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JAPAN
Jul 20, 2002

Better deal urged for part-timers

Japan should improve working conditions for part-time and contract workers and try to bring conditions for this sector of the workforce more in line with regular employees, an advisory panel to the labor ministry urged in a report released Friday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2002

Ex-governor pleads guilty to taking bribes

Former Tokushima Gov. Toshio Endo pleaded guilty Friday to charges of receiving 8 million yen in bribes from a business consultant in 1997 and 2000 in return for helping a local construction firm win public works projects in the prefecture.
BUSINESS
Jul 20, 2002

Eco-fund creator urges responsible investment

Mizue Tsukushi, who introduced so-called eco-fund investment trusts to Japan, has called on individuals to make socially responsible investments to create a better environment.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2002

New agency should handle ODA, panel says

An advisory panel to Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi may urge the government to weigh the possibility of creating a new agency to oversee Japan's official development assistance in line with moves to reform the nation's diplomatic operations, it was learned Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2002

Bogus forecasts yield mega-project fiascoes

Japan has seen a number of soured public works projects now grappling with snowballing debts, ranging from toll expressways, gigantic bridges, airports and empty ports with huge container facilities.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 19, 2002

Groups rally against pro forma standard tax

The Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry and three other groups representing small and midsize firms rallied Thursday against government moves to launch a corporate tax based on criteria other than profits.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2002

Icons with feet of clay

Icons have been having a hard time of it in America lately. There hasn't been so much toppling since the Berlin Wall came down. Just think of the scope: Catholic priests accused of pedophilic abuses and coverups; public accountants charged with complicity in all manner of corporate funny business; doctors...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2002

Performing 'rakugo' in English provides a true test of 'character'

OSAKA -- Clad in a bright pink kimono and blue obi with matching color accessories in her neatly tied blonde hair, English-language "rakugo" comic storyteller Diane Orrett appeared on stage recently in front of a mostly Japanese audience in central Osaka.
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2002

Refugee denied medical care: group

OSAKA -- A Kurdish asylum seeker detained at an immigration facility in Osaka Prefecture is being denied proper medical treatment, although he has symptoms of high blood pressure and heart trouble, a refugee aid group in Osaka said Wednesday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 18, 2002

Trees' wondrous ways of turning over a new leaf

Now, at the height of summer, when the fresh green of the spring leaves has darkened, I will start this week's column with a question: "Why is it that northern Japan's Mongolian oak and Europe's common beech retain their rustling brown leaves all winter, while sharing their temperate forest habitat mainly...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jul 18, 2002

'Wrestlemania X8': stone-cold fun

In America, every demographic has its own form of entertainment. For cultured people, there is opera and polo. For the teaming masses, there is World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), an entire league of behemoth men and scantily clad women brawling on a nightly basis to thrill and titillate the beer-and-pork...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Jul 18, 2002

An oasis beckoning on the shogun's hill

This 1830s woodcut print by the Edo artist Hasegawa Settan shows people chasing fireflies on broad rice paddies early in the evening. Men and boys are swishing around long bamboo brooms trying to catch high-flying males, while women and less nimble hunters are wafting fans around to trap low-hovering...
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 2002

Washington sends Pyongyang a message

HONOLULU -- Will the United States and North Korea ever sit down and talk? In all probability, yes. But the odds remain strong that the dialogue, when and if it happens, will largely remain a dialogue of the deaf.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2002

Kawaguchi ruffles Foreign Ministry feathers

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi is facing a new challenge to her reform efforts as the ministry's bureaucrats are rebelling against her decision to look to a rival ministry to fill a foreign aid commission.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2002

Accused train gropers hope to clear names

Thirteen men who have been accused of acts of molestation on trains have formed a self-help group in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2002

Chinese bamboo encroaching on Japan's forests

Mount Udo, straddling the cities of Shimizu and Shizuoka in central Shizuoka Prefecture, is known for its beautiful views of Mount Fuji. But it is also being "polluted" by bamboo thickets.
BUSINESS
Jul 16, 2002

Mitsubishi Pharma eyes retirement program

Mitsubishi Pharma Corp., the product of an Oct. 1, 2001 merger of two pharmaceutical companies, said Monday it will launch an early retirement program for employees 45 and older.
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2002

Panel suggests liaison office for refugees

A new liaison office should be established under the Cabinet Secretariat to better deal with refugee issues, a Liberal Democratic Party panel said in a report on Japan's refugee policy obtained Saturday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 14, 2002

Medieval-age scholar cleaves reality from romantic illusion

As Mitsuo Kure points out at the beginning of this excellent account of the samurai, "a class of people who served the aristocracy with arms," there is still considerable scholarly dispute over when the class emerged and precisely what it consisted of. Though it "led" Japanese society for seven centuries,...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2002

Keynesian cheerleaders ignore failures

It is ironic that Joseph Stiglitz waited until he gained the credibility of sharing the Nobel Prize in Economics to become an unabashed cheerleader for Keynesian economics, especially when it comes to suggesting policies for Japan. Receiving the universally recognized accolade allowed him to come out...
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Japan's Afghanistan support praised

An official from the UNICEF office in Afghanistan on Friday praised Japan's financial support for Afghan education projects as part of efforts to ensure peace in a society that has suffered decades of civil war and years of drought.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Hospital pays for transplant coverup

A health ministry panel decided Friday to strip the Tokyo Women's Medical University Hospital of its designation as an advanced treatment hospital following a coverup involving the death of a patient.
EDITORIALS
Jul 12, 2002

Narrow the wage gap

The important fact about Japanese wages today is that pay scales for regular workers have not fallen despite declining prices. This "downward rigidity" in seniority-based wages may be partly responsible for the growing presence of part-time workers and for the nation's persistently high level of unemployment....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2002

By-elections give Abdullah chance to prove his mettle

SINGAPORE -- For Malaysia's deputy prime minister, Abdullah Badawi, the sequence of two fast-moving events late last month could not have been more timely -- and dramatic.
Japan Times
JAPAN / KANSAI BEAT
Jul 12, 2002

Traditional industries adapting to stay afloat

KYOTO -- Tango Orimono Kogyo Kumiai, an association encompassing the traditional textile industry in Kyoto's Tango district, has tasted success with its foray into the skin-care products sector.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.