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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 10, 2003

State of the rock nation, in 35-min. bites

Since they took place on successive weekends, it's difficult not to compare this year's editions of the Fuji Rock Festival and Summer Sonic, so let's do it. Fuji is bucolic where SS is urban. Fuji's vibe is communal and free-spirited, while the SS vibe is commercial and controlling. Fuji is populated...
EDITORIALS
Aug 9, 2003

SDF must meet constitutional tenets

It has been 50 years since the Self-Defense Forces were created to protect the peace and independence of Japan and to deal with foreign acts of aggression. It is fitting, therefore, that the white paper on Japan's defense for this milestone year, released this week by the Defense Agency, takes up future...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2003

U.S. need not fear the ICC

NEW YORK -- In recent years regional courts have been set up in Europe and the Americas to deal with the most serious human rights abuses committed by governments. International "ad hoc" criminal tribunals have been set up to deal with atrocities and massive killings committed in the former Yugoslavia,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 9, 2003

Sushma Omata

In the words of India's renowned musician Ravi Shanker: "The improvisatory nature of Indian classical music requires the artist before playing to take into consideration the setting, the time allowed for his recital, his mood and the feeling he discerns in the audience. Since Indian music is religious...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 8, 2003

Saturday night American Bowl a big hit

Leave it to the NFL to take something it has done 11 times before, give it a makeover, and turn it into a huge success.
EDITORIALS
Aug 8, 2003

Welcome progress in Liberia

The dispatch of U.N. peacekeepers to Liberia is the first real sign of progress in the search for peace in that war-torn country. The first soldiers were members of a West African force. While it is right and proper that fellow Africans take the lead in stabilizing the situation in Liberia, peace will...
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2003

Fukuda pushing bullet train to China

As Aug. 15, the 58th anniversary of the end of World War II, approaches, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda is stepping up efforts to sell Japan's high-tech bullet train system to China.
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2003

Imported car sales off 1.9% in July

Domestic sales of new imported motor vehicles totaled 22,636 units in July, down 1.9 percent from a year earlier, the Japan Automobile Importers Association said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2003

Too early to toast Kim's cooperation

HONOLULU -- Let's not open up the champagne too quickly! The announcement that North Korea finally has agreed to attend multilateral talks "to resolve the nuclear issue" is good news indeed . . . if they actually show up at the yet to be scheduled meeting. But sitting down at the table, as important...
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2003

Toyota profit down 9.7% year-on-year for quarter

Toyota Motor Corp. reported a consolidated net profit of 222.59 billion yen in the April-June quarter, down 9.7 percent from the same period last year.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2003

Japan's role in Korea talks

The good news about North Korea is that it is now willing to talk in an expanded forum including Japan, South Korea and Russia. Whether this will lead to substantial progress in the nuclear standoff has yet to be seen, but at least the way is open for six-nation talks attended also by the United States,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 5, 2003

If you can't beat the Japanese, serve them

If you're looking for contentment in Japan, serve the Japanese. At least that's the impression one gets from being around Andy Lunt, Kerry Cox and Johnny Miller.
SOCCER / J. League
Aug 5, 2003

Suzuki seals deal with Zolder

Japan striker Takayuki Suzuki will join newly promoted Belgian first-division club K Heusden Zolder from Kashima Antlers on loan until the end of next June, the J. League first-division side said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 5, 2003

How the reforms have failed

"Market fundamentalism" describes the view that it is desirable to leave all economic activity to a free market. This is because a free, competitive market is "efficient" or, more exactly, "cost-efficient," say advocates of this theory.
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2003

Season of mellow mindlessness

It's August, which means that, technically, we are well into summer's decline. The days are getting shorter, and September is next up on the calendar. But that is not how it feels. September seems as far off as New Year's.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 3, 2003

Getting down and dirty at Fuji Rock

Mix earth with rain and thousands of people, and you get a big muddy mess. But, rain or shine (and it did a little), the key ingredient is music. Philip Brasor, Simon Bartz and Mark Thompson indulged in FRF '03.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2003

What will succeed the Korean armistice?

SEOUL -- One of the ironies of the Korean War, whose legacy was commemorated last Sunday, is that one cannot be sure that it is finally over. While the armistice has held for 50 years, the parties to it are still engaged in controversy, with the Korean Peninsula drifting deeper into crisis and the prospect...
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2003

Greg's compassion with a camera was thousands of words

Big and burly, Greg Davis could walk into our club wearing his customary boots, windbreaker, open-necked shirt and wide grin, and we would be transported to some dusty Central Asian dictatorship or clawing Cambodian jungle -- a remembrance that the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan started off as...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 2, 2003

Buccaneers set for first game since victory in Super Bowl

The Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers officially showed up before Japanese fans for the first time since their arrival on Wednesday when they had an open practice session Friday morning at Tokyo Dome.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2003

Exaggeration leads to tragedy

LONDON -- Politicians always exaggerate, or at least embroider the facts. Like lawyers they have a case to make and an audience to persuade. So they emphasize the strongest points in their argument and slide over the weaker ones.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 2, 2003

Patti McAdam

The Make a Wish organization, which helps make the dreams of terminally ill children come true, began in America with the story of Chris. This 7-year-old boy wanted to be a policeman, but Chris wouldn't be growing up. To grant him his wish, his local police force swore him in ceremoniously as an honorary...
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2003

Political roadblock spurs military detour

MANILA -- Military interventions in Philippine politics are not a novel phenomenon. The politicization of the armed forces occurred during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, when the influence and power of officers were determined not by merit or performance but by political allegiance to factions...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2003

The transmutable Mr. Blair

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is back in London after his whirlwind tour of Northeast Asia. For many of us the high point of his tour were the delightful moments at Tsinghua University in Beijing when, following a range of predictable questions that he answered with the usual bromides, he was asked...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 1, 2003

901 just wants to play; Games in the mist

She has, for nearly all her life, wanted one thing most of all -- to play. Whether it be in the sanctuary of fantasy anime worlds or along a deep spiritual vibe for healing the soul, just let this woman play.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 31, 2003

Busy by astonishing design

Earlier this year, I watched a number of bumblebees droning back and forth over the ground cover in mountain forest near my home in Hokkaido. They were seemingly oblivious to me. Occasionally one would land, and disappear beneath the leaf litter, or go down a mouse hole or into a crevice, only to emerge...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 31, 2003

What's natural about shizen?

As anyone with an iota of awareness and no partisan ax to grind must surely know by now, this planet's nature is in danger of being mostly destroyed within the next century, with catastrophic consequences for human life.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2003

Residents of SARS-hit areas targeted in tourism drive

Japan is now welcoming residents of the once SARS-infected areas of Taiwan and Hong Kong to its shores in a bid to revive its tourism industry.

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