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JAPAN
Jun 6, 2002

Fukuda tells Diet government is not rethinking ban on nuclear weapons

The government has no intention of abandoning the nation's three nonnuclear principles, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda told a Diet panel Wednesday, five days after causing an uproar by saying Japan's ban on atomic weapons could be reviewed.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2002

Wake-up call on diplomacy

Shenyang, in northeast China, is a city of historical significance for both Japan and China. Formerly known as Mukden, it was the last battlefield in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Imperial Japan, emerging as a modern power after the Meiji Restoration, won a do-or-die war with imperial Russia, which...
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2002

No easy answers for China as refugee problem grows

HONG KONG -- There was biting irony behind the episode of the five North Koreans' seeking asylum at the Japanese Consulate in Shenyang, China, as well as the lingering diplomatic Sino-Japanese impasse over whether China infringed on Japanese sovereignty by taking the North Koreans into custody.
COMMUNITY
May 9, 2002

Zeitgist

The foreigner needs only two words to bridge the language gap in Japan, says Matt Shea.
EDITORIALS
May 4, 2002

The general wins his vote

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has won overwhelming endorsement for five more years in office. The government claims that the vote gives the regime, which seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, a democratic stamp of approval. It does not: The election offers a veneer of legitimacy to a usurper....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 2, 2002

The life and times of a Manchurian girl

NEW YORK -- The New York Times' recent reprinting of a cartoon showing Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat gagged and bound to a chair while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon presses him to "say something! do something!" made me think of Rikoran, known today mainly as Yoshiko Yamaguchi.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2002

Le Pen's shocking win shakes France to the core

PARIS -- France's presidential election system is meant to ensure both a maximum of democracy and the emergence of a strong national leadership at the end of the two rounds of voting. That was the model set by Gen. Charles de Gaulle when he established the Fifth Republic four decades ago.
BUSINESS
Apr 22, 2002

Japan's deflation a puzzling issue for Europeans

BRUSSELS -- Viewed from Europe, there are some signs that the Japanese economy might be starting to emerge from its 10-year slumber, but it remains essential that Tokyo focus on far-reaching structural reforms and antideflation measures rather than short-term policy lurches if the economy is to avoid...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 21, 2002

A force to be reckoned with

THE JAPANESE POLICE SYSTEM TODAY: A COMPARATIVE STUDY by L. Craig Parker, Jr.. London: M.E.Sharpe, 2001. 266 pp., $22.95 (paper) The Japanese police system has come under increasing pressure in recent years. Crimes have become more horrific, and the high level of professionalism generally ascribed to...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 21, 2002

And don't come back another day

ARTHRITIC JAPAN: The Slow Pace of Economic Reform, by Edward J. Lincoln. Washington, D.C.:Brookings Institution Press, 2001, 247 pp., $18.95 (paper) Japan's agonizingly slow attempts to resuscitate its ailing economy have left many observers bewildered. The policy failure is plain: the lowest growth...
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2002

Tokyo-Seoul history panel holds first meeting

A Japan-South Korea panel tasked with selecting members for and supporting the activities of a planned joint history research committee held its first meeting Monday afternoon in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2002

Obituaries: Keizo Takahashi and Hideki Nakazono

Keizo Takahashi, a former popular announcer at NHK and ex-member of the House of Councilors, died Thursday night of kidney failure at a hospital in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, his family said Friday. He was 83.
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2002

FSA's bank probe sparks downgrades for large borrowers

The Financial Services Agency on Friday officially disclosed the results of its latest inspections of major banks, downgrading credit assessments of 71 of the banks' 149 large corporate borrowers.
COMMUNITY
Mar 24, 2002

Living national treasures

Three is an auspicious number. Things grouped in threes are believed to acquire prestige by virtue of the number's magic. Likewise, a ritual action repeated three times is considered to bring good luck.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2002

