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Japan Times
JAPAN / CUP COUNTDOWN
May 31, 2002

Hooligan phobia triggers siege mentality

KAWAGUCHI, Saitama Pref. -- Soccer fans hoping to stop for a cup of coffee on their way to or from World Cup games at Saitama Stadium won't be able to do so at Katsura cafe here. Whenever matches are being played -- and hooligans might be in the area -- the cafe will be closed.
JAPAN
May 31, 2002

Ministry to reprimand top prosecutor over underling's gangland dealings

The Justice Ministry decided Thursday to reprimand the public prosecutor general over a bribery and fraud scandal involving a former senior official of the Osaka High Public Prosecutor's Office, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama said.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 23, 2002

Intelligence that got the U.S. nowhere

WASHINGTON -- "What did they know and when did they know it?" That is a paraphrase of the critical question that dogged Richard Nixon through the dreadful days of Watergate. Now, the same question is being asked again. What did the intelligence community know about the threat of terrorists -- specifically,...
JAPAN
May 22, 2002

Languages added to help soccer visitors

Three languages have been added to a multilingual telephone tourist information service that will be launched later this month for visitors to the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
May 13, 2002

Wider economic gaps ahead

The first decade of the 21st century is likely to be no less turbulent than the last decade of the 20th century. It is next to impossible to predict how the world will change in this coming decade, but one thing is certain: The world in 2010 will defy predictions based on today's knowledge.
JAPAN
May 9, 2002

Law slow to ease bite of small business failures

The immediate goal of lawyer Toshi Yoshinari is to keep his clients from getting a divorce.
JAPAN
May 8, 2002

Professor who leaked exams loses appeal

The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that imposed a suspended sentence on a former medical professor for leaking questions in a state dentistry examination in 2000.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

Kawasaki finds cultural assets among industrial blight

A year ago, a ward along Kawasaki's waterfront launched a campaign to rediscover the district's attraction and dispel its negative image as a pollution-plagued home to smokestack industries.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Tracking systems try to tackle food safety

Shoppers are now being invited to check with their own eyes that what something is labeled is what they actually eat.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 25, 2002

Japan: A land gone to the dogs?

Alex Kerr loves Japan as much as anyone, but he knows much more about it than most. With the publication April 25 of "Inu to Oni" (Kodansha) -- a translation of his book "Dogs and Demons" (Hill and Wang, 2001) -- Japanese, too, will be able to share his insight. As it says on the cover of "Dogs and Demons,"...
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2002

Travel warnings to be descriptive

The Foreign Ministry will scrap its numerical travel warning system beginning Friday and instead try to describe the level of risk Japanese travelers face when going overseas.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Apr 21, 2002

The rewards of spring

Next month offers a wide selection of concerts, ranging from contemporary hogaku, Okinawan folk and protest songs to the finest of the classics. All are performed by veteran musicians. The following is a sample of what's on.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Mar 17, 2002

Favorites that come widely recommended

The information in this column usually covers the gamut of sake nomenclature, types and brewing methods, as well as culture, history and the occasional oddities. But beyond the single recommendation in each column, rarely does it address the question, "So, uh, what are the good sake? What should I be...
EDITORIALS
Feb 16, 2002

Only way to restore confidence

The Foreign Ministry, its public image badly tarnished by scandals, has launched a comprehensive effort to put its house in order. A reform package unveiled by Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi on Tuesday, less than two weeks after she took up the post, conveys a sense of urgency. It is aptly titled...
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2002

Secret ASDF documents missing; carelessness suspected over foul play

Secret documents on the Air Self-Defense Force's aircraft control and warning radar system have recently disappeared at the Misawa ASDF base in Aomori Prefecture, Defense Agency officials said Thursday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 3, 2002

Japan makes a profitable connection

THE MOBILE INTERNET: How Japan Dialed Up and the West Disconnected, by Jeffrey Lee Funk. ISI Publications, 2001, 200 pp. $32 (cloth) In the 1970s and '80s, Japanese carmakers flooded world markets with products fresh from factories where workers wore uniforms, sorted parts into brightly colored bins,...
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2002

China's IT engineers get smoother visa path

Japanese and Chinese bodies responsible for assessing the qualifications of information technology engineers signed a memorandum of understanding for mutual recognition Thursday in Beijing.
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2002

METI official to visit China, inspect projects

Katsusada Hirose, vice minister of economy, trade and industry, will visit China later this week to attend a high-level meeting and inspect joint projects on information technology, it was announced on Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2002

Ozaki tied to rigged hospital bid

Construction company Kajima Corp. and two political secretaries named in recent scandals competed for work on the same hospital building project in Yamagata Prefecture in the late 1990s, industry sources said Thursday.
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.
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2002

Mazda lets buyers fine-tune Roadster

If you are a fan of Mazda Motor Corp.'s Roadster, shopping for your next new car might be a little different than what you expect.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2001

Russia's free press loses another battle

LIMASSOL, Cyprus -- In July 2000, I joined Russian reporter Grigory Pasko and two carloads of fellow journalists in a visit to Irina Grebneva, a newspaper editor who had been jailed for five days in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, Russia. Her crime was making the governor look stupid and corrupt by...
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2001

Japan, South Korea and China eye launch of IT talks

Japan, South Korea and China are expected to launch regular ministerial talks on information technology issues, telecommunications minister Toranosuke Katayama said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 27, 2001

How to harmonize science and technology with humanity

The 20th century was the greatest century in human history thanks to the tremendous progress made in science and technology. The advancement of science and technology has given us a higher living standard, and the information-technology revolution has dramatically expanded our intellectual playing field....
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2001

Who & What

Expoland plans to ring in New Year in style Expoland, an amusement park in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, will host a countdown to the New Year on Dec. 31, starting at 5 p.m. at the park. The event will continue until 2 a.m.
COMMUNITY
Dec 16, 2001

Photography classes available for non-Japanese speakers

Non-Japanese speakers wanting photography tuition may care to check out one of the following options:
BUSINESS
Dec 14, 2001

MMC contracts IBM to manage its IT system

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will outsource the management and maintenance of its information technology systems to IBM Japan Ltd. in 2002, the two firms revealed Thursday.
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2001

U.S. code said cracked in '41

KOBE -- In mid-1941, as tensions between Japan and the United States mounted, Washington took extreme precautions to protect coded diplomatic messages between the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo and the State Department from being intercepted by the Japanese.

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