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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 19, 2002

Bali blast brings war home to Australians

SYDNEY -- In the wake of the Bali bombing, Australia's relations with Indonesia, never much better than guardedly cordial at the best of times, have sunk to a new low.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 18, 2002

Eriksson latest victim of kiss-and-tell fast sell

LONDON -- After two months it is about time this column came up with a world exclusive. Apologies for the delay but I hope it was worth waiting for.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 13, 2002

Japanese will have babies when living is easy

In the middle of September, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry released a set of countermeasures to address the declining birthrate, which Chikara Sakaguchi -- the head of the ministry -- has said will "sink Japan" if it remains as low as it is.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Oct 13, 2002

Putin: More than a crocodile

MOSCOW -- What could be worse on one's 50th birthday than to spend it in a gloomy fortress, sitting in the center of a heavily polluted city as president of a problem-ridden country struggling for survival? Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin looked perfectly happy on the day of his anniversary, and...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 11, 2002

What's a working mom to do with her kids in Tokyo?

Childcare An entrepreneur in central Tokyo, is up in arms. One of her Japanese assistants is about to have a baby and wants to continue working afterwards. But so far her assistant has been unable to find public child-care facilities for children under the age of 2.
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2002

Japan ill-served by outrage

Japan's powerful rightwing seems determined to use the abduction and other problems with North Korea to wreck Tokyo's stunning breakthrough in relations with that once-secretive nation. Even moderates here have let themselves get involved in the attempted demolition.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 4, 2002

Foreigner crime stats cover up a real cop-out

The National Police Agency recently announced that the number of crimes committed by foreigners on temporary visas jumped by 25.8 percent.
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2002

N. Korean aid depends on abductions' resolution

Japanese economic aid to North Korea must be based on the settlement of the abductions of Japanese nationals by North Korean agents, a Japanese official said Sunday.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 29, 2002

30 years of China relations aired out

Thirty years ago, the late Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka normalized relations with the People's Republic of China. Historically, the relationship between Japan and China has often been compared to that between Rome and Greece, since much of Japan's culture (writing system, Buddhism, handicrafts, etc.)...
CULTURE / Music
Sep 29, 2002

Music of the J-people

Japanese pop music is crap. So say many of my friends, especially the non-Japanese ones. They reach that conclusion after noticing that the charts are full of chipmunk-voiced idols who are long on looks and short on talent -- and whose shelf lives are only slightly longer than sushi.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2002

U.S. has not asked for more help: Nakatani

Defense Agency chief Gen Nakatani on Friday denied media reports that the United States has asked Japan to expand the scope of its logistic support for antiterrorism military operations in Afghanistan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 18, 2002

Trying to learn from failure suddenly all the rage

Isatsugu Sugahara, president of leading box-lunch caterer Tamagoya Co., runs his fingers across a stained, worn-out calendar, looking for a little circle he drew years ago. His fingers stop at May 12, 1982, the day his life changed forever.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 15, 2002

'Socialism' goes shopping at Vuitton free-for-all

As an economic power, Japan is the ideal that the rest of Asia aspires to, but it isn't merely Japan's vast material wealth that everybody envies. There's a social aspect to Japan's success that many see as even more desirable.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 8, 2002

Judicial biases shape the American way

NEW YORK -- The first time I knew that Japan's Supreme Court was not really supreme but just another political arm of the state was when it ruled on the Sunagawa Incident. In December 1959, it reversed the Tokyo District Court's ruling that the Japan-U.S. Mutual Security Treaty was unconstitutional....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Sep 4, 2002

X Japan pianist/drummer is now a global commodity

If you've walked by the Laforet building in Harajuku recently, you might have noticed a huge banner that draped the structure's exterior featuring a masked character, looking something like a pro wrestler, poking his head out of what appears to be a body of water.
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Sep 3, 2002

Big raise, big head: Save the new executive from himself

A flattering article on an up-and-coming executive appeared in the business pages, followed by copycat stories in other media. When I complimented the boss on cultivating what seemed to be an extraordinary young talent, she looked me straight in the face and shook her head. "A major, major mistake. I...
CULTURE / Film / CLOSE-UP
Sep 1, 2002

Films, Zen, Japan

Donald Richie is regarded as the leading Western authority on Japanese film. He first came to Japan in 1947 as a civilian typist for the U.S. Occupational forces -- an intelligent, restless 22-year-old in search of purpose.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / CLOSE-UP
Sep 1, 2002

Films, Zen, Japan

Donald Richie is regarded as the leading Western authority on Japanese film. He first came to Japan in 1947 as a civilian typist for the U.S. Occupational forces -- an intelligent, restless 22-year-old in search of purpose.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2002

Koizumi to visit Pyongyang Sept. 17

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will make a landmark one-day visit to Pyongyang Sept. 17 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the government announced Friday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 25, 2002

Buying into the idea of saving the planet

It may not be intentional, but the new batch of ads by the Tokyo Electric Power Co. could be seen as taking advantage of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, which opens in Johannesburg on Monday. In each TV spot, following energy-saving advice related to the use of air conditioners,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2002

'Politically motivated' arrests slammed

The head of the public security department of the Osaka High Public Prosecutor's Office was arrested April 23 for allegedly being entertained to the tune of 280,000 yen by mobsters in return for providing internal information.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Aug 19, 2002

Raze the barriers to inward investment

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The 21st century has not gotten off to a particularly brilliant start. Greed, corruption and dishonesty are pervasive. Scandals are rocking the world of business and politics in America and Europe. The chances of the Bush/Cheney administration becoming paralyzed by investigations...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 18, 2002

There's two sides to every story . . .

Despite his ubiquity in the media, the comedian Beat Takeshi is never asked to appear on NHK's sogo (general) channel, which is why his one-minute appearance last New Year's Eve on NHK's annual song contest received a lot of media attention. Considering that other popular comedians are also conspicuously...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2002

Iran hardly qualifies for the 'evil' club

LIMASSOL, Cyprus -- Earlier this year, U.S. President George W. Bush granted Iran a membership card in the "axis of evil" -- a triad of nations so iniquitous that they deserved to be cast out of the world community.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THE OKINAWA FACTOR
Aug 16, 2002

The Okinawan dollar-yen juggling act

Tenth in an occasional series By MAYUMI NEGISHI Staff writer NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- On Aug. 15, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and introduced floating exchange rates, sending the greenback plummeting.
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2002

The scrapheap of the brave

The fuss surrounding the Diet resignation of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka has seen Japan and its media at their shallow, group-think, conservative, anti-individualist worst.
COMMENTARY
Aug 14, 2002

Antithesis to rooted hate

HONOLULU -- Contrast the hellish visions of the Mideast, where different peoples seem only to want to kill each other, or South Asia, where Indians and Pakistanis seem rooted in a festering horrid past, with the real-world achievement of a multicultural society like Hawaii.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 10, 2002

Wayne Hunter

Regular visitors to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan at Yurakucho, Tokyo, are familiar with the tall young New Zealander there who speaks impressively fluent Japanese. Wayne Hunter joined the club's staff three years ago, and moved through several positions to become media liaison manager. He...
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2002

USJ's problems may stem from a cultural divide

OSAKA -- The Universal Studios Japan theme park is in the throes of a cultural divide over the handling of negative publicity generated by a recent slew of scandals, with some local media outlets accusing American officials of dodging the issue.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2002

No quarter in fight for democracy

Democracy is embattled. That is the message of the latest United Nations Development Program report, released earlier this month. Skepticism about the prospect of a new world order -- destined to be more democratic -- has given way to a backlash that considers democracy too messy for the job of state...

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person