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Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2003

Panel brings Sakai's arrest one step closer

In another blow to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the ruling coalition, the House of Representatives Steering Committee agreed Thursday to have the full chamber vote on a request to arrest LDP lawmaker Takanori Sakai over alleged political fund law violations.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 5, 2003

Yokohama's Furuki ready for stardom

The start of the season may be four weeks away, but there's one player everyone should keep an eye on.
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Feb 25, 2003

Shipping news, foreign movies and medical bills

Shipping On the subject of shipping goods from the U.S.A. to Japan as unaccompanied baggage, reader Carol says that if you fly on United Airlines, they can provide you with the unaccompanied baggage forms.
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2003

Showcasing Tokyo talent for International Women's Day

Make a note of Sunday, March 9, for WomenFest 2003, an annual event designed to showcase female talent in celebration of International Women's Day.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2003

Trade at your fingertips

The Japanese term for "do it yourself" is nichiyo daiku, which literally means "Sunday carpentry," though the usage of the term suggests an activity more related to recreation and leisure than making improvements or doing repairs.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

JUSEC accepting applications for Fulbright program

The Japan-United States Educational Commission has started accepting applications for its Fulbright Grant Program for the year beginning July 2004.
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.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2003

Wiretaps led to arrests in two drug deals in '02

Police intercepted communications between suspects in two illegal drug deals last year, arresting those involved under a wiretapping law enacted in August 2000, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama said Friday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 13, 2003

Ensuring age is the crown of life

The English scholar John Bailey said his wife Iris Murdoch, a prolific, perfectionist novelist and lecturer, became like "a very nice 3-year-old" as her Alzheimer's disease progressed. The disease made the proteins in her brain "misfold" and collapse, forming clots called amyloids that disrupt normal...
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 12, 2003

Mountain man who walked the path of art

"Born alone, will die alone; come alone, will be gone alone; study alone, walk alone": This is said to have been the mantra of one of Japan's greatest 20th-century artists, the boisterous, arrogant and brilliant Rosanjin Kitaoji (1883-1959).
BUSINESS
Feb 11, 2003

Nissho Iwai targets bonuses to shape up ahead of merger

Nissho Iwai Corp. has proposed to its union that it pay no bonuses to nonmanagement staff in the business year starting April 1, a move that would effectively cut their annual salaries by about 20 percent, company officials said Monday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 6, 2003

Freaks that are something to quack about

In 1832 the young Charles Darwin embarked on one of the most epic journeys in the history of biology, if not of all science. As a naturalist on the H.M.S. Beagle, Darwin saw things that challenged the prevailing view of how life arose. On returning to England five years later, he began work on what he...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 5, 2003

Interesting mix of foreign players, coaches and manager for 2003

Foreign players for 2003: Who's who?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2003

Mitsubishi robot seen as family friend

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. unveiled a robot Tuesday that it claims will become a future house-sitter, caretaker, nurse and family friend.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 4, 2003

Refunded cash for working at home and a sumo day out

Greetings Greetings from 10,000 meters -- I am beginning this week's column from somewhere high over the Pacific Ocean on United Flight 897 bound for Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2003

Onward and upward

Just last month, in this space, we noted the 20th anniversary of the birth of the Internet. Twenty is still young, we observed, but for something barely out of its teens, the Internet has wrought an impressive transformation in the way tens of millions of people live and work. Last week a minor news...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Feb 2, 2003

Getting a word in edgewise with Howling Guitar

"This is my 1958 Gibson LP-Jr. You know that Johnny Thunders played the same model. This guitar is my life and if it dies I would like to give it an honorable burial. But . . . I hope we get buried together."
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2003

Shinsei experience: lattes in the lobby, free ATM transactions

A typical Japanese bank looks a bit like the dowdy, paper-shuffling office of a shoddily run company. There are plenty of bowing clerks. But don't count on conveniences like 24-hour ATMs.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2003

Nude photos on Net lead to arrest

An English-language teacher in Tokyo who allegedly posted on the Internet nude photos of a woman he had been dating has been arrested on suspicion of defamation, police said Monday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 28, 2003

Doing the tango, mama-san misery and chopper care

Learning the tango Today I found white and pink plum trees in full bloom in a local hillside cemetery.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2003

Gangster held over 'loan shark' operation

Police arrested a gangster and an accomplice Saturday for allegedly lending money at exorbitant interest rates.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 26, 2003

Rambo rides again on the mean streets of Tokyo

RAIN FALL, by Barry Eisler. G.P. Putnam's Sons: New York, 2002, 306 pp., $24.95 (cloth) What's it like to open a book and read an account of yourself being gunned down on the streets of Akasaka?
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2003

Yahoo takes on fraudulent auctioneers

Yahoo Japan Corp. started posting on its Web site Wednesday the family names and bank account numbers of people who have repeatedly engaged in fraudulent and other illicit transactions on its auction sites.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 23, 2003

Casting light on the aurora

"The sight filled the northern sky; the immensity of it was scarcely conceivable. As if from Heaven itself, great curtains of delicate light hung and trembled. Pale green and rose-pink, and as transparent as the most fragile fabric, and at the bottom edge a profound and fiery crimson like the fires of...
LIFE / Digital
Jan 23, 2003

Move over MP3; purists demand 'lossless'

There's a whole industry built around the MP3 data-compression format, but did you know that by using MP3s to burn music CDs, you lose part of the original recording as the data compressor does its work?
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2003

Politics still trumps business in China-Taiwan relations

HONG KONG -- The new year has begun with conciliatory messages from both sides of the Taiwan Strait, suggesting that both China and Taiwan want to avoid too much tension in their relationship, although neither side seems likely in the short term to yield any ground on the sensitive issue of "One China."...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 22, 2003

Can Matsui handle the pressure and avoid the 'cha-cha'?

So far, so good. New York Yankees player Hideki Matsui made it back to Japan, apparently in one piece, after a whirlwind trip to the Big Apple that included evasion of a large Japanese media contingent waiting for him at Newark Liberty Airport, an appearance at Yankee Stadium, the well-attended and media-smothered...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 21, 2003

Gadgets gnaw at polite society

A funny thing happened to me on the train home the other day. I had a conversation with a total stranger.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji