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COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2003

A ruse so clever it destroyed its creator

HONOLULU -- U.S. Sen. John Rockefeller came out of a hearing in Washington on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, to ask an intriguing, if rhetorical, question: "Did we misread it, or did they mislead us?"
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2003

War-displaced struggle to live in Japan

After serving as president of a public athletics college in China for decades, Bunji Tanaka resettled in Japan in 1988 at age 47 and found work at a liquor wholesale warehouse in Yokohama.
COMMUNITY
Oct 11, 2003

Find your writer's voice via the Amherst method

As a break from academia in 2001, American-born Ella Rutledge decided to try her hand at creative writing.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2003

Homegrown chopsticks pitched in project to boost forest-thinning

"Waribashi," or disposable wooden chopsticks, are usually hated by environmentalists as a symbol of deforestation.
JAPAN
Oct 10, 2003

Prostitute buying not systematic, company says

An Osaka-based construction firm again denied it had been involved in any systematic procurement of prostitutes during a recent employee trip to China, Senior Vice Foreign Minister Ichiro Aizawa said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Oct 10, 2003

Ito-Yokado profit plunges 71.2%

Ito-Yokado Co., Japan's largest retailer, on Thursday became the latest chain to report dismal first-half results due to the cool summer.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 10, 2003

The cutting edge of Tokyo's fashionably tressed

Every morning at around 9 o'clock, Naoko Hayashi arrives at the Toni & Guy Japan hair salon in Tokyo's smart Minami-Aoyama district. The trainee, who joined the salon in April, sets to work on a wig, practicing how to curl hair. Just along the street at rival salon Kakimoto Arms, Noriko Yagi, a second-year...
BUSINESS
Oct 10, 2003

Sticky rice imports set to increase

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry might increase imports of sticky rice, used to make "mochi" rice cakes, to counteract an expected shortage this year, a senior ministry official said Thursday.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2003

Pesky spammers sneer at the law

The arrest of a man accused of sending millions of ads for an Internet site is raising questions about the legal boundaries of spam e-mail, which Japan's bombarded public has dubbed "nuisance mail."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2003

Kamakura Period scroll, 1607 book found in Kanda store

A study by the Cultural Affairs Agency has confirmed that a book on Christianity and a scroll section depicting an ox that were found at a used books store in Tokyo's Kanda district are cultural assets of national importance.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Oct 9, 2003

Incoming rookies James, Anthony already make an impression on Artest

NEW YORK -- Infamous for his demonic defense and alarming genuineness, Ron Artest recently evaluated the NBA's two newest compulsive scorers after confronting the incoming rookies in Magic Johnson's summer all-star game.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2003

Ex-envoy spills beans on slush fund, Iraq war

The Foreign Ministry funnels 2 billion yen a year into a discretionary fund handled by the Cabinet Secretariat, it was alleged Wednesday.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2003

Latest mad cow find puts 604 cattle into quarantine

Japan has quarantined 604 cows to prevent the spread of mad cow disease after authorities found a 23-month-old bull with a possible new strain of the illness, a farm ministry official said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 2003

Takashi Murakami's works to come as candy freebies

Miniaturized modern works of art are now free -- with the purchase of two pieces of chewing gum for 350 yen.
BUSINESS
Oct 9, 2003

Hino to launch eco-friendly truck

Hino Motors Ltd. said Wednesday it will debut an environmentally friendly heavy-duty truck on the domestic market on Nov. 4.
COMMENTARY
Oct 9, 2003

Small states seek bigger say

LONDON -- The meeting of European Union member states in Rome to begin discussing a possible new constitution has opened on a discordant note. The smaller countries of Europe do not like the way things are going. The worries are not just those of "the usual suspects" -- the British, Danes and Swedes....
BUSINESS
Oct 9, 2003

Japan ready to meddle in market

Japan remains ready to intervene in the currency market, the government said Wednesday as the yen surged to three-year highs against the dollar.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Oct 9, 2003

Does ' baka explosion' indicate identity crisis brewing in Japan?

Japan has been witnessing something of a baka explosion recently. Whether or not the actual number of idiots or incidents of idiotic behavior are on the increase or not, there is certainly a sharp rise in the public irritability index, a lowering of the threshold at which people call others "baka."
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 9, 2003

Primaries and polls

WASHINGTON -- Here we are less than four months away from the actual start of the 2004 presidential race. Delegates will begin to be selected in late January. The preliminary season is in its final stage. The third quarter of 2003 proved to be reasonably decisive for the Democrats.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2003

Charming the IMF in Dubai

HONG KONG -- James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, made the most powerful speech of his career at the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund in Dubai last month. It was full of sharp sound bites driving toward a vital central theme that Wolfensohn enunciated...

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo