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BUSINESS
Oct 2, 2003

Sakaguchi suggests consumption tax hike

Everyone knows it's coming, but nobody talks about it in public.
COMMENTARY
Sep 30, 2003

Cooperative Ukraine left out in the cold

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration continues to press for assistance from other nations in Iraq, but without notable success. Both Germany and Russia now indicate a willingness to help, but not with troops. Said Russian President Vladimir Putin in advance of his summit with his American counterpart...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 30, 2003

A level playing field?

Sports are seen as a catalyst for international communication. Even the Olympic Games were established a century ago to promote world peace -- through people meeting and competing on level playing fields.
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2003

Peruvians divided over Fujimori

OSAKA -- With Japan facing mounting international pressure to extradite disgraced former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, the nation's Peruvian community is divided on the matter.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2003

Break the Mideast impasse

EDMONTON, Canada -- When the U.N. General Assembly opened its 58th annual session on Sept. 19 with a moment of silence in memory of the U.N. staff killed and injured as a result of the terrorist attack in Baghdad last month, its 191 member governments renewed their pledge to uphold the principles of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2003

The dark, radiant world of Rembrandt van Rijn

It doesn't look like the face of a man who paints religious scenes. Fleshy, with that famously crumpled nose, he sports a jaunty hat and a look of shabby dandyism. In his later years -- more than two decades after he engraved this 1631 self-portrait -- the artist would be forced into bankruptcy, unable...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 21, 2003

Kabuki: the opera of Japan

KABUKI PLAYS ON STAGE: Volume IV -- Restoration and Reform, 1872-1905, edited by James R. Brandon and Samuel L. Leiter. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003, 430 pp. with illustrations, $50, (cloth). This is the final volume in a monumental series that contains the texts of 52 plays, all of them...
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2003

Koizumi, Bush agree over Iraq

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush confirmed Friday that Japan and the United States will cooperate on the reconstruction of Iraq, government officials said.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Sep 19, 2003

Secret treasures of southern Sonoma

The sensual impact of a vacation in the wine country is hard to beat. Hot days, cold nights, good food and meandering drives under blue skies between vineyards and wineries that range from the manicured to the seemingly long-ago abandoned.
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2003

Old political drum beats on

LONDON -- "Seen it all before" and "the more it changes the more it remains the same" are phrases that immediately spring to the mind of the foreign observer of Japanese politics in the runup to Saturday's election of the president of the Liberal Democratic Party.
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2003

Will bid to revalue yuan result in a huge own goal?

While the U.S. and Japan are stepping up political pressure on China to float its currency, some economists are asking if that's really the right policy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2003

Hashimoto faction faces gloom, doom

Hiromu Nonaka's sudden announcement that he will leave the House of Representatives has made at least one thing crystal clear -- the largest faction in the Liberal Democratic Party is on the verge of breaking up.
COMMENTARY
Sep 8, 2003

Japan must stick to its guns

Officials of six nations held talks in Beijing late last month on ways of defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis, 50 years after the signing of the armistice agreement that ended hostilities in the Korean War. The talks culminated in agreement to solve the crisis in a peaceful manner through dialogue...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 5, 2003

IRCJ to try to turn around at least 100 firms, chief says

The Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan will try to help rehabilitate at least 100 financially troubled companies during its planned five years in operation, the IRCJ chief said Thursday in an interview with Kyodo News.
JAPAN / AFTER 2 1/2 YEARS
Sep 5, 2003

Koizumi support of U.S. a double-edged sword?

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was offered two scripts by the Foreign Ministry ahead of the March invasion of Iraq by the United States.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 4, 2003

Time for creative diplomacy

SEOUL -- British statesman Winston Churchill once remarked, "It's better to jaw-jaw than to war-war." In effect, the United States and North Korea have been doing both. Their war of words continued at the six-nation talks in Beijing last week, held in check only by multiparty diplomacy.
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2003

'History' bedevils China-Japan relations

HONG KONG -- The visit to China this week by Japan's defense minister, Shigeru Ishiba, reflects an improved relationship between the two countries as well as the fact that little is being done to address underlying problems.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 3, 2003

Chinese road map needed

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- After North Korea accepted six-nation talks, the Bush administration was quick to claim victory for its hardline approach toward North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's regime. But a close examination of the diplomatic activity in the region over the past few months shows that the...
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2003

Japan has visions of Asian alternative to Windows OS

Japan hopes to develop new computer software in cooperation with China and South Korea to make Asian economies less dependent on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system, government officials said Sunday.
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.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 31, 2003

A better forecast for South Korea's Sunshine Policy

SUNSHINE IN KOREA: The South Korean Debate Over Policies Toward North Korea, by Norman D. Levin and Yong Sup Han. Rand Center for Asia Pacific Policy, 2002, 143 pp. (paper). Although Kim Dae Jung is no longer president of South Korea, his "Sunshine Policy" toward North Korea lives on. His successor,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 27, 2003

Joao Gilberto

Experts agree that two pop music genres were invented by individuals: bluegrass by the American mandolinist Bill Monroe in 1938, and bossa nova by Brazilian Antonio Carlos Jobim in the mid-'50s. Jobim wrote "Desafinado," and while, in 1957, this was bossa nova's first big hit, the single itself was sung...
EDITORIALS
Aug 20, 2003

Libya accepts responsibility

Libya's decision to accept responsibility for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103, which blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, is a victory for the families of the 270 victims who had demanded accountability from the government of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. It is a diplomatic triumph for the United...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 19, 2003

Cometh the man, cometh the charisma

Adashing & suave lady-killer and a misfit loser?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 17, 2003

Monastic comparisons and the rightness of left

MONASTIC DISCIPLINE: Vinaya and Orthodox Monasticism, an Attempt at Comparison, by George Sioris. Chiang Mai: The Knowledge Center, 375 pp., 495 baht (paper). LEFT VERSUS RIGHT, by George Sioris. Chiang Mai: The Knowledge Center, 150 pp., 195 baht (paper). George Sioris, a Greek scholar on Asia and a...
EDITORIALS
Aug 13, 2003

Justice under siege in Rwanda

Justice is supposed to be blind. Taking that idea literally, though, may cost the chief United Nations war-crimes prosecutor, Ms. Carla Del Ponte, her job. Ms. Del Ponte is under attack by the Rwandan government for believing that her mandate is to prosecute all perpetrators of war crimes in that horrendous...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2003

Chaotic images of Indonesia

HONOLULU -- Turmoil in Indonesia was underscored Tuesday when a terrorist bomb exploded in a hotel in Jakarta killing at least 14 people and wounding about 150 more. It has added to the already surging concern of American officials in Washington and at the U.S. Pacific Command's headquarters in Hawaii,...

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?