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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2002

Get market forces on the side of reform

There are episodes in history that deservingly draw our attention -- some very small in scale but major in impact. In American history, one such moment at the start of the Revolutionary War has come to be known as "the shot that rang through the world." Another such momentous event recently appeared...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2002

Revamped MOMAT opens with unfinished business

With "The Unfinished Century," its first exhibition since its renovation, the Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, offers a comprehensive selection of works spanning the entire 20th century. The museum, and not only its exhibits, has become more comprehensive, too -- its improved facilities including a digital...
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 22, 2002

Applications welcomed

The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee will receive applications for World Cup ticket holders to change the names on their tickets from Monday through Feb. 15 -- but only for those who have valid reasons.
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 22, 2002

Prestige packs sell

Seven of the 25 types of prestige ticket packages for this summer's World Cup finals sold out on the first day of the second round of sales, officials of the Japanese organizing committee for the 2002 World Cup (JAWOC) said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Sapporo soccer hooligans face police-fired dragnet

Just as previews of the movie "Spiderman" have started to appear in Japan, police in Hokkaido have come up with their own web-spouting device to combat hooliganism during this year's soccer World Cup, to be cohosted by Japan and South Korea.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2002

U.S. backs reform drive: Powell

The United States fully supports Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's ongoing reform drive and expects Japan to become the world's "economic engine" again, U.S. State Secretary Colin Powell told the prime minister on Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

Agencies seek help for Aral Sea

When top officials from dozens of nations and international organizations convene in Tokyo on Monday for two days of discussions on the rebuilding of Afghanistan, they may not be aware that their efforts could spark unintended environmental and political side effects, according to experts.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 19, 2002

Paul Lucas

His potted biography as it appeared last year in a theater program reads: "Paul Lucas has been eight years in Tokyo, doing all this 'drama stuff.' A Seattle native, and consequently a Starbuck's addict, Paul has been 'doing' Tokyo's Starbuck's a lot lately to learn his lines. Once in a while his portable...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jan 18, 2002

Flexing bodies, opening minds

When 24-year-old Elena Davidenko, former gymnast of the Russian national team, returned to Moscow last summer after serving a 2 1/2-year stint as a sports exchange adviser in Akita City, she left a legacy of new ideas for her Japanese students.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2002

Koizumi downplays talk of March economic crisis

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi brushed aside speculation Thursday that Japan may fall into a financial crisis in March, pledging that he would not let that happen.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2002

Kobe marks quake anniversary

KOBE -- The people of the Kobe area on Thursday marked the seventh anniversary of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which resulted in the loss of more than 6,400 lives and left tens of thousands homeless.
COMMENTARY
Jan 17, 2002

Next step for Pakistan: credible politics

ISLAMABAD -- In signaling a turnaround in Pakistan's policy toward Islamic militant groups, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country's military ruler, is keen on setting a new course -- almost two decades after former military ruler Gen. Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq actively began promoting the concept of...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2002

Koreans' appeal for redress rebuffed

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal filed on behalf of two South Korean women demanding 60 million yen in damages and official apologies from the Japanese government over their forced labor during World War II.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2002

Experts push government to protect intellectual property

A group of experts has called on the government to adopt a set of 100 drastic reform steps to protect intellectual property rights as part of efforts to make Japan a world leader in the knowledge-oriented economy by 2010.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 16, 2002

Tales of innocence and odd experience

Through the opening party crowd ran Sam Taylor-Wood's adorable little daughter, Angelica, done up in a fairy costume with a papier-ma^che star floating above her head and a magic wand in her hand. It was a delightful moment that sent a ripple of good old warm-hearted smiles through the well-attended...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jan 16, 2002

If at first you don't succeed

Teen idol Ami Suzuki is apparently on the verge of making a comeback after disappearing from the J-pop radar more than a year ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 16, 2002

All-out attack

Visionaries, alleged pornographers, artists of enduring repute -- Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele both died in 1918. With them ended the first flowering of the Vienna Secession, an artistic movement that declared war on the Establishment in the cause of liberty and modernity. "Der Zeit ihre Kunst (Art...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 16, 2002

A humorous view of history from the other side of the lens

At last, I got to see a play by Koki Mitani, whose comedy dramas are just about the most difficult to get tickets for nowadays. This is not only because of the critical ovations that greet his productions, but also because of the star status of Mitani himself.
COMMENTARY
Jan 14, 2002

Hardly another Argentina

LONDON -- "What is the difference between Japan and Argentina?" Answer: "five years." That was the riddle, or sick joke, said by the Financial Times in London to be circulating in Tokyo over the recent holidays. My immediate reaction was that the idea behind the question was silly and showed ignorance...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2002

Seniority vs. meritocracy: a middle way

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Quite often the terms "seniority" and "meritocracy" are used -- or rather "misused" -- antithetically as if they were in a 16th-century arena of charging helmeted knights, where the space occupied by one is totally denied to the other. In such thinking, the former term is usually...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 13, 2002

If we could all so depend on the kindness of strangers . . .

The Japanese are renowned for their kindness to foreigners. I tell myself this late at night as I shiver in my pajamas, my wife having once again swiped all the bed covers. And as the chatter of my teeth quickly makes it too noisy to sleep, I remember that many foreigners -- especially those from non-Western...
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

Fishy facts and figures

* The global fish harvest topped 120 million tons in 1998, a threefold increase over 1960.
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jan 13, 2002

Take me to your anti-leader

The Shibuya Takeshi Orchestra is one of the most singular, challenging and unusual jazz units in Tokyo. Many local groups strive for accomplished technique, pushing their instruments to the far edge of rapid-fire playing or polishing one style to perfection. The Shibuya Takeshi Orchestra, however, delights...
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2002

Chip makers drop dumping claim on South Koreans

Four Japanese chip makers have shied away from filing an antidumping petition against South Korean rivals that, the domestic makers say, export dynamic random access memory chips to Japan at unfairly low prices, according to industry sources.
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2002

Japan-China panel to discuss farm import levels

Tokyo and Beijing have agreed to hold the first meeting of a bilateral trade panel charged with discussing import levels for three Chinese farm products in early February, the farm minister said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2002

Populist politics behind Argentine crisis

Those who would blame Argentina's economic woes on free-market policies or pegging the peso to the U.S. dollar choose to be willfully blind to reality. Although the most evident and most disastrous results are economic in nature, the bases of the problems are political.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’