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BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Net overseas assets off slightly on stronger yen

The outstanding balance of Japan's net overseas assets stood at 175.31 trillion yen at the end of last year, down 2.2 percent from a record high marked a year earlier and the first drop in three years, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Japan still aiming to meet WTO frameworks deadline

Japan will continue efforts during the ongoing World Trade Organization negotiations to set up frameworks for nonfarm trade liberalization by Saturday's deadline, trade minister Takeo Hiranuma said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2003

When heaven's riches rivaled Russia's czars

Church and State have, down history, done battle for wealth and power.
BUSINESS
May 27, 2003

Norway to push whale meat exports

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who arrived Monday in Tokyo, will promote controversial plans to export whale meat to Japan during three days of trade and business talks.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 26, 2003

Floating ABCPs on open market could repair interest rate gap

On May 17, the finance ministers of the world's major powers gathered in Deauville, France as part of efforts to set the stage for the annual Group of Eight summit in Evian. A statement adopted at the meeting urged Japan to pursue structural reforms in its financial and corporate sectors and overcome...
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2003

Megawati deserves greater U.S. support

LOS ANGELES -- What country has the largest population while probably remaining the least known among Americans? It's Indonesia -- an awesome archipelago of maybe 13,000 islands and some 220 million people. Most of them are moderate Muslims, and there are more of those in Indonesia than anywhere.
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2003

French reforms under fire

PARIS -- Six weeks ago, his strong opposition to the war in Iraq won French President Jacques Chirac overwhelming support in the polls. Today he has been forced to turn away from the international scene and face a rapidly developing social crisis centered on pension and education reforms.
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2003

High cost of the farm lobby

The outlook for the World Trade Organization's new round of trade negotiations is uncertain after member nations failed to agree on farm-trade "modality" before the March 31 deadline. The U.S.-European split over the Iraq war has slowed the momentum for talks. The initial goal of reaching a comprehensive...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
May 26, 2003

Casualties soar in America's war on words

NEW YORK -- During war, news manipulation comes to the fore; so does language manipulation. In the latest war against Iraq, as in the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon sold a "Star Wars" depiction of U.S. technological prowess, blithely hiding the carnage it created. And many American news organizations...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
May 25, 2003

Take the first step toward heaven

NAGANO -- Here's one way to assure yourself a place in heaven. Get to Nagano City's noted Zenko-ji Temple by June 1 and catch a glimpse of its most sacred icon -- the Maedachi Honzon. According to tradition, making the arduous pilgrimage to this temple to pray to Amida Nyorai, the Buddha of Gokuraku...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
May 25, 2003

Classic country without the hair spray

Neko (pronounced like Nico) Case certainly has the tresses to make it in Nashville. Her long luxurious auburn locks would need only a little coaxing and a lot of hair spray for a Loretta Lynn do.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 25, 2003

Vietnamese cuisine in a Parisian scene

The Book of Salt, by Monique Truong. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, 261 pp., $24 (cloth). It's Paris, 1929. You're young, Vietnamese and gay. You don't speak much French, but you can cook a mean omelet. You see an ad in the paper: "Two American Ladies Wish to Retain a Cook." You answer the ad. You get...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 25, 2003

Anthropology through the lens

GUNMA: Life and People. by Greg Davis. Tokyo: IPJ, 2002, 107 pp., 5,000 yen (cloth). Greg Davis had lived in Japan since 1970, working as a photojournalist throughout Asia. His sudden death on May 4 of liver cancer at the age of 54 is a major loss to his profession and those whose lives he touched all...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 25, 2003

The boy bachelor

Last week, the National Tax Bureau released its annual list of the country's top tax-payers, and at the summit of the pile of show business personalities was Masahiro Nakai, the self-effacing leader of the boy group SMAP. Nakai's high salary is easy to understand: He appears in at least a half-dozen...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

