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EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2001

Mr. Bush gets down to business

Texas Gov. George W. Bush was sworn as the 43rd president of the United States at noon on Saturday in Washington. Mr. Bush leads a nation that is more politically divided than at any time in its history. He must bring the country together. The U.S. must be united if it is to assume its role as a leader...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2000

Wooing rebels may calm Paradise Lost

NEW DELHI -- This year, there was an added significance in the sighting of the Ramadan moon, the new moon that marks the start of the holiest month on the Islamic calendar.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2000

From the mouths of babes: a myth

SPITTING IMAGE: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, by Jerry Lembcke. New York University Press, 2000, 280 pp., $18.95 (paper). My most lasting memory of the Vietnam War is the divisiveness it created in the small American town where I grew up. The nation was divided at every level. Even junior...
COMMENTARY
Nov 20, 2000

Confusion rocks the alliance

The deadlock over the results of the U.S. presidential election is likely to undermine the administration that will be inaugurated next January. It remains to be seen if the United States, the world's only superpower, will continue to lead world affairs in the 21st century as it did in the last one....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2000

New-look forum heralds peace in paradise

SYDNEY -- Nobody, least of all any of the troubled South Pacific nations, is calling last month's Pacific Islands Forum in the island country of Kiribati a decisive victory. Yet all 16 nations that attended the historic summit see the Biketawa Declaration as the best framework yet for ensuring stability...
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2000

Today's Luddites go global

LONDON -- The Seattle protesters who fought the World Trade Organization and those in Prague who demonstrated recently against the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are a mixed crew: anarchists, anticapitalist thugs and groups anxious to help the poorer people of the world. None of them...
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2000

Japan, China governments in push to improve relations

Japan and China will probably agree next month to designate 2002 as a year of increased bilateral exchanges to commemorate the 30th anniversary of normalizing diplomatic relations, government sources said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Sep 18, 2000

Toward peace with Pyongyang

While North and South Korea are moving dramatically toward rapprochement as a result of the inter-Korean summit in June, Japanese and North Korean officials are set to meet again next month to discuss ways to normalize relations. Establishing diplomatic ties with Pyongyang, along with settling the territorial...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 3, 2000

Charles Hampden-Turner

LONDON -- "I believe in understanding people as they see themselves, in a positive light. I try very hard to see in the same way as they. Then everything begins to make sense through an opposite point of view," said Charles Hampden-Turner.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2000

Faction plots to replace Mori

The focal question in Japanese politics is how the 2001 Upper House election will turn out. Turn-of-the-century politics will hinge on whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party will retain its majority in the Upper House, or whether the opposition...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2000

Kepco urged to explain MOX mess

OSAKA -- Fearful that history will repeat itself, antinuclear groups are calling on Kansai Electric Power Co. to provide data on a batch of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel now being processed in France.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2000

Japan, Singapore to begin formal free-trade talks soon

In a significant departure from its traditional trade policy, Japan will open formal negotiations with Singapore by the end of this year on concluding a free-trade agreement between the two Asian countries, according to government sources.
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2000

Japan, U.S. plan security talks in New York

Japan and the United States plan to hold a meeting of their foreign and defense ministers in New York around Sept. 11, Japanese government officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2000

Singapore free-trade talks to open

In a significant departure from its traditional trade policy, Japan will open formal negotiations with Singapore by the end of this year on concluding a free-trade agreement between the two Asian countries, government sources said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jul 20, 2000

It's convention time again

It is convention time, folks. The Republicans meet in Philadelphia's Comcast-Spectator's First Union Center from July 31 through Aug. 3; the Democrats at the Staples Center in Los Angeles from Aug. 14 through 17. The conventions have a serious purpose. They are the supreme authorities in which the parties...
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2000

Miyazaki Initiative caps talks

MIYAZAKI-- The Group of Eight foreign ministers ended their two-day gathering here Thursday by adopting a statement covering a wide range of international political issues and a comprehensive "Miyazaki Initiative for Conflict Prevention."
BUSINESS
Jul 13, 2000

Mexico's stance precludes an agreement on investment pact with Japan

Japan and Mexico have run aground in their negotiations toward a pact aimed at shoring up the flow of investment across the Pacific.
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2000

HIPC debt deal unlikely at summit

Jubilee 2000 seeks action before 2001 but doubts Japan's sincerity Staff writer After two years of vain efforts to get the Group of Seven countries to cancel all debt owed by Third World countries, the organizers of Jubilee 2000 plan one last push at the upcoming Okinawa summit.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2000

Garbage, indifference fueling crow plague

His affliction started about six months ago when a pair of jungle crows decided to build a nest in a neighbor's tree.
OLYMPICS
Jun 5, 2000

JASF backtracks over Chiba

The Japan Amateur Swimming Federation indicated Saturday that it may not, after all, agree to the Court of Arbitration for Sport handling the appeal of Suzu Chiba over her omission for the Japanese Olympic swimming team.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2000

Constructive advice for launching multilateral talks with the WTO

the summit of major industrialized countries kicks off in July, one of the things the world will be waiting to see is whether the leaders of these nations will be able to launch a new round of multilateral trade liberalization talks under the World Trade Organization.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2000

A Cabinet for political continuity

Mr. Yoshiro Mori, former secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, on Wednesday succeeded Mr. Keizo Obuchi, the former prime minister, who has been incapacitated by a stroke since Sunday. The new prime minister has retained all members of the second coalition-Cabinet, which Mr. Obuchi...
JAPAN / Media
Mar 16, 2000

Mercian salutes cluelessness with New Frontier awards

Spring is in the air, and a young publicist's thoughts turn to awards ceremonies. Across the sea, we've seen the Golden Globes and the Grammys, and at the end of the month there's the Oscars.
BUSINESS
Mar 4, 2000

Japan to pay Taiwanese to junk boats

Japan has agreed in principle to pay Taiwanese tuna fishing boat owners to scrap boats that have been registered to countries not under an international treaty limiting tuna catches, the Fisheries Agency said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2000

Irrational intransigence

Was I the only one who noticed? Ever since the end of the Cold War (that breeding ground of massive numbers of nuclear warheads), U.S. policy toward Russia has been to get rid of as many Russian nuclear weapons as possible. Yet when the Russians recently proposed eliminating up to 1,000 strategic nuclear...
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2000

Mitsui pulls out of insurers' merger plan

Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance Co. announced Monday that it will pull out of a three-way merger plan with Nippon Fire & Marine and Koa Fire & Marine, opting instead to strengthen its ties with other Mitsui corporate group firms and seek an alliance with Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. Speaking...
COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2000

Is the U.S. on the right track?

As we enter the Year of the Dragon, U.S. bilateral relations with key states in Northeast Asia generally appear on track. Ties with America's two key allies, Japan and Korea, remain steady, as the Trilateral Cooperation and Oversight Group process has helped to keep all three in sync when dealing with...
JAPAN
Nov 12, 1999

Sumitomo Marine turns down four-way insurance merger

After four weeks of thinking, Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. announced Friday it will not join a plan by its three rivals to consolidate their companies.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan