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BUSINESS
May 14, 2003

Return of pension assets poised to be moved up

Labor minister Chikara Sakaguchi indicated Tuesday the government plans to move up by a month when corporate employee pension funds start returning the portion of pension assets they manage on the government's behalf.
BUSINESS
May 14, 2003

Yield cut proposal goes to LDP

The Financial Services Agency presented a draft bill Tuesday to the Liberal Democratic Party that would enable troubled life insurers to lower promised yields on insurance contracts.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2003

A landmark trade deal for Asia

The United States and Singapore last week concluded a free-trade agreement, the first ever between the U.S. and an Asian nation. The deal has political and economic significance, and holds out both promise and peril. While the FTA reaffirms the U.S. commitment to Asia, it could also constitute a threat...
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2003

Higher oil prices need not doom a nation to inflation

UBUD, Indonesia -- With high and volatile oil prices, it appears that a rough road is ahead for those countries with currencies that have become weaker relative to the U.S. dollar. Perhaps one of the biggest concerns is that Taiwan, as an importer of oil, may face a new wave of inflationary pressures...
BUSINESS
May 14, 2003

Shiokawa dodges speculation over market action

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Tuesday that fluctuations on the foreign-exchange market over the last two weeks have been unnatural and he sees the need to issue warnings to the market.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 14, 2003

A 'smashing' place for pots

It was 20 years ago today . . . that the famous Kikuchi Collection of Modern Japanese Ceramics was shown to "smashing" reviews at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The 300-piece collection sparked a great interest in modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics that has continued to this day. The...
SOCCER / World cup
May 14, 2003

Nigeria pulls out of Kirin Cup due to fears over SARS

Nigeria canceled plans to play in the three-nation Kirin Cup 2003 soccer tournament in June because of concerns about SARS.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 14, 2003

Bulletins from life in a box

Once, people had more time to think about the meaning of life -- or its meaninglessness. Poor students brooded over their ambitions in 4 1/2-tatami rooms, undistracted by computers and 3G keitai. People dreamed of a peaceful future while huddling sheltered during the war. Long, long ago, some may have...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 14, 2003

A new Kanjuro takes the bunraku stage

Yoshida Minotaro (real name: Miyanaga Toyomi) is rare among today's bunraku practitioners as he comes from the family of the prominent puppeteer Kiritake Kanjuro II, who died in 1986 at age 66, four years after he was designated a living national treasure. Minotaro was 33 years old at the time of his...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 14, 2003

Grrrls grrrls grrrls

A few weeks ago, Courtney Love placed an ad in the Village Voice for a new set of backing musicians. She not unreasonably specified that they had to be able to play their instruments. Not just that, but they had to be female. And not just female -- but "goddesses."
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2003

Streamlining state subsidies

In a move toward greater local autonomy, a government panel has submitted a report to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi calling for large cuts in state subsidies to local governments, including a reduction in government payments for public education. Currently the central government pays half of the salaries...
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2003

From Myanmar to Mae Sot

MAE SOT, Thailand F rom a distance, the textile factories near Mae Sot, Thailand, loom like fortified castles. The main buildings resemble fully encased airplane hangers. Cement walls enclose the compounds, though sometimes these, in a decorative touch, are plastered with white stucco. Entrance is via...
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2003

World must find peaceful solutions to WMD problem

BRUSSELS -- The international community was deeply divided on how to effectively deal with the potential threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Evidence that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein continued to maintain such an arsenal has yet to emerge from the rubble of the recent conflict.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2003

Nippon Keidanren to back political donations

The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) said Monday it will resume coordinating political donations from member companies and associations beginning next year.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2003

Dam Politics

Poverty haunts the people of Myanmar but those who live in remote, landlocked Karenni State are among the poorest of the poor. Karenni, Myanmar's smallest state, is also the least populated with less than 250,000 inhabitants, many of them landless. Communication is poor and there is little employment....
COMMUNITY
May 13, 2003

Write your own Japanese potboiler

1. Someone falls victim to a horrible murder in a U.S city. The solution lies in a cryptic message written on: a samurai sword; a Satsuma vase; a netsuke; an ancient scroll; a jade amulet; or an Astro-Boy comic book.
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2003

A rocky British partnership

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair has staked his reputation on achieving a significant improvement in British public services. Under previous Conservative Party administrations, public services were allowed to run down as public expenditures were reduced.
MORE SPORTS
May 12, 2003

Sorenstam claims Nichirei Cup

Annika Sorenstam fired a 4-under-par 68 Sunday to win the Nichirei Cup, her last tournament before taking on the men in the PGA Tour's Colonial.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 12, 2003

Flush with victory in Iraq, Bush sets his sights on defending the White House in 2004

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush last week became the first American president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to declare victory in a foreign war. FDR named May 8, 1945, V-E Day for victory in Europe, and Aug. 14, 1945, V-J Day for victory over Japan. Bush proclaimed May 1, 2003, V-I Day, in grand...
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2003

Time to push bigger deal with Pyongyang

WASHINGTON -- When South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun visits Washington this week, what can he and President George W. Bush possibly talk about?
SUMO
May 12, 2003

Asashoryu cruises in opener

Yokozuna Asashoryu got down to business with a convincing win over komusubi Tosanoumi but ozeki Musoyama and Kaio fell victims to first-day losses at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Sunday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003

Koreans make good moves

THE KOREAN DIASPORA IN THE WORLD ECONOMY, edited by C. Fred Bergsten and Inbom Choi. Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 15, January 2003, 180 pp., $25 (paper) In recent years, increasing attention has been given to the social and economic role of diasporas -- communities...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 11, 2003

A versatile jazz, classical and Latin lover

The typical image of Latin jazz comes mainly from salsa. Certainly, large bands playing fast-tempo dance music peppered by a hot horn section, thumping bass, razor-sharp piano and a small contingent of percussionists comprise the most common -- and perhaps most exhilarating -- form of Latin jazz.
COMMUNITY
May 11, 2003

Shaking off the shogun's shackles

"The world is wider than we can imagine," said the novelist Iharu Saikaku (1642-93). It's a pregnant thought under a regime doing its utmost to narrow the world. A contemporary of Basho's, Saikaku shows us a restlessness of spirit quite different from the monkish poet's. "There's nothing," declared Saikaku,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 11, 2003

Bailing the banks while letting the debtors die

Reportedly, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has decided to address suicide, which has becomes something of an epidemic over the past decade as the economy continues its skid into the void.
COMMENTARY
May 11, 2003

New round of hope for India, Pakistan

ISLAMABAD -- The latest indications of an emerging peace process between India and Pakistan, South Asia's two nuclear armed neighbors, have momentarily brightened prospects for stability across the region.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003

Changes in consumer concerns

CONSUMER POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism, by Patricia Maclachlan. Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, 270 pp., $18.50 (cloth) This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
May 11, 2003

Family biking weekends for a song

UTSUNOMIYA -- Comfortable lodging for a family of four, with meals, for less than 20,000 yen? Yes, it's possible, even in Japan. That's all my family paid for a very enjoyable overnight in Utsunomiya, at a public facility that promotes bicycling.

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