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SOCCER / J. League
Dec 23, 2002

Hamburg, Jubilo reach deal on striker Takahara transfer

OSAKA -- German first-division side SV Hamburg reached a deal with J. League champion Jubilo Iwata on Saturday for the transfer of Japan striker Naohiro Takahara.
EDITORIALS
Dec 3, 2002

Saudi Arabia's Faustian bargain

Ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia have come under increasing strain since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Suspicions about Saudi contributions to Islamic fundamentalist organizations and the kingdom's connections to international terrorism have raised questions about the durability...
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2002

Rigorous, fair inspections first

United Nations-led inspections of areas where Iraq is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction have resumed after a hiatus of four years. On the first day, last Wednesday, an 11-member team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, or UNMOVIC, as well as a six-member...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2002

Former Pyongyang agent speaks to DPJ

A former North Korean agent on Wednesday urged the government to help Japanese-born ethnic Koreans and their Japanese spouses who have defected from North Korea to this country, saying they are living under severe conditions without jobs or Japanese nationality.
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2002

War must not be seen as inevitable

U.N. weapons inspectors are back in Iraq after a four-year hiatus. An advance team of about 30, accompanied by Mr. Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and Mr. Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Baghdad on Monday...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2002

Only bitter solutions remain in Chechnya

LIMASSOL, Cyprus -- Europeans have a way of knowing what's best for other peoples' conflicts but facing their own crises with ineptitude, and there is no better demonstration of this than their attitude to the war in Chechnya.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2002

Public split on abductee family story

The magazine Shukan Kin'yobi (Weekly Friday) said Saturday it has received numerous complaints about its interview in Pyongyang with the family of Hitomi Soga, one of five Japanese abducted 24 years ago by North Korea who returned to Japan for the first time on Oct. 15.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2002

Skeletons in the academic closet

"Those who have put out the people's eyes reproach them of their blindness'' -- John Milton (1608-74)
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 15, 2002

Putting Japan's first bilingual WP to the test

In my previous installment, I noted that Toshiba launched the first dedicated Japanese-language word processor in 1979. Five years later, the Japan subsidiary of MicroPro International Corporation, publisher of WordStar, the pioneering English word processing software, was preparing to launch "WordStar...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2002

Suzuki enters plea of not guilty in court

House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki pleaded not guilty Monday to bribery, perjury and falsifying political funds reports.
JAPAN
Nov 6, 2002

Pyongyang warns it may test missiles if Japan talks fail

BEIJING -- Pyongyang may lift its moratorium on missile tests if normalization talks with Japan drag on without any progress, the North Korean Foreign Ministry warned Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 3, 2002

Russian youth dodge conscript military

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- It took a while to get the young deserter to talk. Roman had fled his army unit and was staying with Tatiana Barykina and her family, and they could see the scars on his wrist and sense the pain that hung upon him like a millstone.
COMMENTARY
Oct 28, 2002

Reformists persist in Iran

Late last month I made my first visit in 22 years to Iran, where I had covered the Islamic revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini as a Japanese newspaper correspondent. Some conspicuous changes in the country attracted my attention.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 25, 2002

For the right and the wrong kind of break in Japan

Tourist redress Sheila from London, wants to sound off about a ryokan (traditional inn) she stayed at in Kyoto in early October.
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2002

Confessions from North Korea

SEOUL/PUSAN -- They say that a little bit of confession is good for the soul, but North Korea's sudden burst of religion is creating a moral dilemma for Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul. First, Pyongyang decides to come clean on the kidnapping of Japanese citizens, admitting to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi...
COMMUNITY
Oct 13, 2002

Saved by . . . 'a bad feeling'

Paul Malone turned down the adventure of a lifetime -- but his decision probably saved his life. The 30-year-old Australian is alive and well in Tokyo. Instead, he could so easily have been named in recent news reports as missing in the South Pacific along with former NBA basketball star Bison Dele and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 6, 2002

Building bridges by degree

Life was tough for Yanan Shen at his undergraduate alma mater, located between Shanghai and Nanking in China's Chang Zhou area.
EDITORIALS
Sep 28, 2002

Pyongyang must tell the full story

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's meeting Friday with the families of those abducted by North Korean agents made it unmistakably clear that the understanding and support of those relatives -- and of the Japanese public in general -- is essential to progress in the normalization talks that are expected...
BUSINESS
Sep 24, 2002

EU energy chief details plan to keep oil reserves

OSAKA -- The ideal price for oil is just over $20 a barrel, or $8 less than the current price, the European Union's commissioner of energy and transport said Monday, indicating an EU plan to stockpile oil is in response to unforeseen emergencies.
COMMENTARY
Sep 24, 2002

Building corporate integrity

A spate of corporate scandals have rocked Japan this year. Snow Brand Foods Co. and Nippon Ham Co. mislabeled beef, abusing the government's buyback program that was set up to bail out the beef industry following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan. Trading giant Mitsui & Co. was implicated in a...
EDITORIALS
Sep 23, 2002

The great fire wall of China

Google was gagged. The Chinese government recently blocked access to the popular Internet search engine for several days -- before suddenly reversing course for reasons still unclear -- in an attempt to promote a "healthy atmosphere" in the runup to the November meeting of the Chinese leadership. While...
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Media coverage of abductions criticized

OSAKA -- Korean residents of Japan expressed concern Friday over what they feel has been excessive coverage by the Japanese media of the North Korean abductions but comparatively scarce debate over Japan's legacy of its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula.
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2002

BOJ eyes unprecedented purchase of stocks from ailing banks

In a surprise break with market principles, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday that it is considering purchasing stocks held by the nation's most troubled banks, effectively bolstering their financial standing and stock prices at its own expense.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2002

A role for Japan in Korean peace process

There are high expectations that Prime Minister Junichiro Kozumi's Sept. 18 summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will produce a breakthrough regarding the normalization of Japanese-North Korean relations. In addition to achieving this breakthrough in a manner that the Japanese people and...
COMMENTARY
Sep 13, 2002

Koizumi gambles for results

I'm not sure whether to be cautiously optimistic or pessimistic about Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visit to North Korea next Tuesday, but either way, "caution" is the watchword.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 6, 2002

New transfer rule won't help rumor mill

LONDON -- The FIFA-imposed transfer window, which means Premiership clubs will not be able to sign any new players until Jan. 1, has brought different reactions from various parties.
EDITORIALS
Sep 2, 2002

A welcome surprise

It came as a big surprise when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi announced Friday he will visit North Korea on Sept. 17 for face-to-face talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. "A summit meeting is essential to further progress," Mr. Koizumi told reporters. "I want to find clues for resolving outstanding...
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2002

Exchange engineers slather praise on Japan

Asian engineers from outside Japan participating in an exchange program aimed at promoting urban development and international relations said at a presentation at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building Wednesday that they had generally favorable impressions of Japanese people.
EDITORIALS
Aug 28, 2002

Perils of attacking Iraq

The debate on the pros and cons of a U.S. attack on Iraq is heating up in the United States and elsewhere. Whether Iraq is a member of the "axis of evil" or not, there is no doubt that President George W. Bush sees its continuing development of weapons of mass destruction as a serious threat to U.S....

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami