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JAPAN
May 31, 2001

New curriculum sees parents push English for infants

Second of two parts Staff writer Yukiko Wada left her Tochigi home at 8 a.m. one Saturday with her 2-year-old daughter, Hinami. While their journey to Tokyo's Eifuku-cho in Suginami Ward seemed a bit long, it became worthwhile when they encountered an American acquaintance near their destination.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 28, 2001

Progress made in how Japan sees Korea

The latest instance of textbook controversy has reminded me of the changing descriptions in the entry on Korea in different editions of a well-known Japanese-language dictionary. Reports have it that the South Korean government was so upset by a certain textbook that its protests brought on a diplomatic...
COMMENTARY / World
May 27, 2001

S. Korea's local councils are weak link

SEOUL -- Anniversaries are a good time to pause and ask: Where have we been successful and where have we failed? Looking at the past critically is a precondition for avoiding mistakes in the future.
JAPAN
May 26, 2001

Koizumi issues state apology for Hansen's victims' abuses

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi issued a statement of apology Friday to former Hansen's disease patients for a government policy that forced them into decades of isolation.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2001

Youth favors new Fuji chief

Kyoji Takenaka, the incoming president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., is determined to make the company a full-fledged global player with "premium brand" vehicles.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 26, 2001

Job-hunting tips for the nation's students

Japan's unemployment rate is the highest ever in the postwar era. This is especially bad news for students, who are finding it difficult to find jobs upon graduating. But don't despair, students, deep down the bubble economy is still bubbling! Japan is still paying people to do jobs that don't even exist...
JAPAN
May 25, 2001

Tanaka puts reforms ahead of diplomacy

Staff writer Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took the nation by surprise in late April by appointing the key foreign ministry post to Makiko Tanaka, who despite her enormous popularity with voters obviously lacked experience in foreign policy.
JAPAN
May 23, 2001

Loan firms linked to rise in personal bankruptcies

With colorful billboards at train stations, TV commercials showing Brazilian soccer legend Zico or a carefree, successful young woman, major consumer loan firms seem to have shed the shady images that previously haunted them.
ENVIRONMENT
May 22, 2001

China's shifting sands close in on Beijing

BEIJING -- Mother Nature has got it in for Wang Yongxian. In 1988, the farmer fled his hillside cave when flooding triggered landslides on Dragon Treasure Mountain, 70 km north of Beijing. Forced to abandon their traditional cave homes, Wang and neighbors moved down to the safety of the plain. Or so...
EDITORIALS
May 21, 2001

Wagner in Jerusalem

A battle is taking place in Israel that has nothing to do with the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians. This one is being waged among Jews themselves. But it is just as bitter as that other fight -- and just as pertinent, in its own way, to the question of Israel's present and future identity....
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2001

Settling Asia's sea of disputes

Last month's spy-plane incident between the United States and China inadvertently highlighted South China Sea territorial disputes as a focal point of possible international confrontation. Although the incident is viewed primarily through the lens of U.S.-China relations, it demonstrates the international...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

The importance of being Osakan

"Osaka? You think Osaka is the same as Tokyo?"
JAPAN
May 20, 2001

More Okinawans accept presence of U.S. military

The percentage of Okinawans who accept the presence of U.S. military facilities in their prefecture exceeds the percentage of those opposed to the bases for the first time since 1975, according to the results of a government poll released Saturday.
CULTURE / Books
May 20, 2001

Fortress Japan? Blame MacArthur and his team

THE GENESIS OF THE JAPANESE FOREIGN INVESTMENT LAW OF 1950, by Richard Rabinowitz. German-Japanese Lawyers' Association Vol. 10, 1999, 11,000 yen, $ 84.50. In 1853, Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and demanded that Japan's quasi-military government allow foreign trade. The resulting interactions...
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2001

Changing Australia celebrates its centennial

SYDNEY -- A smiling, articulate Australian schoolgirl standing before an audience of 7,000 of Australia's top dignitaries . . . it was a grand sight, worthy of this young nation's first 100 years of democratic government.
BUSINESS
May 18, 2001

Months-old Japan-Brazil triangular aid deal is almost ripe for harvest

Well over a year after plowing the field, Japan and Brazil have finally begun to sow the seed in hopes of reaping their first crop as early as autumn.
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2001

Ukraine says 'yes' to missile defense

KIEV -- The Bush administration is reviewing U.S. security policy, including deployment of a national missile defense. Washington's decision should be made easier by Ukraine's offer to help turn NMD into a reality.
JAPAN
May 16, 2001

Mori draws Tanaka's ire over Russian isles misstep

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka on Tuesday criticized former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori for saying on a television program that Japan and Russia had agreed to set up two frameworks to discuss four islands at the center of a sovereignty dispute.
JAPAN / STAGING A COMEBACK
May 16, 2001

Can 'e-Japan' make leap from paper to reality?

The economic slump over the past decade has crushed Japan's confidence and raised fundamental questions about the government's ability to turn things around.
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
May 16, 2001

The sweet sound of a good cause

Historically, the Japanese geinokai (entertainment world) has been slow to catch on to the idea of the charity concert/release. But now Ryuichi Sakamoto, a la Bob Geldof and the Band Aid famine-relief project, has put together an impressive array of Japanese and overseas talents on a track called "Zero...
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2001

No quick changes in Korea

After the North-South summit last June, South Korea became too euphoric. The South Korean media and public gave blind support to the dictator in the North, as if overnight they had forgotten the acrimony and hatred that had lasted for 50 years between the two countries. In Seoul, goods bearing the likeness...
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2001

Signs of creative destruction

Japan today needs what the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter once called "creative destruction." The immediate need is to shake up the political and economic systems from the ground up. Without such drastic changes Japan will not be able to regain vitality.
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2001

Salvaging South Korea's Sunshine Policy

SEOUL -- If the two Koreas agree on anything, it is that the reconciliation process is theirs alone to decide. So what were the EU president and the Swedish prime minister doing in Pyongyang and Seoul recently?
JAPAN
May 12, 2001

LDP agrees to Diet vote on foreign suffrage bill

In a move designed to flatter its key coalition ally, the Liberal Democratic Party will agree to hold a Lower House vote during the current Diet session on a bill to grant foreign residents suffrage, LDP policy affairs chief Taro Aso said Friday.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2001

Ex-Tokuyo execs agree to repay 90 million yen

The state-run Resolution and Collection Corp. said Wednesday it has reached an out-of-court settlement with three former managers of the defunct Tokuyo City Bank over dubious loans it extended in 1991.

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