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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 3, 2003

Shinkansen: shared stink, flying fruit

This is a followup to an article I wrote a few weeks ago on how to ride the shinkansen. As many readers pointed out, I overlooked some very important aspects.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
May 1, 2003

Hanami with a shot of history

Vancouver, Canada, is a beautiful city. Not only for the magnificent mountains, for salmon spawning rivers, and a largely natural coast, but for the city's many trees. I am told that Vancouver has 124,000 street trees, 30,000 of which flower. The cherry trees especially are glorious.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Apr 30, 2003

Pyongyang's actions shock few observers

MOSCOW -- When you are told that a person whom you don't know has won the lottery or lost a job, your feelings are pretty predictable and simple: Envy in the first case and empathy in the second. Yet if the person in question is somebody you know, your reactions get more complicated. You immediately...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2003

For Japan, being America's ally is no longer so easy

The number of North Korean Nodong missiles capable of targeting Japan is now thought to be some 175 to 200, rather than 100 as previously believed. Moreover, at the China-U.S.-North Korea talks in Beijing last week, North Korea taunted the United States by saying that it had developed nuclear weapons....
JAPAN / History
Apr 30, 2003

Japan Occupation turned foes into friends

Before Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed at a small airstrip outside Tokyo to begin the U.S.-led Occupation of Japan in 1945, Americans were the object of intense hatred, portrayed by propagandists as rapacious foreign devils.
COMMUNITY
Apr 29, 2003

Tama-chan: the questions that they tried to bur

Tama-chan has had an overwhelming e-mail response to the exclusive interview he gave to The Japan Times on April 1. This week he shares with us a selection of queries submitted by readers.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Apr 28, 2003

America is the greatest abuser of WMD

NEW YORK -- One duplicitous aspect of the United States' war on Iraq has been the use of the term "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD). No, I am not talking about the kinds of weapons that are assumed in the question raised by the conservative Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak on April 7 -- "Where...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 27, 2003

War vindicates U.N. stance

Are not the scenes of joy and jubilation from Iraq an embarrassing indictment of the United Nations' failure to support the war? Well, no, not really. On the contrary, the course and outcome of the war is a strong vindication of the U.N. stance. To argue that military victory bestows legitimacy is to...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 26, 2003

Ferguson, Wenger playing mind games

LONDON -- The bitterness and rivalry between the pair are reaching boiling point as the fight for the Premiership title enters the decisive weeks, with tempers frayed and an obvious standoff between the contestants.
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Apr 25, 2003

When necrophilia isn't best

One of the perennial debates among wine lovers is whether wine is best drunk straight on release, after five or 10 years, or decades down the road. Even collectors and winemakers can't agree, leading to understandable confusion among the rest of us. And cultural differences also come into play, spawning...
COMMENTARY
Apr 23, 2003

Which side blinked, and why?

HONOLULU -- The announcement that United States and North Korea had agreed to multilateral talks with China in Beijing on Wednesday was most welcome after six months of escalating tensions. Conventional wisdom is that America's success in Iraq was the primary factor in bringing Pyongyang to the bargaining...
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2003

Protection sought for whistle-blowers in fraud cases

Consumer groups on Monday urged that planned legislation to shield corporate whistle-blowers from retaliation by employers include a provision to protect workers who report fraudulent business deals, government officials said.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 2003

Changing narratives of Korean history

COLONIAL MODERNITY IN KOREA, edited by Gi Wook Shin and Michael Robinson. Harvard University Press, 2000, 466 pp., $49.50 (cloth) Until very recently most English-language general histories of Korea treated Japanese colonial rule or "Japanese occupation" as a rupture or distortion of the "natural development"...
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2003

Survivors may face taxes on pensions

Families who have lost their breadwinner due to death may have to start paying taxes on the public pension benefits they receive.
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2003

June eyed for SDF-Iraq bill

Legislation that would allow the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces to Iraq for postwar reconstruction will probably be submitted to the Diet in June, a senior member of the ruling coalition said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2003

Pyongyang urged to heed human rights resolution

Japan on Thursday urged North Korea to take seriously a resolution issued by the U.N. Human Rights Commission that criticizes the North's human rights abuses.
BUSINESS
Apr 18, 2003

Namco, Sega ponder game-sector merger

Game maker Namco Ltd. said Thursday it is in talks with Sega Corp. over a possible merger that would create the country's largest supplier of game software and arcade machines.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Apr 15, 2003

Has rightwing hijacked Japan abductee issue?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who says he has been "humiliated" by Prime Minister Koizumi and will never again talk to him, formed a secret alliance with Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, even as his regime was preparing thousands of liters of chemical weapons to drop over Japan's cities....
MORE SPORTS
Apr 13, 2003

SARS can't stop world of rugby's grand wake for fallen mates

Thursday, March 28, 2003, and noted Australian commentator Chris "Buddha" Hardy asks for quiet from the players and spectators gathered at the Hong Kong Football Club for its annual tens tournament.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2003

Sizing up America after Iraq

SINGAPORE -- Three weeks into the war in Iraq, the main protagonists are already retooling their strategies for dealing with the United States. China, Russia, France, Germany, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and, lastly, North Korea (most likely the next target of American ire) have...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2003

Fashion world takes aim at breast cancer

Supermodels smile as they don T-shirts with a bull's-eye logo, the trademark of an international charity campaign to battle breast cancer.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 10, 2003

Immune system linked to mating habits

David Beckham might wear a sarong and Takuya Kimura of SMAP may sometimes wear lipstick, but in humans, most males are dull compared to the females. In other animals, of course, the opposite is true: it is the males that are showy, brightly colored, flashy.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2003

DPJ's Kan to meet with Hu in Beijing

DPJ President Naoto Kan will meet with Chinese President Hu Jintao on April 16 in Beijing, an executive lawmaker of the party said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2003

Diet begins debate on watered-down privacy bills

The House of Representatives on Tuesday began debating a package of controversial bills the government says will protect individuals' private information, as well as a counterproposal jointly submitted by four opposition parties.
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2003

Details of Iraq's reconstruction seen unlikely to be broached at G7 meet

When finance chiefs and central bankers from major industrialized countries meet in Washington later this week, they probably won't discuss specifics of the rebuilding of Iraq, senior Japanese officials said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2003

NEC expects to book loss for second straight year

NEC Corp. has lowered its group earnings forecast to an expected group net loss of 25 billion yen for the 2002 business year, which ended March 31, the firm said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Apr 7, 2003

Diplomatic tests await Tokyo

Japanese diplomacy will face a real test over the question: How will the country participate in Iraq's postwar reconstruction?

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji