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Feb 1, 2002

Anna's pal Rios just 'having a little fun'

Much has been written on these pages over the past few days about the comments by Marcelo Rios regarding the current state of women's tennis. Rios, the former No. 1-ranked men's player in the world, put himself in the firing line by saying at last week's Australian Open that women's early-round matches...
EDITORIALS
Jan 31, 2002

Time to get back to business

In an unprecedented development Wednesday, Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and Vice Foreign Minister Yoshiji Nogami were simultaneously dismissed for their failure to maintain an effective foreign policy team. This is the first time in the history of Japan's parliamentary Cabinet system that the foreign...
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2002

Population seen peaking at 127.74 million in '06

Japan's population is expected to fall to about 100.59 million in 2050 after peaking at roughly 127.74 million in 2006 -- a year earlier than in the last report -- according to an estimate released Wednesday by an institute affiliated with the health ministry.
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2002

Work-sharing accord nears

Amid the prolonged recession, Japanese officials are giving serious consideration to a work-sharing system that has been common in Europe for a long time. Last month, government, labor and management officials held a top-level meeting to discuss the issue under orders from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jan 27, 2002

Film sours 30-year romance

MOSCOW -- The new international blockbuster film "The Lord of the Rings" has not hit Russian screens yet, but the first pirated videocassettes are already here, causing almost as much of a stir as a change in vodka prices and definitely much more than the recent news of the shutdown of independent television...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2002

Boys sought over attack that killed homeless man

A homeless man was apparently beaten to death by a group of boys Friday night at a pitch for gateball in the northern Tokyo city of Higashimurayama, police said Saturday.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jan 27, 2002

Yuji Katsui: An anomaly on the dance floor

Whether jamming with techno-trance outfit Rovo in front of a seething dance floor, adding to the psychedelic vibe of prog-rockers Bondage Fruit or frolicking in the pop carnival of Demi Semi Quaver, Yuji Katsui is something of an anomaly. With all these groups, the 38-year-old plays neither a sampler...
COMMUNITY
Jan 27, 2002

100 years on: Japan's fateful 'surprise'

A hundred years ago this week, a small group of Japanese and British officials gathered at the Foreign Office in London, made a few speeches, signed some documents, drank Champagne and then dispersed into the cold and foggy streets of the capital of an empire "on which the sun never set."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 27, 2002

In search of a new life and identity Down Under

FAREWELL TO NIPPON: Japanese Lifestyle Migrants in Australia, by Machiko Sato. Japanese Society Series, Trans Pacific Press, 2001, 161 pp., $29 (paper) At the turn of the millennium, the number of Japanese permanent residents in Australia surpassed 30,000, the highest figure since emigration Down Under...
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2002

Business leaders push for free-trade pact

Japanese and South Korean Business leaders agreed Friday that the two countries should sign a bilateral free-trade agreement at an early date, providing impetus for both governments to launch a full study on the issue.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2002

Toshima eyes tax on nuisance bikes, studio flats

Toshima Ward in Tokyo is planning to introduce the nation's first taxes on studio apartments and on bicycles parked in an obstructive manner near train stations, according to Toshima Mayor Yukio Takano.
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2002

What is normal for Japan?

Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro has done an extraordinary job in leading Japan's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Both the package of measures his government put together to support the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism and the speed with which it was approved have...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 24, 2002

Don't get him started

Being in the sports journalism field, people often want to discuss their favorite teams, recent trades, latest NFL domestic-abuse cases, etc.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 24, 2002

E.T. has left the building

The year was 1982. Steven Spielberg shattered all box-office records that summer with a movie called "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" about an ugly but good-natured space alien named E.T. who gets stranded on Earth.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2002

Love always, Janet

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan seemed to be an odd choice for Janet Jackson's press conference, not that her being in town for the Japan leg of the "All for You" world tour didn't count as news -- the banquet room was packed with reporters and TV crews. But Jackson isn't the kind of news personality...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Southeast Asian goods find favor in Tokyo shops

Asian handicrafts are seeing a boom in Japan, particularly among young women.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Foreigners play host at new home stays

A citizens' group working to promote mutual understanding between Japanese and foreigners living in Japan announced Monday that it will hold a one-day home stay program in which participants spend a night at the homes of non-Japanese residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Conflicting statements point to hospital coverup

The director of a Tokyo hospital where 11 inpatients contracted an apparent serratia bacterial infection that killed seven of them told family members early on that he suspected one of the patient's symptoms were caused by a bacterial infection, not influenza as the hospital later claimed, family sources...
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 21, 2002

Charades begin with 'Narita neurosis'

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Some 10 years ago, a Japanese student at an institute in Bologna where I was a visiting professor produced an essay in which he wrote "because Japan has a unique culture, it is misunderstood and discriminated against by other countries."
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2002

A rightist revival in Europe

LONDON -- For the past five years, the center-left has held the whip hand in Western Europe. Whether in the shape of Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Labour administration in Britain or the more traditionally leftwing Socialist-led government in France, social democracy has ruled in the major countries...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

Man injured by bomb in park trash can

An explosion in a trash can Saturday morning at a park in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward seriously injured a homeless man, police said.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

Ogata expects $5 billion in aid to Afghans

The total amount of money pledged by countries at the upcoming Afghan reconstruction conference in Tokyo will be close to $5 billion over the next 2 1/2 years, Sadako Ogata, Japan's special envoy on Afghanistan and joint chair of the conference, said Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 20, 2002

Murder and mass suicide? Now that's entertainment

CHUSHINGURA AND THE FLOATING WORLD: The Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo-e Prints, by David Bell. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. with 41 b/w plates, 45 British pounds (cloth) One spring day in 1701 there was an altercation in Edo Castle. Perceiving insult, a local lord...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 20, 2002

Discussing the humane execution of the law

As far as I know, no one has tried to figure out why two of the most popular theatrical releases of 2000 in Japan were "The Green Mile" and "Dancer in the Dark," movies whose dramatic core involved capital punishment and whose moral compass pointed toward the opinion that noncombat state-sanctioned killing...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 20, 2002

Fifty lashings for serving up wet noodles

This week, former teenage beauty queen Ryoko Sakaguchi returns to "Tuesday Suspense Theater" (Nippon TV; 9:03 p.m.) for the fifth time. She stars in "Rinsho Shinrishi (Clinical Psychologist)" as college lecturer Yuri Matsunami, who uses her psychoanalytical skills to solve murder mysteries that leave...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 20, 2002

Aramasa: The nostlagic taste of the great north

To duck under the rope noren at Aramasa and slide back its sturdy front door is to take a step into the past. Not a giant, disorienting leap all the way back to feudal Edo or the gilded age of Taisho, but an unthreatening half-pace back to the postwar days of Showa, when salarymen ruled the roost and...
JAPAN / PROTOCOL PURSUIT
Jan 19, 2002

Role of forests seen leading environmental debate

Last of three parts Staff writer Forests are now at the forefront of climate-change debate in Japan.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2002

Tree-planting drive fetes 1902 Anglo pact

Nearly 200 towns and villages the length and breadth of Japan will plant oak tree saplings over the coming year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 2002

'99 Ikebukuro rampage lands man on death row

A 26-year-old former newspaper delivery man was sentenced to death Friday for stabbing and clubbing two people to death and injuring six others in 1999 on a street in Tokyo's Ikebukuro district.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person