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Japan Times
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 26, 2003

IRCJ not only interested in 'small potatoes': Kaneko

New industrial revival minister Kazuyoshi Kaneko shrugged off accusations that the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan has a "small potatoes" approach to rescuing ailing firms.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 25, 2003

Aso questions Koizumi's timetable to privatize postal services entity

New home affairs minister Taro Aso expressed skepticism Wednesday over the timetable put forward by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to privatize the postal services entity.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 21, 2003

The role of politics and religion in the history of art

DISCOVERING THE ARTS OF JAPAN: A historical overview, by Tsuneko S. Sadao and Stephanie Wada. Kodansha International, 2003, 284 pp., 3,000 yen (cloth). According to this new publication from Kodansha International, "The insular culture of Japan can best be understood as a process whereby successive waves...
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2003

Group-use discounts for expressways to be stopped

Japan Highway Public Corp. will abolish toll discounts extended to group users of expressways in a bid to ensure fairness, transport minister Chikage Ogi said Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2003

Fujitsu lands 172.5 billion yen deal with British government

Fujitsu Ltd. has received an order from the British government for a large-scale system to provide tax services via the Internet, Fujitsu officials said Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Sep 19, 2003

The facets and the faults

Morning dawns to the background crash and suck of the Indian Ocean's waves breaking into scuds of foam on the beach. Sunlight bathes the bedroom; there is bird song audible from the hotel's tropical garden, and I draw back the lace curtains ready to inhale Sri Lanka's heady mix of sea salt, heat and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 14, 2003

Poetry: a language without borders

KIYOKO'S SKY: The Haiku of Kiyoko Tokutomi, translations by Patricia J. Machmiller & Fay Aoyagi. Illinois: Brookes Books, Decatur, 2002, 128 pp., $16 (paper). SELECTED HAIKU, by Takaha Shugyo, translations by Hoshino Tsunehiko & Adrian Pinnington. Tokyo: Furansudo, 2003, 108 pp., $16 (paper). These two...
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Sep 11, 2003

Naoki Prize winner asks Japan to put more faith in the young

For the past several years, the Japanese public has been wringing its hands over the new phenomenon of 13- and 14-year-old killers. However, an evocative portrayal of a group of ordinary, young boys, "4teen," by Ira Ishida, was selected as cowinner of this year's Naoki Prize, showering money and fame...
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2003

Contenders for LDP president's crown

Shizuka Kamei For 66-year-old former LDP policy chief Shizuka Kamei, the past 2 1/2 years have been filled with betrayal and frustration.
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2003

Policy package turns out to be a collection of vague promises

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi hopes to realize a primary budget balance in the early 2010s and create more than 5 million jobs, according to his long-awaited policy package released Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 8, 2003

Too early to write off India

Earlier this year I had argued that on balance, China was outperforming India on the world stage ("China leaves India in the dust," Jan. 27). While keeping costs as low and offering the lure of a market as big as India's, I argued, China has attained levels of infrastructure closer to those of Southeast...
JAPAN
Sep 6, 2003

Marunouchi Building to adopt ETC system for car park

Mitsubishi Estate Co. and trading house Mitsubishi Corp. have said they will jointly install an electronic toll collection system in the Marunouchi Building parking lot Saturday, the structure's first anniversary.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Sep 4, 2003

On the book trail

A Single Shard, by LINDA SUE PARK, Clarion Books; 2002; 160 pp. If recent children's books are any indication, we might be led to believe that boy-wizards who fight evil and that children lucky enough to embark on wild adventures exist only in Britain or the United States. In fact, why does almost every...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Sep 3, 2003

Roy Hargrove

What's a nice, clean-cut hard-bopping trumpeter, one of the best to hit the jazz scene in the '90s, doing growing dreadlocks, wearing baggy pants and making a funk-soul CD?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 3, 2003

The Plan finally disbands, but the dialogue continues

Last January, The Dismemberment Plan announced that after 10 years, four well-received albums and countless tours that earned them a reputation for being one of the most consistently exciting live acts on the planet they were calling it quits.
Japan Times
JAPAN / AFTER 2 1/2 YEARS
Sep 1, 2003

Koizumi renews confrontational posture

When he became prime minister in April 2001, Junichiro Koizumi boasted high public support, portraying himself as a lone wolf fighting old-guard politicians in the Liberal Democratic Party.
COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2003

The curious afterlife of Ada Lovelace

Celebrity is a fickle thing, as Ada Lovelace's famous father, the poet Lord Byron, learned to his cost -- sexual scandals and seesawing public opinion drove him into exile and to his death. For his daughter, however, the ups and downs of fame have mostly been posthumous.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 24, 2003

Should Japanese history be rewritten?

HARING THE BURDEN OF THE PAST: Legacies of War in Europe, America and Asia, edited by Andrew Horvat and Gebhard Hielscher. Tokyo: The Asia Foundation & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2003, 341 pp., 1,000 yen (paper). The legacies of war continue to dog Japan and are divisive at home and in Asia. Despite the...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2003

Baron of porn spills it all

HONG KONG -- His pictures beamed across the nation's television stations and front pages of all of its newspapers from down market tabloids to sober-sided broadsheets: the grin on his face was as wide as a melon and he held, fanlike, a huge wad of currency notes for all the world, like a television game...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 6, 2003

Rough Trade Shops: "Post Punk 01"

When punk hit a recession-ridden U.K. in 1975-'76, using a rudimentary version of rock 'n' roll as a platform to scream obscenities and threaten to smash the state, it was enough to ignite outrage across the land. And then, before your grandfather could curse "They should bring back military service,"...
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2003

Takefuji sanctions negligible: S&P

Standard & Poor's said Monday that the Finance Ministry's administrative sanctions on Takefuji Corp. will have only a slight impact on the firm's ratings.
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2003

Task force targets pension system shirkers

The welfare ministry and the Social Insurance Agency have launched a task force to help resolve the problem of unpaid national pension premiums in a bid to restore trust in the system, government officials said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 4, 2003

Get real about the Iraq war

LONDON -- Supporters of the war against Iraq have a point: The row in Britain about the "evidence" of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's deadly intentions toward the West is more froth than substance.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2003

Out of time

At the age of 18 I fled suburbia, tripping into the dusty corrupting enlightenment of the bloody Vietnam War, like an Alice in an evil wonderland, never to return. Simply put, I was sent to Vietnam to defend a lie, to destroy those (the totalitarian commie "them") who dared oppose the "greatest nation"...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2003

Visitors to stay -- for the time being

GLOBAL JAPAN: The experience of Japan's new immigrant and overseas communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka and Paul White. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 241 pp., £65, (cloth). Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor migration does...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.