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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2004

'One China' principle is all but dead

HONOLULU -- No matter how the dispute over Taiwan's presidential election is resolved, it has become ever more clear that the "One China" principle is unraveling.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2004

Taiwan invasion scenario not so unlikely

HONG KONG -- It's unimaginable that China would ever go to war against Taiwan, right? Until recently, that's what I thought.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2004

Crackdown has publishers running scared

Yasunori Okadome last month suspended publication of his profitable monthly gossip magazine Uwasa-no-shinso (The Truth Behind Rumors), due to fears that a lawsuit could put him out of business for good.
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2004

Kamei rejects U.S. proposal on beef ban

Farm minister Yoshiyuki Kamei on Friday brushed aside a U.S. request for outside mediation aimed at breaking the impasse over Japan's ban on U.S. beef imports.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2004

U.S. to sit in if police grill crime suspects in the military

Japan and the United States agreed Friday to allow U.S. officials to be present during police questioning of U.S. service members suspected of committing heinous crimes in Japan, the Foreign Ministry said.
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 1, 2004

Agreement expected on World Cup tourney

Baseball's chief labor negotiator expects an agreement soon with the players' association on a World Cup tournament, putting aside for now the larger issue of drug tests during the regular season.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Apr 1, 2004

Losers, winners in contemporary Japan

Bridget Jones in London, Ally McBeal in Boston, Carrie and her friends in New York City. Now Sakai Junko has published a best-selling volume of essays on singletons in Tokyo over the age of 30, like herself, whom she calls -- in a mix of ruefulness and pride -- makeinu (losers). In "Makeinu no toboe"...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2004

Japan, U.S. agree on troop crime suspects

Japan and the United States have agreed in principle to allow U.S. officials to be present as part of the investigators' side when Japanese police question U.S. military personnel suspected of a crime, diplomatic sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 29, 2004

Fear and loathing in the U.S. workplace

NEW YORK -- A friend wrote to say that a professor both of us know was summarily fired on charges of sexual harassment. Not long afterward it was found that the accusation had no basis, but by then it was too late. Our friend had moved out of the region with his family.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2004

Tony Blair loses his touch

LONDON -- When he led the reformed British Labour Party to two overwhelming general election victories in 1997 and 2001, Tony Blair epitomized a new political generation that would sweep away both the cobwebs of traditional socialist policy and the increasingly incoherent, sleaze-tainted performance...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2004

Parties agree to ban spouses as Diet aides

The ruling and opposition parties said Wednesday they will prohibit Diet members from employing their spouses as publicly paid secretaries.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2004

DPJ targets actress over ad fiasco

The Democratic Party of Japan said Tuesday it will demand that actress Makiko Esumi be summoned as an unsworn witness to the Diet over her failure to pay her pension premiums. Esumi starred in a 380 million yen government ad campaign calling on the public to make proper payments into the mandatory scheme....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2004

Sato scandal casts spotlight on nepotism

Lawmakers are imposing restrictions on the long-standing practice of hiring spouses and family members as publicly paid secretaries in response to a recent scandal among their ranks.
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Mar 18, 2004

Wartime stories of schoolkids on the move

I recently stumbled across a war story I knew nothing about. I was at the library looking for books to keep my older son reading in Japanese, now that he no longer attends Japanese school. Since he had just made a trip to Hiroshima with his international school, I chose books about Japanese children's...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2004

Baucus, ministers agree beef ban should be short

Visiting U.S. Senator Max Baucus and high-ranking Japanese officials agreed Monday that the ban on beef imports from the United States should not be in place for a long period, government officials said.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2004

The obstruction to Sri Lanka's evolution

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The continuous conflict between Sri Lanka's two main leaders has been covered from nearl every angle. What have been largely ignored, though, are the complications and contradictions arising on that beautiful island from a political system of "cohabitation." At present, public...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 12, 2004

Museums bid to widen leisure appeal

Museums want you to drop by, of course, but they also want you to linger, to explore, take your time -- the whole afternoon, if possible. To this end, no respectable museum can be without cafes and shops to enhance the experience.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2004

Lawmaker says Tokyo should prod Pyongyang

Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda urged Foreign Ministry officials Wednesday to press North Korea to come up with a date for a further round of bilateral talks.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 9, 2004

Rumble in the whiteboard jungle

Our article on the state of eikaiwa teaching in Japan provoked a flurry of responses. Here's a selection of readers' letters
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2004

Libya lights way for a North Korean solution

WASHINGTON -- The six-party talks concluded in Beijing last month demonstrated incremental progress in resolving the 16-month crisis over North Korea's nuclear-weapons programs. For the causal observer, this outcome may not make sense. If the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia agree...
COMMENTARY
Mar 8, 2004

Northeast Asian safety valve

The six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons held in Beijing late last month ended without agreement on ways of achieving the complete abandonment of Pyongyang's nuclear programs. Little progress was made toward resolving differences between the North on one side and Japan, the United States...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 7, 2004

Levitation, drug claims and, er, melons blur reality in Asahara trial

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out exactly nine years ago this month is often cited as the first mass terrorist strike against civilians, and like al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Aum's former guru Shoko Asahara is accepted as the mastermind...
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2004

Kanzaki stays coalition-focused for election

New Komeito leader Takenori Kanzaki said Monday the party is determined to continue supporting the Liberal Democratic Party in the House of Councilors election in July so the two-party coalition can maintain a majority in the chamber.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2004

Government to own more than a third of road bodies

Nobuteru Ishihara, minister of land, infrastructure and transport, said Monday the government will own more than a third of the privatized entities of four public highway corporations after their privatization in fiscal 2005.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2004

Japan-Mexico FTA talks still stuck on core issues

Japan and Mexico are still unable to agree on several key issues in negotiations for a free-trade agreement, a senior Japanese trade official said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2004

China draws the line in Hong Kong

When Hong Kong reverted to China, Beijing pledged that there would be "one country, two systems." The capitalist redoubt would be part of "one China," but it would also keep its separate political and administrative order to maintain both stability and the vitality that transformed the city into a regional...

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