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COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2003

Shy man performs historic balancing act

HONG KONG -- Because Hong Kong's leader tends to view the news media (local or otherwise) with the enthusiasm of a swimmer greeting a school of sharks, Tung Chee-hwa has scant hope of receiving his due as the historically pivotal man he is. His public image is generally terrible, and he is often portrayed...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 11, 2003

'War on Terror' veils assaults on the environment

Alread two years have passed since terrorist attacks in New York and Washington shook America and shocked the world. Today, the repercussions of those tragedies continue to impact American lives in ways never imagined. For environmentalists, one of the most disturbing consequences has been the Bush administration's...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 9, 2003

Waging war on the U.S. presence

If you're a reader of Japanese newspapers or a viewer of Japanese TV news, you're probably well aware of the U.S. military presence in Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INTERNATIONAL RATIONALE
Sep 9, 2003

Hello Kitty, Pokemon, Doraemon battle for global supremacy

A number of U.S. celebrities have been spotted toting Hello Kitty paraphernalia in the past year or so, leaving officials of Sanrio Co., the maker of the long-selling character, scratching their heads.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 7, 2003

North Korea unveils secret weapon: It's an attack of the clones

This year's World University Games, held in the South Korean city of Taegu from Aug. 21 to 30, drew a record 7,000 young athletes from 174 countries. The Games also drew daily Japanese media coverage, with some news shows running lengthy special reports on all the excitement in Taegu.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 6, 2003

Suu Kyi's hunger strike raises the ante

MEDFORD, Massachusetts -- If news coming out from Myanmar is to be believed, Aung Sang Suu Kyi is now on a water-only hunger strike.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 17, 2003

Adding color to pre- and postwar mentalities

During the ceremony to mark the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba blasted the United States for "worshipping nuclear weapons as God" -- a statement that, understandably, received a great deal of media attention. And while U.S. President George Bush, who is advocating...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2003

Flash memory card formats vie for prominence

Not quite a VHS vs. Betamax sequel. But again, two consumer electronics giants find themselves in opposing camps in a format battle as they crank up production of removable flash memory cards.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2003

Net sidesteps ban on leaking personal info

After police took a junior high school student into custody earlier this month in the July 1 slaying of a 4-year-old boy in Nagasaki, a raft of information appeared on the Internet about the 12-year-old suspect -- in the face of a general ban on the media divulging data on minors involved in crimes....
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 16, 2003

Matsui on a roll into All-Star game

TORONTO -- What a difference six weeks can make. On June 4, Hideki Matsui was scuffling along with a .250 batting average, a paltry three homers and 33 RBIs. Since that low point in the season, the New York Yankees rookie outfielder has hit at a torrid .387 clip, while adding six homers and 33 RBIs in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 6, 2003

A last taste of Honey

It might be the right time for the 54 Nude Honeys, but it's the wrong place and they've decided to do something about it. In September, they're jumping on a plane and decamping to New York, where the American music-media have stepped into line with their British brethren and realized that the current...
EDITORIALS
Jun 15, 2003

Trust in tatters

We've known all along we shouldn't believe everything we read in the newspapers, but this is getting ridiculous. First came the double blow to the credibility of the New York Times -- America's oft-proclaimed "paper of record" -- by disgraced reporters Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 10, 2003

My mother, the terrorist and other successful families

An old saying in Japanese goes, "Oya no hikari wa nanahikari," literally, "A parent's light is [as good as] seven lights." In other words, children who play their cards right can bask in the glow of their parent's fame.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2003

Coalition mates 'George and John' savor diplomatic bonhomie

SYDNEY -- Two good friends, George W. Bush and John Howard, were chatting as they walked the American president's Scottish terrier, named Barney, around the "Texas White House." Suddenly Bush said: "You know, John, you should get yourself a dog."
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2003

The silent birth of a killer virus

BEIJING -- Is it the "big one" -- the indestructible one? Perhaps not. Either way, China's inability to tell the truth has made it a threat to all of us.
COMMENTARY
May 5, 2003

China still hasn't learned the right lesson

HONG KONG -- The dismissal on Easter Sunday of Chinese Health Minister Zhang Wenkang and Beijing Mayor Meng Xuenong for their role in covering up the seriousness of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) epidemic was the biggest governmental shakeup in over a decade and has far-reaching ramifications....
JAPAN
Apr 15, 2003

Privacy debate held in Diet despite opposition boycott

The ruling coalition defied an opposition boycott to hold on Monday a question-and-answer session over a new set of privacy-protection bills and a counterproposal lodged by the opposition.
JAPAN
Apr 12, 2003

Writers call on government to scrap new privacy bills

A group of writers and journalists Friday called again on the government to scrap an amended set of five bills covering the protection of personal information that the Diet began debating earlier this week.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 8, 2003

Society fiddles as young get burned

The vernacular media frequently goes tsk-tsk over crimes by juveniles. These days, people's concerns tend to be reflected through two terms: "kyoaku-ka" and "teinenrei-ka," which refer, respectively, to more violent crimes by increasingly younger perpetrators
COMMENTARY
Mar 28, 2003

China's systemic incompetence can sicken world

HONG KONG -- An ugly new strain of atypical pneumonia has medical scientists working overtime in their research laboratories across the world, as they strive to discover why a growing number of patients are now suffering and dying in many nations from this previously unknown virus that is being blamed...
COMMENTARY
Mar 15, 2003

What drives the warmongers?

At last count we had been given six different reasons for invading Iraq, some of them false and the rest contradictory. The current favorite -- seeking to change an obnoxious regime -- might carry weight if it was not contrary to international law and if in the past both the United States and Britain...
COMMENTARY
Feb 24, 2003

Reform of the fourth estate

I was stunned by recent media reports that Takuhiko Tsuruta, president of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper, had become a whistle-blowing target. At a company shareholders meeting, a proposal demanding Tsuruta's dismissal from the board was presented by an editor and shareholder of the newspaper. Tsuruta...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 16, 2003

Don't be too quick to jump on the bondwagon

Two weeks ago, post offices and financial institutions began taking orders for new Japanese government bonds targeted exclusively at individuals and set to go on sale March 10. Post offices immediately booked sales for all 50 billion yen worth of bonds they were entrusted with, and the remaining 280...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 12, 2003

Bright white, big city

Something interesting I recently learned about anatomy: There are 26 bones in the human foot, and if you break just one of them, your entire leg is basically useless.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 31, 2003

Perryman says Toda has the pedigree for the Premiership

LONDON -- It has been a mixed week for Japan in the Premiership. One player has arrived, one is on his way back from injury while the former national coach was beaten to the Republic of Ireland job by someone few people outside Ireland had ever heard of.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 26, 2003

It's time Japan woke up to refugee problem

The Foreign Ministry's lack of a coherent policy with regard to North Korea was obvious back in autumn, when public opinion forced the government to renege on its promise to Pyongyang that the five Japanese abductees would return to the communist nation after a two-week visit to Japan. The five are now...
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2003

Pyongyang is the real victim

Western and Japanese reactions to North Korea's recent nuclear activities and warnings have been strange.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic