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BUSINESS
Nov 28, 2001

Yanagisawa welcomes 'pretty big' loan disposal

Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa on Tuesday welcomed moves by major banks to take loan-loss charges topping 6 trillion yen for the 2001 business year.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2001

Tokyo company launches student-run software companies

A mobile phone software development company in Tokyo has launched two development subsidiaries operated by students at universities in Sendai and Kyoto.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2001

Web site auctions overpriced tickets to Ghibli Museum of Animation

Admission tickets to the Ghibli Museum of Animation in Mitaka in western Tokyo are being resold in Internet auctions at up to 10 times their original price, according to Mitaka officials.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2001

Minister seeks proposals on revamping education law

Education chief Atsuko Toyama asked her advisory panel Monday to recommend within a year whether Japan's "education constitution" aimed at creating a democratic and peaceful nation should be revised, officials said.
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2001

BOJ not mulling foreign bonds, Shiokawa reckons

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Monday he does not think the Bank of Japan is considering purchasing foreign bonds as a means of boosting liquidity in the money market.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 26, 2001

Looking back on life in Stalinist Russia

NEW YORK -- My friend Lenore Parker threw a party for Mary M. Leder, who has just published her first book, at age 86. The book is an autobiography, "My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back" (Indiana University Press).
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2001

Japan set to jump the gun with SDF

Since the Diet enacted antiterrorism legislation enabling the Self-Defense Forces to provide logistic support to the U.S.-led war efforts in Afghanistan, there have been mounting calls in Japan for expansion of the SDF's activities abroad. These moves defy Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2001

Freedom in the line of fire

WASHINGTON -- The first priority for all our governments must be the elimination of terrorism, but in the process we must do what we can to preserve our basic freedoms and human rights.
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 2001

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

You think it's hard work trying to get people to buy things? Put yourself in the position of those dreamers who try every year to get people to buy nothing. Give it a rest, they say. Borrow, recycle, repair, eat at home. Call a moratorium on yearend gift-giving. Resist the blandishments of advertisers...
COMMUNITY
Nov 25, 2001

Keeping up appearances -- not prices

"Recession." "Nikkei Average plunges below 10,000." "Unemployment tops 5%." Depressing economic trends of the past few years, reflected in headlines like these, have had a profound impact on consumer spending. But now, with less cash to splash out on extravagances, do we have to forego being fashionable?...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2001

Creator of the Z car returns with his revived brainchild

Yutaka Katayama has witnessed Japan's automobile industry grow from the ashes of devastation in World War II to become the best in the world by the end of the 20th century.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 25, 2001

Failed chemistry experiments in the media lab

Two weeks ago, a friend faxed me an article from the weekly news magazine Aera about a new advertising trend called "collaboration CF," which is the selling of two different companies' products in one TV commercial. I had already read about collaborations two days earlier in advertising critic Yukichi...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 25, 2001

Book Bites

TOKYO CONFIDENTIAL: Titillating Tales From Japan's Wild Weeklies, edited by Mark Schreiber. The East Publications, 2001, 257 pp., 1,400 yen (paper) Grown men in diapers? Couples going all the way in the back seats of Tokyo taxi cabs? Mothers stalking their daughters? Companies that rent out wedding guests?...
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2001

Obituary: John Nason

John Nason, an American educator who as a college president helped release more than 3,000 Japanese-American students interned during World War II, died Nov. 16 in Kennett Square, Pa., a newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2001

South Korean author protests mayor's 'sangokujin' remark

When Shinjuku Ward Mayor Takashi Onoda referred to "sangokujin" in a speech on Nov. 13, Shin Sugok could not believe it.
BUSINESS
Nov 24, 2001

U.S. reportedly to urge Asia steel cuts

The U.S. will send officials to Japan, South Korea and China in the next two weeks to urge a cutback in steel production, the Financial Times reported Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2001

Obituary: John Nason

John Nason, an American educator who as a college president helped release more than 3,000 Japanese-American students interned during World War II, died Nov. 16 in Kennett Square, Pa., a newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2001

Poll reveals disaffected youth chase good times, shun work

Young people in Japan are more interested in having a good time than in seeking a better society, according to a government survey released Thursday. They are also overwhelmingly dissatisfied with Japanese society and have little interest in making a contribution to it.
LIFE / Lifestyle / LEARNING BY HEART
Nov 23, 2001

Pioneer still speaking up and acting out

Almost 20 years ago, Teri Suzanne stood in front of a packed audience in Tokyo at the Association of English Teachers of Children, and unveiled her "English in Action" method with what was then a radical declaration: "I know that young children have the capacity to learn multiple languages by connecting...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Nov 22, 2001

Alien killers revel in 'cute pet' role

As a family, cats have successfully colonized the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, with only Australia among the larger landmasses lacking native species. They range in size from the immense Siberian tiger to the diminutive black-footed cat of southern Africa, and take an equally diverse range of prey....
CULTURE / Art
Nov 21, 2001

Beauty of body and spirit

It was an extraordinary sight. Guests at the Canadian Embassy Gallery's opening party for artist Claude Descoteaux could not keep their hands off the exhibits. Here, a young woman slid her hand over gleaming bronze hips. There, a man shyly stroked the calf of a leaping, athletic male.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 21, 2001

No new faces, just old hands

In November, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo offers its annual two-part kaomise performance. Kaomise, meaning "face-showing," was the most important kabuki event of the year during the Edo Period (1603-1867), as it was when theaters selected their actors for the coming year, then introduced them to audiences...
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2001

'Make no haste' makes way

Facing its worst economic crisis in the postwar era, Taiwan has opted for deeper engagement with the mainland. The government of President Chen Shui-bian has lifted limits on investment in China in an attempt to boost the island's faltering economy. The move was applauded by Taiwanese businesses eager...
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Nov 20, 2001

Getting in downtime

An executive returned from a weekend getaway in the Caribbean with a touch of sunburn, a sore shoulder from too much tennis, and a story. As he tells it, he'd been involved in an extremely tense negotiation for the better part of a year. "The principals knew they needed to do this deal, but they were...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2001

Criticism of Pakistan is off the mark

The Nov. 10 article by Brahma Chellaney, "Pakistan's uncertain future," gives a bleak picture of Pakistan that I am afraid does not exist in reality. Allow me to rectify this false image so that The Japan Times readers have a clear and balanced view of my country, which is so much in the news these days....
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Nov 20, 2001

Getting in downtime

An executive returned from a weekend getaway in the Caribbean with a touch of sunburn, a sore shoulder from too much tennis, and a story. As he tells it, he'd been involved in an extremely tense negotiation for the better part of a year. "The principals knew they needed to do this deal, but they were...
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Nov 20, 2001

Old adversaries to square off for J. League title

The Kashima Antlers capped a remarkable recovery from a poor start to the year on Saturday by clinching the J. League's second-stage title.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2001

Turning victory into permanent success

LONDON -- Four out of five: Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, Kabul and Jalalabad. All but one of Afghanistan's major cities have been lost by the Taliban and captured by the Northern Alliance in less than a week, and the last, Kandahar, is likely to fall at any time. Neither Washington nor anyone else expected...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight