted an event Monday...
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Kumagai seeks waiver of 450 billion yen in debts

The debt-ridden construction company Kumagai Gumi Co. will ask its five major creditors, including Sumitomo Bank and Shinsei Bank, to forgive debts totaling 450 billion yen as part of the firm's rehabilitation plan, company sources said Friday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2000

The 21st-century neurosis

LONDON -- I think I've discovered a new neurosis of the 21st century. It involves frustration, guilt, shame and outbursts of destructive violence. The neurosis lurks wherever there are personal computers. (Business computers, and the work and commercial systems they create, produce similar feelings,...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2000

IT revolution must benefit all: NGO

Will information technology be utilized for the benefit of all or merely as a business tool? This is a major challenge Japan faces in implementing an IT society, according to Nami Takenaka, president of Prop Station, who spoke Monday.
JAPAN
Aug 27, 2000

Women join the ranks of the nation's lost

With 92,000 yen in her pocket, the 52-year-old woman left her native city in northern Kanto for Tokyo on March 15, seeking a new job in the nation's capital after she was fired from a hotel where she had worked for 10 years.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2000

Prisoners get nursing care job training

Two prisons for women, one each in Gifu and Wakayama prefectures, will start job-training courses in nursing care for the elderly, officials of the prefectural governments said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 7, 2000

A new breed of workers

The traditional images of the Japanese "salaryman" and "office lady" are under threat from an unanticipated source: the young men and women expected to step into those roles. What some see as a crisis in Japan's employment picture others recognize as a potentially lasting social change. The Labor Ministry...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 27, 2000

For domestic help, it's the same old world order

HOME AND HEGEMONY: Domestic Service and Identity Politics in South and Southeast Asia, edited by Kathleen M. Adams and Sara Dickey. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2000, 307 pp., $49.50 (cloth). Dirty? Maybe. Degrading and dangerous? Certainly not what you'd expect to be part of a servant's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 20, 2000

New rules, old political games

Japanese go to the polls June 25 in the nation's second general election that combines single-seat constituencies and proportional representation.
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2000

Racial storms in the South Pacific

A second coup attempt in the South Pacific has many wondering what has fouled the tropical air. The answer is simple: corruption and inefficiency. In both Fiji and the Solomon Islands, ethnic groups have used the cause of indigenous rights to shield practices that often verge on the criminal. Inept governments...
JAPAN
May 31, 2000

Unemployment rate fell to 4.8% in April

Japan's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent in April, down 0.1 percentage point from the postwar record high of 4.9 percent registered in February and March, the Management and Coordination Agency said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 24, 2000

Modern society, sexual equality partners: Norway ombudsman

A Norwegian ombudsman on gender equality says utilizing the power of women is "the key to the development of a modern society."

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear