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COMMUNITY
Aug 29, 2002

Telephone counselors sought

TOKYO ENGLISH LIFE LINE (TELL) is offering a training program for volunteer telephone counselors. TELL is a 365 days-a-year free counseling line for English speakers and has been serving the international community in Japan since 1973.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 29, 2002

Clearing the air, resurrecting cash and finding a pet

Clearing the air With summer winding down, and in readiness for new seasonal beginnings, time to clean the slate.
COMMENTARY
Aug 26, 2002

Diplomatic prowess for less

A ministerial meeting of the Initiative for Development in East Asia, held in Tokyo on Aug. 12, acknowledged the significance of maintaining adequate Official Development Assistance as a tool for strengthening regional cooperation and agreed to examine how to make more effective use of ODA. The meeting...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2002

Best justice for crimes against humanity

The International Criminal Court became operational in July. Washington heaped insult on injury when it vetoed a routine extension of the United Nations' peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in the same month because of the failure to get a blanket and permanent immunity from prosecution of its peacekeepers...
JAPAN / INTERNATIONAL RATIONALE
Aug 23, 2002

Japan gropes for ideal corporate governance model

The rash of U.S. corporate scandals has rocked the Japanese business community, which until recently admired the success of the American business model.
EDITORIALS
Aug 21, 2002

Resolving the plight of southern Africa

Food shortages in southern Africa are reaching alarming proportions. The World Food Program, or WFP, says tens of millions of people in six countries -- Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland -- face starvation as a result of disastrous crop failures. The U.N. agency is calling for...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 8, 2002

DNA testing for all?

The 1986 rape and murder of a 15-year-old schoolgirl in an otherwise quiet village in central England did more than shock residents: It led to the worldwide acceptance of what Australian scientists Robert Williamson and Rony Duncan call in this week's Nature "the most important advance in forensics in...
COMMUNITY
Aug 8, 2002

Prominent figures raise questions over numbering system

Last Monday, Japan changed forever. The old city registration system has been dramatically changed to the "juki network," or basic residential register network system numbering system.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 4, 2002

Finding a place in history

SENTO AT SIXTH AND MAIN: Preserving Landmarks of Japanese American Heritage, by Gail Dubrow with Donna Graves. Seattle: Seattle Arts Commission, 2002, 220 pp., $19.95 (paper) A lumber camp in Selleck, Washington; a sento at 302 Sixth Avenue in downtown Seattle; a bowling alley in Los Angeles's Crenshaw...
Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI BEAT
Aug 1, 2002

Time for Japan to face up to AIDS threat

KOBE -- For many Japanese, AIDS has long been regarded as someone else's problem.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 1, 2002

Isles trampled in white elephant stampede

Japan's islands have long been a source of tearful TV documentaries that focus on aging populations and families abandoned by children who have left for the cities.
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2002

Musharraf challenged on several fronts

ISLAMABAD -- In its eagerness to intensify its fight against domestic terrorism, the government of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has scored important gains recently.
BUSINESS
Jul 22, 2002

Education key to boosting Japan's competitiveness

The Switzerland-based Institute for Management and Development releases an annual report on the international competitiveness of major countries.
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2002

Afghanistan relives its past

The murder of Mr. Abdul Qadir, the vice president of Afghanistan, has heightened fears that the country is sliding once again into chaos. No suspects have been caught in the brazen midday attack, but speculation about the cause runs from a tribal vendetta to an attempt to undermine the government. The...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 14, 2002

An impassioned indictment of terror

SRI LANKA: The Arrogance of Power-Myths, Decadence and Murder, by Rajan Hoole. Colombo: University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna), 2001, 504 pp., 8,000 rupees (cloth) During the nearly two decades of Sri Lanka's civil war, more than 60,000 people have died or disappeared, leaving behind wounded families...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Society still treating homeless as pariahs

The debate was heating up at the local civic hall, packed with residents and dozens of homeless people who live nearby.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 13, 2002

Nisei woodworker follows grain of ancestral roots

His mailbox in Kikoba, where the town of Hayama meets Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture, reads "toco," the Portuguese word for log. Lengths of bamboo lean against an outside wall.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 11, 2002

Permanent status and foreign driving licences in Japan

Reader AEB from Kyushu writes: "I am single, have lived here in Japan for almost 10 years, and have a stable job. I hope to apply for permanent residency. I heard that you must have lived here for 10 years consecutively, or be married to a Japanese national.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Jul 7, 2002

Crusader for life on death row

Sister Helen Prejean, a nun with the Order of Saint Joseph of Medaille since 1957, has been accompanying death-row inmates to their executions since 1982. In her award-winning book "Dead Man Walking," which was made into a film in 1995, she relates the spiritual journey she went through with death-row...
COMMENTARY
Jun 29, 2002

The challenge that awaits Afghanistan

ISLAMABAD -- Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, is clearly eager to claim that his newly installed government rests on a stable foundation.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 27, 2002

Newshungry TV viewers fighting for English service

To start off, we have a request from "Friends of Foxnews," who are working to keep Foxnews, the up and coming challenge to CNN and BBC and the only non-edited English language news program on SkyPerfecTV here in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 25, 2002

Nuclear taboo remains strong

Recent comments by leading Japanese politicians have raised international concern about Tokyo's nuclear intentions. Those fears are misplaced: Japan's nuclear taboo remains as powerful as ever. The comments do signal growing frustration within Japan's policy community over the need for a long-delayed...
JAPAN
Jun 22, 2002

Book offers anecdotal glimpse at those on the bench

Few Japanese outside the legal community may be able to name even a single Supreme Court justice. Lower court judges are equally anonymous.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2002

No winners in Shenyang case

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Now that a little time has gone by, and peoples' attention is distracted by the World Cup, it is time for a little quiet thinking about the implications of the Shenyang incident. This was the incident in which Chinese police forcibly removed five North Koreans from the Japanese...
COMMENTARY
Jun 12, 2002

Focus on military power overlooks crucial issues

ISLAMABAD -- Months of rising friction followed by recent signs of an easing of tensions between India and Pakistan have sent analysts scrambling for fresh assessments of the military balance between South Asia's two nuclear powers.
CULTURE / Art
Jun 12, 2002

Where the art action is

The Opera City show -- the plastic foods, the videos and the Web site -- are, as Rirkrit Tiravanija puts it, "an appetizer" to the community-oriented projects the artist is doing in Sumida Ward.
EDITORIALS
Jun 11, 2002

Loya Jirga gets down to business

A fghanistan takes a crucial step toward building a viable future this week with the convening of a grand assembly of tribal elders. The Loya Jirga will pick a government that will rule the country until general elections are held. While the conclave has been long anticipated, and is critical to the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 9, 2002

The harbinger of a new era

JAPANESE RULES: Why the Japanese Needed Football and How They Got It, by Sebastian Moffett. London: Yellow Jersey Press, 2002, 207 pp., 10 pounds (paper) In elucidating the cultural context, symbolism and social implications of the world's most popular game as it has evolved from irrelevance to obsession...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight