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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Oct 15, 2004

Here's to the mother of all matsuri

Although Japan has a wealth of interesting festivals celebrated up and down the archipelago, taking in only a few requires considerable planning, effort and money.
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2004

Iraq asks donor states to boost aid

Iraq's deputy prime minister on Wednesday called on the international community to increase the flow of aid and speed up the implementation of projects to help rebuild the war-torn country.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2004

No apologies for Iraq war -- Baghdad deserved it: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday rejected an opposition demand that he apologize for making a "serious mistake" in supporting the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2004

Almost all wrong on Iraq

Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. While he certainly harbored ambitions to get them, the Iraqi programs to build them had decayed to become mere wisps of what they once were. That is the conclusion of the final report, released last week, of the chief U.S. weapons hunter, Mr. Charles...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2004

Choosing how to intervene

From Iraq to Darfur, the topic of international intervention to protect people from the brutality of their own governments remains a deeply divisive one for the international community. Western countries are likely to be the subjects not objects of intervention, and their worldview is colored by this...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 9, 2004

Sisterly reporting from Catholic feminist view

It comes as quite a surprise when Joan Chittister opens her hotel room door. All photos seen to date suggest a rather fearsome individual. Here instead is a smiling roly-poly figure in a casual two-piece summer suit. All she needs is a large white apron and she could be a merry farmer's wife instead...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 6, 2004

Heart music in 'Big River'

It is a tale that many of us know, that of a young boy's adventures on the Mississippi River while helping a slave, named Jim, to escape. One of the greatest novels of American literature, Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is set in the 1840s, long before the Civil War, and is a touching...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 2, 2004

Democrats Abroad: last chance to vote Bush out

Lauren Shannon is both a director and the front-of-house manager of Fujimamas, the highly successful restaurant bar and cafe in Jingumae, central Tokyo. An American citizen, she is also the vice chair of Democrats Abroad.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 25, 2004

New Center for Creative Arts up and running

Anyone passing the South Korean Embassy in Tokyo's Moto Azabu in recent months may well have wondered about the flag reading "RBR -- New Center for Creative Arts" flying from the building opposite. Also the steady flow of visitors -- every age, color, race and creed.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 21, 2004

Office space and garbage

The office I am starting a small business and looking for an office. I hear that you have to pay many months -- up to a year -- to rent an office. Is this true and is there anything I can do about it?
EDITORIALS
Sep 16, 2004

UNSC quest raises questions

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly later this month, will express Japan's desire to become a permanent member of the Security Council. There is almost unanimous agreement that Japan should play a larger international role. This does not necessarily mean,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 12, 2004

New EU gears could grind

LONDON -- Jose Durao Barroso, the next president of the European Commission, faces many difficult challenges. He will need all the support he can get from the governments of the enlarged community of 25 states.
COMMUNITY
Sep 4, 2004

Unhappy? Confused? Traumatized? Try IMHPJ

As the only native German-speaking accredited clinical psychologist in all Japan, Uta Sonnenberg-Watanabe is in transition.
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2004

Sparing banks without spoiling them

For all practical purposes, big banks in Japan have turned the corner in their efforts to clean up their bad loans. For small and medium-size banks, though, no light is yet visible at the end of the tunnel. With caps on deposit insurance due to be fully reinstated next April, smaller lenders have no...
COMMENTARY
Aug 18, 2004

Democracy depends on modernization

MANILA -- For all practical purposes, the internal affairs in most countries have ceased to be purely domestic affairs. Whether we like it or not, one of the consequences of globalization has been the erosion of national sovereignty. In economic matters, national boundaries have long ceased to exist....
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 16, 2004

A fairy tale warning for financial giants

Oscar Wilde is the spinner of some of the finest tales in literary history. He wrote for a very wide-ranging public, including children. His fairy tales are truly fine. It is a characteristic of Wilde's fantasy tales for children that they contain profound insights into the very real world of adult folly...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2004

Challenging Canberra's march to war

On Aug. 8, a group of 43 former top Australian officials -- department heads in foreign affairs and defense, military chiefs, ambassadors -- published an open letter calling for "truth in government." This was without precedent in Australia, although it follows earlier British and American examples....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 6, 2004

No rush on some 9/11 panel proposals

WASHINGTON -- The recent 9/11 Commission report is without a doubt one of the most thorough, most important and best studies by any such independent group in recent decades in the United States. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry and now President George W. Bush, as well as much of the...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2004

350 attend Asia-Pacific conference

About 350 alumni of the East-West Center from 23 countries attended the opening Monday of a three-day international conference in Tokyo organized by the Hawaii-based research and education institution.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 31, 2004

Singing up summer breeze under reggae rainbow

Everyone is on the move, or so it seems.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2004

Migrants' remittances home exceed ODA

Elisa Rey puts a wad of yen into a small, brown envelope at her home. Far away in Peru, her monthly remittances -- set aside from her job in an electronics factory south of Tokyo -- have already built a house that few could dream of in her poor suburb of Lima.
EDITORIALS
Jul 21, 2004

A desirable shift out of Tokyo

Nissan Motor Co. has decided to move its head office from Tokyo to Yokohama, its birthplace, bucking the general trend of big business concentrating in the capital. The planned relocation, expected to take place by 2010, provides a case study in the desirable relationship between company and community....
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2004

Mideast talks end with cry for help

Israeli and Palestinian representatives on Wednesday called on the international community to help them create peace in the Middle East, wrapping up a three-day confidence-building meeting on the Middle East hosted by the Foreign Ministry.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2004

EU leaders face voters' wrath

LONDON -- George Orwell once called soccer a substitute for war. Looking at the recently finished European Championship held in Lisbon, one might well call it a political metaphor. What happened on the pitch during the monthlong tournament was an uncanny reflection of what is happening on a wider and...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jul 2, 2004

Don't expect Shaq deal to happen fast

NEW YORK -- So, Kobe Bryant finally has a start date (Aug. 27) for his Eagle scout trial. This gives him exactly two months from today to unite the community and divide community property.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jun 13, 2004

Cops and citizens bid to blitz street sleaze

In an ideal society, various branches of the state interact to put criminals behind bars. Talk to those involved in law enforcement, though, and most will say there's only so much they can do without the cooperation of private citizens.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2004

Korean democracy passes test

NEW YORK -- Politics in Japan and South Korea are a study in contrasts. It is nearly impossible to identify the polic differences between Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democrats. In South Korea, on the other hand, the ruling Uri Party, which now controls both the presidency...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 6, 2004

Superpower-in-the-making faces hurdles

SINGAPORE -- The enlargement of Europe on May 1 was another historic milestone for the world's only "federal" entity of sovereign states sharing a common currency and an increasing number of foreign-policy and security attributes. Today's Europe stands at 25 nations with a combined population of 455...

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