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CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 9, 2003

Hitting close to home

In Japan, a landlord really is a lord, and though laws exist to protect renters they are easily circumvented by property owners who don't like them. The three classic no-nos of rental properties -- no pets, no pianos, no employees of the "water trade" -- have recently been augmented with "no old people."...
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 8, 2003

Matsui's father confident son can play in majors

Some words of caution from Hideki Matsui's father: His son will adjust to the big leagues, but it may take a little time.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2003

Honda turns attention to skies

Entering the robot business with its Asimo humanoid, Honda Motor Co. is now trying to advance into a new field with its newly developed engine for small aircraft.
COMMENTARY
Mar 4, 2003

Signs of a thaw in cross-Strait relations

HONG KONG -- In a potentially significant move, China is reported to have pulled back some of its missiles along the Fujian coast facing Taiwan, something that the United States and Taiwan have been urging China to do for some time. An article in Taiwan's United Daily News on Thursday reported that "the...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 2, 2003

Ethnic cleansing by India's nationalists

MADRAS, India -- A homicide is the murder of an individual. A genocide is the murder of an ethnicity. The purpose of a genocide is beyond doubt: cleansing society of what the powers that be consider undesirable. History's most famous -- or infamous -- purge was carried out in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler...
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2003

EU approves Mitsubishi Electric codes

An influential European Union board has approved two types of ciphers developed by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. as "highly practical and strong cryptographic algorithms," the electronics company said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2003

48.8% of homes have Net-capable devices: ministry

2002 saw 48.8 percent of the nation's households sporting Internet-capable electronics equipment, according to the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 23, 2003

Austere monks in a lavish monastery

It seems at first that they are not of this world, these monks living out their lives of mountain seclusion. They glide purposefully -- as if on some devout mission from on high -- through the monastery corridors. At times, they flit by at great speed, their black tunics and dark blue robes swishing...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2003

Karzai sends out a reminder

Visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday called on the international community to continue providing support to help rebuild his nation, even while the eyes of the world are focused on Iraq.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2003

Smart cards seek smarter ideas

Way too busy to waste any time, on-the-go commuters stream through Tokyo train stations, chatting on mobile phones, listening with disc-player earphones, and flicking "smart cards" instead of stopping to pull out tickets.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 20, 2003

No taste for obesity

In the British cult comic 2000AD, future lawman Judge Dredd patrols the streets of Mega City One, a vast metropolis on the eastern seaboard of what was once the United States. Mega City One makes Tokyo seem spacious, and its residents make Harajuku's weirdest seem tame: One group of future misfits are...
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2003

Wiretaps led to arrests in two drug deals in '02

Police intercepted communications between suspects in two illegal drug deals last year, arresting those involved under a wiretapping law enacted in August 2000, Justice Minister Mayumi Moriyama said Friday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2003

Mitsubishi robot seen as family friend

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. unveiled a robot Tuesday that it claims will become a future house-sitter, caretaker, nurse and family friend.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 3, 2003

Beware of the risks of inflation targeting

America borrows to keep growing. China grows to keep standing still. And Japan stands still to keep from falling apart.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2003

Loan-sharking cases hit record high in 2002

Police acted last year on a record 238 cases of loan-sharking or unauthorized lending, in which a record 122,000 people were victimized, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2003

IT lets people keep tabs on parents from afar

Advanced information technology allows people to check up on the living habits of elderly parents living in faraway places.
BUSINESS
Jan 30, 2003

KDDI eyes mobile standardization

KDDI Corp. said Wednesday it will meet with China Unicom Ltd. and Korea Telecom Freetel Inc. of South Korea to discuss a uniform technological standard for cell phones and the mutual use of video games and other software.
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2003

Sanyo to plow 45 billion yen into CCDs

Sanyo Electric Co. said Tuesday it will invest 45 billion yen in the production of charge-coupled devices over three years starting in fiscal 2003.
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2003

Yahoo eyes new Web site service

Yahoo Japan Corp., the Japan unit of U.S. Internet portal Yahoo Inc., plans to launch a Web site creation service targeting companies and municipalities, company officials said Monday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 21, 2003

Gadgets gnaw at polite society

A funny thing happened to me on the train home the other day. I had a conversation with a total stranger.
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2003

DoCoMo to help makers with 3G costs

NTT DoCoMo Inc. will start shouldering half the cost of developing handsets for its FOMA third-generation cellular phone service, company sources said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2003

Pointless posturing in South Asia

The posturing and muscle-flexing continues in South Asia. The governments in India and Pakistan appear committed to matching each other's every military move and utterance, no matter how inflammatory. This behavior is immature at the best of times, but missile tests and reckless talk of nuclear war are...
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2003

Hitachi completes buyout of IBM's hard-disk unit

Hitachi Ltd. announced Monday that it has completed the purchase of IBM Corp.'s hard-disk drive operation and launched the new HDD business unit Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Inc.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2003

Humanoid robots: companions or just costly toys?

In the 1950s, Astro Boy drew on his 100,000 horsepower and hip-mounted machineguns to fight evil-doers. Despite his supposed April 7, 2003, birthday, however, the creation of robots the likes of Astro will probably remain a superhero pipe dream forever.
COMMUNITY
Dec 21, 2002

World of Gorgles and other prehysterical things

Any visitor this weekend to the Hirabayashi coffee shop opposite Yokosuka's Shioiri Station in Kanagawa Prefecture might be excused for thinking they had wandered onto another planet. They would be right. Until Monday, it is Clara Birnbaum's world: her World of the Gorgles.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2002

Lifetime of serving humanity helps nurse survive stint in Indonesian jail

BANDA ACEH, Aceh -- On a lonely stretch of road in the midst of a distant war, Joy Lee Sadler, a 57-year-old nurse from Iowa, did what she has done all her life.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 3, 2002

Japan masters the art of noise

There is no cure, no medicine, no surgery that can reverse the damage done. You probably won't die of it, but the unknowing victims number in their millions and are usually only diagnosed after it is much too late. This totally preventable scourge is noise pollution and Japan is arguably one the world's...

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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.