U.S. airlines set to switch Narita slots

Transport minister Chikage Ogi indicated Friday that Japan will allow Delta Air Lines to transfer some of its slots to FedEx Corp. at Narita airport, as the United States has requested.
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 17, 2002

The global village: small, but not always beautiful

The current No. 1 best seller in Japan is the cheery picture book "Sekai ga moshi hyakunin no mura dattara" ("If the World Were a Village of 100 People"; Magazine House), a retelling of a bit of "Netlore." Several years ago, the environmentalist Donella Meadows wrote a newspaper column on the global...
BUSINESS
Feb 23, 2002

Japan Metals throws in towel, seeks protection from creditors

Japan Metals & Chemicals Co., the nation's top ferroalloy manufacturer, on Friday afternoon stopped trying to rehabilitate itself and filed for court protection from creditors.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2002

His own worst enemy

There are many reasons to object to U.S. President George W. Bush's "axis of evil" comment in his State of the Union address last month. Including Iran in this unholy triumvirate may be the most troubling, since it could undermine elements in that country that have been trying to move Tehran toward some...
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2002

Find something worth saying, then build skills: translator

Natsuko Toda, a leading writer of Japanese subtitles for English-language movies, said Wednesday that Japanese people should learn how to be more expressive in their own language before worrying about learning English.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 18, 2002

Hopeful bond sellers should strike while the iron is hot

Long-term interest rates are on an upward trend both in Japan and the United States. The yield on the 10-year Japanese government bond has recently been in the 1.5 percent range, while market rates on 10-year U.S. government bonds have been hovering at around 5 percent — the same as at the beginning...
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2002

Chef's Table event to aid street children projects

Karen Lewis is wary of placing herself in the spotlight. She is part of a team -- a committee -- so finds it embarrassing to be singled out. There again, she recognizes that publicity is good for the cause she serves: protecting and caring for street children in seven facilities in the Philippines, Vietnam,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2002

Canberra sticks to its policy on illegal immigrants despite growing protests

SYDNEY -- Just as Australian Prime Minister John Howard was addressing world economic leaders in New York on the profits to be made from investing here, Afghan asylum seekers held in detention camps in the Australian desert were trying to die in hunger strikes.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2002

Why North Korea's people starved

THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN FAMINE: Famine, Politics and Foreign Policy, by Andrew S. Natsios. United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002, $19.95 (paper) This is a grim and troubling account of the 20th century's fifth great famine, a calamity that swept through North Korea during the 1990s, claiming an...
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 12, 2002

Eight enter Japanese Hall of Fame

Kazuhiro Yamauchi, one of the best sluggers of the late 1950s and 1960s, has been elected to the Hall of Fame along with seven other notable contributors to Japanese baseball, baseball officials said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 12, 2002

Keiko Otsu

HELP stands for House in Emergency of Love and Peace. This shelter for Asian women and children was established in 1986 on the 100th anniversary of the Japan Women's Christian Temperance Union.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2002

More to laser surgery than meets the eye

Corneal laser surgery may be a sight for sore eyes for people suffering from nearsightedness or those just tired of wearing glasses, but experts warn that people considering the increasingly popular operation need to be well-informed about the procedure and its possible results before going under the...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 31, 2001

War recalls the savaging of Okinawa

NEW YORK -- Evidently prompted by the war in Afghanistan, John Gregory Dunne has discussed three books in The New York Review of Books (Dec. 20) to remind us of the savaging process that is war. For Dunne, whose sensitivity to anything false matches that of his wife, Joan Didion, who called "The Greatest...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 2001

Retiring politician's war memories spur his fight for peace

As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi rose to power this year with pledges of radical reform, one 77-year-old Diet veteran made a brief return to the political arena before deciding to abandon his life's work.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2001

Tax-evasion case reveals connivery behind Kepco's nuclear plant quest

KYOTO -- A recent ruling handed down by the Yokohama District Court on a tax evasion case details for the first time the methods employed by major power companies to circumvent national land laws and stymie local opposition to nuclear power plants.

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?