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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 3, 2002

Sue Sumii looks back on a life well spent

MY LIFE: Living, Loving and Fighting, by Sue Sumii; interviews by Masuda Reiko, translated by the Ashi Translation Society, with an introduction by Livia Monnet. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 108 pp., $29.95 (paper) Sue Sumii (1902-97) is remembered for the multipart...
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2002

Mr. Greenspan's cautious confidence

With trillions of dollars riding on his every utterance, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan picks his words with extreme care. He once cautioned listeners that if he made himself clear, then he had been misunderstood. But there was no mistaking the tone of Mr. Greenspan's comments last week...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 1, 2002

Anna's pal Rios just 'having a little fun'

Much has been written on these pages over the past few days about the comments by Marcelo Rios regarding the current state of women's tennis. Rios, the former No. 1-ranked men's player in the world, put himself in the firing line by saying at last week's Australian Open that women's early-round matches...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 31, 2002

The virgin birth of stem cells

Parthenogenesis -- when eggs develop into embryos without being fertilized by sperm -- occurs in some insects and reptiles. There is a persistent report that a virgin birth once took place in humans, but this should be regarded as mythical.
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2002

World Economic Forum likely to focus on Japanese recovery

Business leader Yotaro Kobayashi, who will cochair the World Economic Forum of global business leaders, politicians and academics beginning Friday in New York, said all eyes at the five-day gathering could come to rest on the Japanese economy.
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2002

Work-sharing accord nears

Amid the prolonged recession, Japanese officials are giving serious consideration to a work-sharing system that has been common in Europe for a long time. Last month, government, labor and management officials held a top-level meeting to discuss the issue under orders from Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi....
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jan 27, 2002

Film sours 30-year romance

MOSCOW -- The new international blockbuster film "The Lord of the Rings" has not hit Russian screens yet, but the first pirated videocassettes are already here, causing almost as much of a stir as a change in vodka prices and definitely much more than the recent news of the shutdown of independent television...
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 2002

Back on the trolley

The objects of nostalgia are always receding. In the stories of Nagai Kafu, for example, electric trolleys (also called trams or streetcars) are viewed as ugly symbols of everything that is new and un-Japanese. His characters ride them out of necessity, but walk or take a rickshaw whenever they can....
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2002

BOJ leaders predict more gloom during reforms

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Monday he expects the economy to remain in a severe state and prices to continue falling.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 21, 2002

Charades begin with 'Narita neurosis'

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Some 10 years ago, a Japanese student at an institute in Bologna where I was a visiting professor produced an essay in which he wrote "because Japan has a unique culture, it is misunderstood and discriminated against by other countries."
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2002

Building a brighter future for Afghans

WASHINGTON -- The rebuilding of a peaceful Afghanistan requires a commitment to protecting the human rights of all Afghan citizens, including women and ethnic minorities. The International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan taking place in Tokyo should take action to support the institutions...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 20, 2002

Redefining the role of education in Japan

THE JAPANESE MODEL OF SCHOOLING: Comparisons with the United States, by Ryoko Tsuneyoshi. New York and London: Routledge Falmer, 2001, 219 pp., $80 (cloth) What role should schools play? Should they reflect the existing social order, or should they be active agents that set a course for social transformation?...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 19, 2002

For FARC rebels, peace is bad for business

LONDON -- "In the next days, we'll know if Colombia is choosing peace or war," said United Nations envoy James LeMoyne as time ran out on last weekend's government ultimatum to the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, with whom President Andres Pastrana has been holding peace talks...
EDITORIALS
Jan 18, 2002

Shunto's role being tested

Japan's largest labor and management groups have kicked off their annual round of negotiations, with each side releasing a position paper. Basically the two sides agree that under present circumstances protecting jobs is more important than raising wages. That sounds reasonable enough, given that the...
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2002

Teacher who held student captive walks

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court sentenced a former cram school teacher Wednesday to a suspended three-year prison term for holding a former student as a captive for seven months under threat in 1995 when the victim was a junior high school girl.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2002

Bureaucrat breaking mold to give public more of a voice

Until six years ago, Nobutaka Murao says, he was just another central government bureaucrat. Then he was posted to the Mie Prefectural Government in July 1995, on loan from the Finance Ministry, and everything changed.
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jan 13, 2002

A great group effort

After the yearend holiday whirlwind, a mood of austerity settles over the month of January. It's a shame, since deep winter evenings are arguably the best time of year to pop the cork on rich, dark and warming red wines. Yet there is a way to savor special wines even in tight-budget times. Start a wine-tasting...
BUSINESS
Jan 12, 2002

Chip makers drop dumping claim on South Koreans

Four Japanese chip makers have shied away from filing an antidumping petition against South Korean rivals that, the domestic makers say, export dynamic random access memory chips to Japan at unfairly low prices, according to industry sources.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2002

Arab nations leaving Palestinians to face Israel alone

BEIRUT -- There has always been a vital Arab dimension to the Palestinian struggle. For a long period, in fact, the Arabs bore the brunt of the struggle, waging four, mainly disastrous, wars, in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, with little or no Palestinian participation in them.
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2002

Nuclear deployment danger

HONOLULU -- The handshake between Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in Nepal last Saturday caused an international sigh of relief as the two nuclear powers took a tentative step back from the brink of war. Tensions will remain high on the Indian subcontinent,...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 10, 2002

Forget agents, get a comedian

Yakult Swallows pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii obviously didn't know what to do.
Events
Jan 8, 2002

Osaka hopes concerns ease in 2002 over economy, crime, the homeless

OSAKA -- From concerns over the economy to renewed hopes for the pro baseball Hanshin Tigers, here are some local issues, in no particular order, that many people in the Kansai region are focusing on for the coming year.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 6, 2002

All the tricks, touch-ups and trip-ups of the trade

TV Asahi's new dramatic comedy series, "Trick 2," which premieres this week (Friday, 11:15 p.m.), fits comfortably into the current TV zeitgeist of pop spiritualism and magic shows. A lot of the renewed interest in paranormal phenomena has been boosted by the addition of debunking elements. On many recent...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 3, 2002

Sometimes the gaming is too rough

When it comes to video games, Japan generally gets the good stuff first. Nintendo, Sony, and NEC hardware generally comes out in Japan before the United States. "Devil May Cry," "Final Fantasy X," and "Luigi's Mansion" all came out in Japan before they made it to the United States.
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2002

Nikkeiren pushes job-sharing to stabilize unemployment

Employers and employees will eventually agree on wage cuts in the form of work-sharing as they undergo the much expected pains of ongoing structural reforms initiated by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the chief of Japan Federation of Employers Association (Nikkeiren) said.
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2001

Ishikawa files for insolvency proceedings

Ishikawa Bank on Friday filed for insolvency proceedings with the Financial Services Agency under the Deposit Insurance Law after its efforts to rehabilitate itself failed.
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2001

Japan, South Korea and China eye launch of IT talks

Japan, South Korea and China are expected to launch regular ministerial talks on information technology issues, telecommunications minister Toranosuke Katayama said Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2001

Japan increasingly embraces dancing

Japan is increasingly embracing all kinds of dancing.
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2001

Foreign inmates could serve sentences at home

Japan may ratify an international treaty next year under which foreign inmates would be repatriated to serve out their prison terms at home, government officials said Thursday.

Longform

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