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BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2003

Japan will fight lower tariffs at WTO talks

Japan will oppose a proposal to cut tariffs and expand import quotas at global trade talks next week, agriculture minister Yoshiyuki Kamei said Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2003

Lawmaker wants transplant law revised

Six years after the implementation of the Organ Transplant Law, moves are afoot to alter one of its core conditions for using organs from brain-dead donors -- the donor's prior consent.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2003

The heat was off this summer across the nation

The average summer temperature in the Tohoku region this year was the third lowest since the end of World War II, and most other parts of the country also saw less sunshine and more rain.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2003

ANA resumes daily flight to Taipei

All Nippon Airways Co. began flying to Taipei on Monday for the first time in more than three months. The carrier suspended its one daily flight between Taipei and Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture on May 16 due to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome.
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Sep 2, 2003

How are foreigners faring in financially lean times?

Victoria Bauzyte Model, 20 I work at two shows per day and get 70,000 yen for those two. It's not the most you can get, but it's nice for starters, especially since I got it after just one week of casting.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2003

Kawaguchi departs on Europe tour

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi left Japan on Sunday afternoon for a weeklong European trip to promote nuclear disarmament and weapons test bans.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 1, 2003

Surge in JGB issuance proves need for Koizumi reform drive

The preliminary GDP figures for the latest quarter, released Aug. 12, show that Japan's economy grew at an annualized rate of 2.3 percent in the April-June period. The economy is on a continuing uptrend, with GDP having expanded six quarters in a row since the January-March period of last year.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 31, 2003

Great wave of artistic influence

HOKUSAI, by Gian Carlo Calza. London: Phaidon Press, Ltd., 2003, 336 pp., 700 illustrations, $59.95 (cloth). It was the West that first discovered the art of the Japanese woodblock print. Though popular in Japan, the prints were denied any kind of artistic standing until it became understood that abroad...
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2003

France's long, hot summer

PARIS -- Fifty-three thousand deaths in August against 40,000 the same month in 2002: This has every chance of being the minimum toll of the unprecedented heat wave France has known this summer, with daytime peaks of more than 40 degrees Celsius vs. a seasonal norm of 27 degrees.
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
COMMUNITY
Aug 31, 2003

When your number's up ...

Emiko Kameyama has two close friends she likes to hang out with. In addition to their monthly dinners and the occasional trips they take together, two years ago the trio began a new tradition -- playing the Jumbo takarakuji (lottery).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 30, 2003

Andy and Karla Morris

WOORE, England -- This small Shropshire village in the Midlands of England is set in countryside that, even in the 21st century, keeps a picture postcard quality. Although it is near the thriving towns of the Potteries, and is on a major highway to the ancient cathedral city of Chester and the rugged...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2003

Yen sought for 'green' businesses

The Environment Ministry said Thursday it will seek 26.6 billion yen to promote environmentally friendly business practices in its budgetary request for fiscal 2004.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Aug 27, 2003

Tabaimo pulls ahead of 'fun art' pack

Although she has only recently turned 28, I am starting to think Tabaimo is one of Japan's most important artists. Here's why.
BUSINESS
Aug 27, 2003

Hiranuma calls WTO proposal unambitious

Trade minister Takeo Hiranuma expressed dissatisfaction Tuesday with a fresh World Trade Organization proposal to be adopted at a Sept. 10-14 ministerial meeting.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 26, 2003

Life imitates art for gaijin charmers

We had a fantastic response to our "Charisma Man" competition in last week's Community Page.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2003

Tokyo grave plots hot commodities

Tokyo's most famous cemetery solidified its to-die-for reputation when a rare public sale of burial plots attracted more than 40 applicants for every available space despite prices topping 10 million yen.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 25, 2003

Humanity takes a bite out of Mother Earth

SUNSET BEACH, North Carolina -- Sunset Beach is a summer resort town that appears to have achieved its full-blown status only about a dozen years or so ago, just about the time we started spending our two-week vacation in the beach house of our poet friend Grace Gibson. Photos taken when she built the...
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2003

China, U.S. now share a sense of crisis

For the past few years, I have been going to Hawaii every summer to stand atop Diamond Head and speculate on the historic destinies of the United States and China, the two superpowers facing each other across the Pacific, and Japan, which is sandwiched between them.
EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2003

Revisiting the Enola Gay

Fifty-eight years ago this month, a U.S. aircrew dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima from a lumbering B-29 that had been nicknamed Enola Gay in honor of the pilot's mother. Eight years ago, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington mounted an exhibit of the...
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2003

Beijing betting that a better economy will calm restless Hong Kong democrats

HONG KONG -- China's strategy for dealing with the political situation in Hong Kong in the aftermath of the massive rallies last month -- when more than half a million people took to the streets -- is two-pronged: On one hand, Beijing is waging a massive economic campaign to prop up the Hong Kong economy....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 24, 2003

There's more to noh than meets the eye

FIGURES OF DESIRE: Wordplay, Spirit Possession, Fantasy, Madness and Mourning in Japanese Noh Plays, by Etsuko Terasaki. Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2002, 329 pp., with monochrome plates, $60 (cloth). Noh texts are usually seen as mere aids for performance. They are routinely...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2003

Japan again risking too little, too late

Last month Japan passed legislation that opened the door to sending the Self-Defense Forces on missions to Iraq. In principle, this was a very positive step forward for those who had hoped to see Japan play a greater role in international security affairs.

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