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BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2002

Business leaders push for free-trade pact

Japanese and South Korean Business leaders agreed Friday that the two countries should sign a bilateral free-trade agreement at an early date, providing impetus for both governments to launch a full study on the issue.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2002

Bush gets it right in East Asia

HONOLULU -- As we mark the Bush administration's first anniversary, U.S.-East Asia relations, after an early rough start, appear on an upswing. The one exception is on the Korean Peninsula, where Pyongyang's refusal to take "yes" for an answer has resulted in a decline in U.S.-North Korean relations...
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2002

Ms. Macapagal Arroyo's gamble

The second front on the war against terrorism is opening up. The United States has dispatched military advisers to the Philippines to assist that country's armed forces as they fight a Muslim extremist group that is alleged to have ties to al-Qaeda. While the move was expected, it is not without risks....
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2002

Spinach gene in pigs promises healthier cutlets

Japanese researchers have announced that they succeeded in transplanting a spinach gene into a pig in order to change pig fat into linoleic acid, a principal unsaturated fatty acid found in plants and considered essential to animal nutrition.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 25, 2002

JAAF OKs Murofushi turning pro

The Japan Amateur Athletic Federation (JAAF) on Wednesday approved "pro" status for hammer thrower Koji Murofushi, who has already been accepting fees for personal and commercial appearances.
JAPAN
Jan 24, 2002

Ministry to admit explanation of public works is lacking

The Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry has conceded in a white paper that its explanations of the need for and efficacy of public works projects have been inadequate, according to an outline of the paper obtained Wednesday by Kyodo News.
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2002

WTO complaint mulled over U.S. sheet steel curb

Japan may file a complaint with the World Trade Organization over U.S. antidumping measures that target imports of surface-treated sheet steel, government officials said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2002

Japan unlikely to increase ODA spending in fiscal '03

Japan is unlikely to increase its official development assistance in fiscal 2003 despite growing international calls for more funds, government officials said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2002

What is normal for Japan?

Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro has done an extraordinary job in leading Japan's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Both the package of measures his government put together to support the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism and the speed with which it was approved have...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 24, 2002

What was eating away at Judea's King Herod?

Herod the Great, King of Judea, died more than 2,000 years ago, in 4 B.C. He is remembered, among other things, for ordering the Massacre of the Innocents, the systematic execution of baby boys in Bethlehem. It was an attempt, if we are to believe biblical records, to kill the newborn Jesus.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 24, 2002

E.T. has left the building

The year was 1982. Steven Spielberg shattered all box-office records that summer with a movie called "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" about an ugly but good-natured space alien named E.T. who gets stranded on Earth.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2002

On track toward a new Afghanistan

With participating countries and organizations committed to making positive contributions to Afghan recovery and reconstruction, the Tokyo conference took a major step toward bringing civility and democracy to the war-ravaged country. Sixty-one nations and 21 international organizations pledged grants...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Police investigations hit record high; solutions fall

The number of criminal investigations in Japan hit a record-high 2.74 million in 2001, up 12 percent from the year before, while the resolution rate fell to a record-low 19.8 percent, down 3.8 percentage points, according to a National Police Agency survey released Monday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2002

Bygone grandeur revisited

Museums are usually places for looking at things in, not places to look at themselves. Some, though -- like Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum in New York -- are works of art in their own right, and the Teien Art Museum in Shirokanedai, Tokyo, falls squarely into that category.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 23, 2002

Royal treatment for a princely collection

The queen of the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow is undoubtedly the "Lady With an Ermine," one of the few surviving portraits by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 23, 2002

The Prodigy

The Prodigy might not be ancient history, but five years in pop music can feel like an eternity, and that's how long we've been waiting for them to release some new material.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Southeast Asian goods find favor in Tokyo shops

Asian handicrafts are seeing a boom in Japan, particularly among young women.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2002

Toto, Matsushita detail China deal

Toto Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. said Tuesday they will mutually supply housing materials parts in China as part of their tieup in the housing materials business.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 23, 2002

Knee forces Nanami to withdraw

Japan and Jubilo Iwata midfielder Hiroshi Nanami has pulled out of the ongoing Japan national team training camp in order to focus on the rehabilitation of his knee, the Japan Football Association announced Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2002

Sign of hope: Afghan kids back in school

KABUL -- In Afghanistan, the interim administration led by Hamid Karzai faces a double challenge: keeping its population alive through the winter and starting to rebuild for the future.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2002

Schizophrenia given new Japanese name

Japan's psychiatric society decided Saturday to change the Japanese name of schizophrenia to help dispel prejudice against people with the disorder, sources close to the society said.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 21, 2002

A rightist revival in Europe

LONDON -- For the past five years, the center-left has held the whip hand in Western Europe. Whether in the shape of Prime Minister Tony Blair's New Labour administration in Britain or the more traditionally leftwing Socialist-led government in France, social democracy has ruled in the major countries...
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2002

The Segway's Japanese roots

At the end of December, Emeritus Professor Kazuo Yamafuji of Tokyo's University of Electro-Communications had something interesting to add to the buzz of talk about the Segway Human Transporter, the self-balancing robotic scooter unveiled earlier in the month by U.S. inventor Dean Kamen.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

American brings kabuki to Japanese as well as foreigners

Mark Oshima never imagined he would appear on a kabuki stage when he first arrived in Japan in 1981, taking a year off from university to write his senior thesis on a theme that had nothing to do with the classical Japanese theater.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2002

Ogata expects $5 billion in aid to Afghans

The total amount of money pledged by countries at the upcoming Afghan reconstruction conference in Tokyo will be close to $5 billion over the next 2 1/2 years, Sadako Ogata, Japan's special envoy on Afghanistan and joint chair of the conference, said Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 20, 2002

Murder and mass suicide? Now that's entertainment

CHUSHINGURA AND THE FLOATING WORLD: The Representation of Kanadehon Chushingura in Ukiyo-e Prints, by David Bell. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 2001. 170 pp. with 41 b/w plates, 45 British pounds (cloth) One spring day in 1701 there was an altercation in Edo Castle. Perceiving insult, a local lord...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 20, 2002

Blonde Redhead: Melody of the inexpressible

New York's Blonde Redhead is an excellent reminder of what made "indie" rock independent in the first place. Trying to pin them down, to encapsulate their music in a pithy phrase or two is, to quote the title of their fourth album, like trying to give "an expression of the unexpressible."

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell