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COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 4, 2003

Refunded cash for working at home and a sumo day out

Greetings Greetings from 10,000 meters -- I am beginning this week's column from somewhere high over the Pacific Ocean on United Flight 897 bound for Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2003

Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka brace as pollen blitz looms

As the hay fever season approaches, doctors, weather forecasters and local authorities are predicting that Tokyo and two other metropolitan areas will suffer above-average pollen counts.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2003

Timeline set for phase two of national registry network

The government on Monday designated Aug. 25 as the launch date for the second phase of the controversial nationwide resident registry network system.
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2003

C&W IDC exec hands on challenge of making telecom regulations fairer

Changes in Japan's telecommunications industry over the past two years have been far-reaching and important, but much remains to be done to achieve a truly free and transparent market, according to Lisa Suits, outgoing vice president of the public policy division of Cable & Wireless IDC Inc.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jan 27, 2003

The god of small things

Nanotechnology researcher Istvan Varga is unique among the more than 6,400 participants in this year's JET program. While the majority work as assistant English teachers in Japanese public schools, the 34-year-old Hungarian-born electrical engineer spends his days exploring the secrets of magnetism....
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2003

Kyodo News names new manager

Kyodo News on Thursday named Eiji Kadota as general manager overseeing international news, a post that has been vacant since Toyohiko Yamanouchi became president of the agency in December.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2003

Yahoo takes on fraudulent auctioneers

Yahoo Japan Corp. started posting on its Web site Wednesday the family names and bank account numbers of people who have repeatedly engaged in fraudulent and other illicit transactions on its auction sites.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 23, 2003

Move over MP3; purists demand 'lossless'

There's a whole industry built around the MP3 data-compression format, but did you know that by using MP3s to burn music CDs, you lose part of the original recording as the data compressor does its work?
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2003

Olympus to increase stake in ITX

Olympus Optical Co. said Monday it will purchase 100,200 shares in ITX Corp. from trading house Nissho Iwai Corp. at a cost of 9.32 billion yen.
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2003

NEC set to hand reins to president of firm's IT unit

NEC Corp. on Monday named Akinobu Kanasugi, head of the firm's information technology unit, its next president.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / NOTES FROM THE SMOKE
Jan 21, 2003

A reclaimed city that's for the birds (and bees)

An unintentionally caustic remark on one of the information boards that adorn Rainbow Bridge exposes the Gordian knot resting at the center of the vast Odaiba reclamation project in Tokyo Bay.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 19, 2003

Facts are first casualty in U.S. march to war

WAR PLAN IRAQ: Ten Reasons Against War on Iraq, by Milan Rai. Verso, 2002, 240 pp., $15 (paper) When Richard Butler, head of the first U.N. weapons inspections team in Iraq, said in 1997 that "Truth in some cultures is kind of what you can get away with saying," he was referring to the regime of Iraqi...
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2003

Study exposes misleading food labels

More than 10 percent of labels on perishable food failed to include information they are legally required to carry, such as place of origin, according to a government study released Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2003

Survey exposes school quake fears

Fewer than half of Japan's school buildings are quake-resistant, according to a Cabinet Office study released Wednesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 16, 2003

When two hemispheres of the brain work as one

The French surgeon Paul Broca had a patient in his care in 1861 who had fallen and broken his hip. Eighteen months earlier the man, called Lelong, had collapsed with a stroke that left him unable to speak. When Lelong died on Broca's ward, a hip fracture being a fatal condition in those days, an autopsy...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 14, 2003

Pension posers, recycling visas, and a re-entry tip-off

New year, new faces Happy New Year from Tokyo. Congratulations to two new leaders in the community; Mr. Lance Lee, the new president of The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, and Mr. Larry Blagg, the new president of The Tokyo American Club. They don't come any better. We wish them the best. Also,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 8, 2003

Redeemers with feet of clay

Of the 14 ceramic objects designated as national treasures in Japan, the fact that no fewer than eight are chawan (tea bowls) is a clear sign of their importance in the culture.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2003

Slump has silver lining: Cosmo chief

The economic slump offers unprecedented opportunities for new firms looking to carve out a niche in Japan, according to Kumi Sato, president of Cosmo Public Relations Corp., a Tokyo-based marketing consulting firm.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 3, 2003

Chic eats for the months ahead

It's prognostication time again and, just like Janus (after whom this month is, after all, named), the Food File likes to look ahead by surveying all that lies behind.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2003

Recruiters adapt to a changing job scene

Are the days of the job-offering "recruiter" numbered? In Japan, recruiters are young employees who help their companies woo recent graduates from their alma maters. But the long-standing practice -- criticized for favoring students from a small circle of select universities -- is giving way to more...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2003

New university to join bioscience race

KYOTO -- Although the government is aware that bio-related businesses are important for revitalizing the economy, this field has yet to develop in Japan at the level seen in other countries.
COMMENTARY
Dec 22, 2002

Abductee hysteria in Japan

That old saying about democracies being their own worst enemies is getting a good workout in Japan's abductee dispute with North Korea. By any standards, North Korea's willingness to release five Japanese abducted in the 1970s following Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Sept. 17 breakthrough visit to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Chushingura Chushingura

Snow has been the backdrop to some of Tokyo's most colorful and epoch-making events.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 15, 2002

To eat or not to eat -- here's some advice

One of the big best sellers of the season is "Taberu na, Kiken" (Don't Eat! Danger!), which was first published in October and is now in its third printing. Unlike most books that enjoy such good sales, it isn't getting much attention in the media.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2002

South Korean crisis brewing

WASHINGTON -- The makings of a crisis are evident on the Korean Peninsula. And it is not about North Korea's clandestine uranium-enrichment program or about the Dec. 19 presidential elections. Instead the crisis revolves around the U.S. armed forces, which are badly mishandling relations with South Korea....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 14, 2002

Carol Iwanaga

Carol Iwanaga, an American woman married to a Japanese man, says the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese is a helpful organization. "I think it is good for any woman engaged or married, or who has been married to a Japanese man, in order to get a better feeling of community while she is living here,"...
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2002

Rigorous, fair inspections first

United Nations-led inspections of areas where Iraq is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction have resumed after a hiatus of four years. On the first day, last Wednesday, an 11-member team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, or UNMOVIC, as well as a six-member...

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