The rise and fall of the Romanovs remembered

First of two parts At its height, in the middle of the 19th century, the Russian Empire ruled by the Romanovs covered more than one-sixth of the surface of the globe. It was a glorious era for a dynasty that had sprung from obscure beginnings, when in 1613, in a bid to end years of civil unrest at home...
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2003

Marooned Argentines trust in Kirchner

NEW YORK -- The election of Nestor Kirchner as Argentina's new president offers hope for a national economic and social recovery following decades of government mismanagement. Kirchner will need to back his intentions with prompt implementation of effective policies to convince Argentines that he will...
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2003

Restoring trust in the ROK-U.S. alliance

South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun and U.S. President George Bush took a major step in restoring mutual trust in the South Korea-U.S. alliance by announcing at their May 14 summit that the Korean Peninsula should be nuclear-free and that the North Korean nuclear problem should be resolved through peaceful...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 24, 2003

Dancing hands are guides along path of healing

Ray Baskerville is tall, lean, articulate and easy to talk to, and his hands weave mysterious patterns in the air as he heals clients back to physical and spiritual well-being.
SOCCER / World cup
May 23, 2003

Zico names squad

Japan coach Zico on Thursday handed Cerezo Osaka hotshot Yoshito Okubo and two other Japan Under-22 players the chance to make their full international debut when he named a 23-man squad for the upcoming home friendly against 2002 World Cup cohost South Korea.
BUSINESS
May 23, 2003

Nippon TV net profit falls 41.4%

Nippon Television Network Corp. said Thursday its group net profit dropped 41.4 percent to 20.30 billion yen for the business year ended March 31 due to a plunge in advertising revenues amid the weak economy.
BUSINESS
May 23, 2003

Broadband mart seen growing fivefold in five years

The telecommunications ministry expects the value of the nation's broadband market to post a fivefold surge to 10.2 trillion yen over the next five years, according to a copy of a draft 2003 white paper made available Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 23, 2003

Akebono lives life to the full

"It was," my dining companion recalls with a sigh, "a diet with just one purpose: to get you to put on weight."
COMMENTARY
May 22, 2003

Donald Rumsfeld making big waves

SEOUL -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is the man the world loves to hate. The blunt-speaking former wrestler has managed to infuriate U.S. friends and allies, declaring the nations of "Old Europe" irrelevant and undermining British Prime Minister Tony Blair on the eve of the Iraqi war by...
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2003

Aceh won't derail Indonesia

SINGAPORE -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has signed a presidential decree putting Aceh under martial law and authorizing military operations after the latest peace talks collapsed in Tokyo last weekend.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
May 22, 2003

Book Off chief rolls with the blows as status quo publishers complain

The Japanese may love a hardworking and unassuming company man who out of nowhere wins the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, but they are still wary of the true entrepreneur who is willing to take risks and shake up long-established ways of doing things.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2003

Kawaguchi hits WTO draft report

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi expressed dissatisfaction Tuesday with a World Trade Organization draft report on the liberalization of nonfarm trade, saying calls for the elimination of tariffs on certain products are unacceptable.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2003

Ministry calls for sweeping overhaul of farm co-ops

Structural reform is lagging behind in the farm sector and the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives group should undergo a major overhaul, the agricultural ministry said Tuesday in its annual white paper.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 21, 2003

Who, what, when, where -- why?

My good friend Tatsumi Orimoto, now one of Japan's best-known artists, has made his mother a central subject in his work for the last several years. This, he once explained to me, is because she always supported him in his creative efforts -- efforts that are, in a word, unorthodox: in one, he famously...
BUSINESS
May 20, 2003

Nonlife insurers show mixed fortunes

Three of the nation's six major nonlife insurer groups posted a net loss in fiscal 2002, due to hefty valuation losses on their securities holdings, according to parent-only financial statements released Monday.
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2003

Iran's challenge to nonproliferation

The list of international nuclear problems continues to grow. The U.S. war victory over Iraq has presumably ended concerns about that country's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. North Korea's nuclear program is the current focus of international attention. Now the U.S. is ringing the alarm over Iran's...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight