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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 26, 2005

Cleaning the body

Summer is upon us, and spring-cleaning of your body may be long overdue.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2005

Britain's tolerance put to test

LONDON -- The British government has backed the development of a multicultural and multiethnic society, and has accepted, if not promoted, multilingual communities. Until quite recently Britain welcomed immigrants and asylum seekers. These policies have made British society in the last half century much...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2005

'Colossal, collective failure'

A decade ago, a terrible tragedy was visited on the citizens of Srebrenica, a small town in Bosnia. At the height of the war over Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serb military forces systematically slaughtered all of the town's Muslim men and boys. What is worse, this massacre occurred under the eye of the United...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2005

Nepal backs Japan UNSC bid, but not G4

Nepal backs Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council but has yet to decide whether to support a resolution on UNSC expansion Tokyo jointly submitted with Germany, Brazil and India, visiting Nepalese Foreign Minister Ramesh Nath Pandey said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 12, 2005

A fight to the death

Her bony, 80-year-old body floating around inside a nylon shirt and cigarette permanently clamped between what appear to be her two remaining front teeth, Kan Kyon Nam is an unlikely illegal squatter.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2005

AIDS time bomb is Asia: Kobe forum

KOBE — Medical professionals, scholars, community leaders and those who are HIV positive from around Asia and the Pacific gathered Friday in Kobe to begin a five-day conference on the region's growing HIV/AIDS crisis.
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2005

A clash of European visions

PARIS -- The latest EU crisis could be one of the worst the European Union has known, and nobody can say if, when and how it will be overcome.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 28, 2005

Visa crackdown -- don't get burned

Last year The Japan Times ran an article entitled "Students pay price in visa crackdown" about Americans put through the wringer on minor infractions.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2005

Door wide open for resolving Korean nuclear issue

HONOLULU -- There is no country in Asia, indeed in the world, that behaves like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Since its founding more than a half century ago, the DPRK has pursued a different course, always troubling. For 13-15 years it has been the very center of Northeast Asian...
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2005

Harmful to Japan's interest

Should he continue his custom of making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi could seriously harm Japan's national interest. His persistence in visiting the Tokyo memorial to the nation's war dead has intensified the firestorm of anti-Japanese criticism in China and South...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 9, 2005

Hardest steps to harmony

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The recent turmoil in Sino-Japanese relations has caused anxiety in Thailand. People here would clearly prefer a calmer atmosphere between the two giant powers of East Asia, as their future is linked to both and they stand to lose if there is a collision. Many believe that the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 4, 2005

Jon R. Greiner

"The Book of Lists" ranks public speaking as the foremost fear of people around the world, double that of fear of dying.
COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2005

Peer review of human rights

The spread of human rights norms and conventions, and the extension and diffusion of international humanitarian law, were among the truly great achievements of the last century. The United Nations was at the center of that effort.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 21, 2005

Horton hears a Who in 'Dare-mura'

I am going to share something with you today that you must keep an absolute secret. You must not tell anyone what I am about to tell you, especially not the police.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
May 19, 2005

Puppies for the digital age

Let me introduce Funky. He's a young, short-haired Chihuahua with a happy temperament and distaste for learning new tricks. With a job and family duties, it's hard to give Funky the attention he deserves. But I've surprised myself. Even though I'm more of a cat-lover than a dog-lover, I'm showing a great...
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2005

What price justice?

In the wake of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's visit to Japan last week, we must consider the price of justice. The topics of his talks with Japanese leaders included a request for financial support for an international tribunal to try surviving members of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. Japan should...
COMMENTARY
May 16, 2005

Braking an arms free-for-all

The 2005 review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which opened May 2 at U.N. headquarters in New York, remains in limbo, although the agenda has finally been agreed.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 3, 2005

Turning back clock on gender equality

As the government emphasizes patriotism as part of the national school curriculum and discussion continues apace over revising Article 9, some LDP lawmakers are now calling for changes to the Constitution that may put equal rights and individual freedom at risk.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 26, 2005

Japan and the United Nations

On Dec. 18, 1956, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu stood before the General Assembly of the United Nations to make a speech marking Japan's admission to the organization. In this address he stated that as the only nation to suffer the ordeal of atomic bombing, Japan hoped with all its heart...
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2005

Government plays up outcome of Koizumi-Hu talks

The government played up on Monday the importance of Saturday's meeting between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to salvage relations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 26, 2005

The show's over

Marietta was with some Filipino friends in their local station when they were approached by a group of men they didn't know. One took her arm, and asked to see her alien registration card and passport. His badge showed he was from the Immigration Office. "Now they are checking everybody," she says. ...
EDITORIALS
Apr 25, 2005

Better India-Pakistan relations

Last week Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on various new confidence-building measures between the two nations. Their talks, held during Mr. Musharraf's unofficial visit to India on April 17, produced agreement, for example, on the passage of trucks...
COMMENTARY
Apr 25, 2005

Koizumi policy seeded storm

In recent weeks, mass anti-Japanese protests, the largest since Tokyo and Beijing normalized diplomatic relations in 1972, have occurred in major Chinese cities. As a result, Sino-Japanese relations, already considered cold on the political front, could cool economically.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2005

Koizumi to visit Russia for Allied fete

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit Russia in early May to attend a ceremony to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory in World War II, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Thursday.
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2005

History not key issue: Chinese in Japan

OSAKA -- The current tensions between Japan and China have less to do with history textbooks and more to do with a long-term political and economic rivalry, according to some knowledgeable Chinese living in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2005

Unstable bond unraveling

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's March 23 statement denouncing Japan for its colonial past is bound to seriously damage Tokyo-Seoul relations that have been improving in recent years. The statement reverses positive diplomacy Seoul has pursued on the basis of a 2003 agreement between Roh and Prime...
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2005

Military threat is counterproductive

The agenda for the current National People's Congress of China reportedly includes an antisecession bill for preventing the independence of Taiwan. The Chinese leadership wants to have the bill enacted by the end of the session on March 14. The contents of the draft legislation have not been made public,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Mar 3, 2005

Unique 'twin' woods branch out

Our little Afan Woodland Trust here in Kurohime in Nagano Prefecture is twinned with the Afan Forest Park in South Wales. Most folk have heard of twinned cities (though I believe that Americans call them "sister cities"), but as far as I know, our twinning of forests is unique, and -- as sometimes happens...
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 2005

Look for VAT hike on the agenda

It appears that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is pushing the consumption-tax issue onto the political agenda. During a Lower House plenary session earlier this month, he said, in effect, that the value-added tax should be increased as part of overall social security reform. Until recently, Koizumi...

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan