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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2002

Table topics for Bush, Jiang

HONOLULU -- U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to include China as part of a three-nation Northeast Asia tour later this month underscores his personal commitment to start building a more "constructive, cooperative" relationship with Beijing.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2002

75% foresee Snow Brand doom: poll

Seventy-five percent of respondents to a recent Internet survey believe Snow Brand Milk Products Co. will not be able to regain the trust of consumers even if it carries out a restructuring program.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WORKING IT OUT
Feb 7, 2002

Early retirement, outplacement, or just pink slip?

Makoto Kawamura, 51, felt he had few options left when the medium-size life insurer he worked for collapsed and a U.S. firm took over management.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 7, 2002

Hypersexual farming

Humans have practiced selective breeding for thousands of years to develop plants, animals and fungi better suited for human use than they are in their natural states. No genetic engineering is required, yet the genes of selected strains are different, "improved." Even people opposed to genetic modification...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Feb 7, 2002

Monkeys rate second look

Not many people jumped at "Super Monkey Ball" when it hit the market.
COMMENTARY
Feb 6, 2002

'Doing your bit' isn't nearly enough

LONDON -- How to save the world: make sure your car tires are inflated properly. Eh?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 6, 2002

From Dakota to Nagoya with a pirouette

Next week will see the great and the good of the ballet world descend on Nagoya for the Fourth Japan International Ballet and Modern Dance Competition. This triennial event, inaugurated in 1993, is unusual among leading international dance competitions in featuring simultaneous classical and modern dance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 6, 2002

The Japa-Rican Dream

NEW YORK -- From a New Yorker's point of view, young Japanese actor Masayasu Nakanishi definitely has chutzpah. How many other people would go out of their way to flash their dreams and frustrations in public, especially when the defeats equal or outnumber the successes?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2002

Impressionist master of time and space

If the world seems like a dark place at the beginning of the present century, an exhibition of work completed at the beginning of the last may help put things back in a more optimistic perspective. "Monet -- Later Works: Homage to Katia Granoff," is on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till Feb. 11 and...
Japan Times
Events
Feb 5, 2002

Glassmaker pitches balls for the Cup

HIRAKATA, Osaka Pref. -- At first glance, it looks like a soccer ball, and you might even try to kick it. But the maker of this "ball" would beg you not to, because it is in fact a patented lampshade built of stained glass.
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Asian, Latin American officials ready to roll up their sleeves

A fledgling forum of 27 East Asian and Latin American countries will get down to business early next month on drafting a package of specific proposals to shore up nascent trans-Pacific cooperation in economic and social areas.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2002

Seoul to request Crown Prince open World Cup soccer finals

South Korea plans to unofficially ask Japan about the possibility of Crown Prince Naruhito attending the opening ceremony of the World Cup soccer finals on May 31 in Seoul, a source close to bilateral relations said Sunday.
BUSINESS
Feb 4, 2002

Dollar expected to stand firm against yen

The U.S. dollar is predicted to be firm against the yen this week in Tokyo in light of the better economic fundamentals in the United States compared with Japan.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2002

And now, the gold medal for bloat

The dust of the Summer Olympics in Sydney has barely settled, yet here we are tuning in already to Salt Lake City, Utah, where the 2002 Winter Olympics open this Friday. No doubt by the time the last light flickers out on Feb. 24, we will all have entered into the spirit of the thing, just as we did...
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2002

Ministry 'cared too much' about Suzuki

The Foreign Ministry should have ignored remarks by a key lawmaker that two nongovernmental organizations be barred from an international conference on Afghan aid, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Feb 3, 2002

Are you ready to roll with the change on 'setsubun no hi'?

Today is arguably one of the strangest holidays to be observed in Japan: setsubun no hi, the turning of the seasons. Parents around the country strap on plastic ogre-masks and hop around the house while their young children pelt them with dried beans, yelling, "Demons out, good luck in." Beans are scattered...
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Mix a little something in your sake

Lining the back alleyways of the Minami district of Osaka there are dozens of small restaurants that just serve fugu -- blowfish -- world-famous for its potentially fatal flesh. Outside these shops there invariably rests a wooden board of some kind that is plastered with what appear to be decorative...
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

The long journey from rice to ambrosia

Sake is brewed -- and not distilled -- from rice. The alcohol content is initially about 20 percent, but this is usually watered down to about 16 percent, which is just a tad more than most wine. But sake is closer to beer than wine, at least in terms of how it is made.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 3, 2002

Tower's Bar Bellovisto: You're the tops, baby

There's not long to go till we see off the cold days of winter with pagan festivities of fertility and wild abandon -- no, not Mardi Gras and the Rio Carnival but the ritual observances of St. Valentine's Day. Some people like to send out cards; others mark the occasion through the selfless receiving...
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Feb 3, 2002

A bar that's right on the Button

Ebisu hides many secrets -- especially at night. And Button -- a neat, two-story attic perched on top of a building near the Nishi-Ebisu fiveways -- is one of the area's most precious. And you know it the instant the elevator doors open onto the sixth floor.
COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2002

Afghanistan faces danger of donor fatigue

ISLAMABAD -- International pledges worth more than $3 billion from donors at the Tokyo conference called last month to discuss the reconstruction of Afghanistan are unprecedented. Never before has Afghanistan been the beneficiary of such a substantial largesse.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2002

HIV-positive blood donors hit record high rate in 2001

Seventy-nine of some 5,770,000 blood donations last year in Japan were from HIV-positive donors, making the rate of positive donors the highest ever at 1.368 per 100,000, according to a survey by the health ministry's special committee on AIDS.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 2, 2002

Lynn Hannachi

"Particularly at the present time, it is important to us to present Arab countries in a positive light. There is so much negative writing in the media, we seize the opportunities we can to portray our countries in favorable aspects," said Lynn Hannachi.
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2002

Mr. Greenspan's cautious confidence

With trillions of dollars riding on his every utterance, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan picks his words with extreme care. He once cautioned listeners that if he made himself clear, then he had been misunderstood. But there was no mistaking the tone of Mr. Greenspan's comments last week...
COMMENTARY
Feb 1, 2002

Truth and consequences

The forced resignation of Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka says a lot about Japan's sloppy politics and its emotional inability to focus on the rights and wrongs of a dispute.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes