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Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Overtime pay violations on Rengo's radar

Tomoru Yamaguchi, director of the working conditions division at the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo), knew the situation was bad. He just didn't think it was this bad.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Links to academia needed on missile shield plan: Ishiba

The government should work more closely with university-based research institutes on the missile shield project it is pursuing with the United States, Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Police arrest six over deadly Kabukicho fire

Six people were arrested Tuesday for alleged professional negligence in connection with a fire that claimed 44 lives in an unsafe building in Tokyo's Kabukicho nightlife district in 2001.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2003

I am what I play -- live

Internationally acclaimed DJ Karsh Kale has spent the last three months carrying a laptop loaded with ProTools recording and editing software through the chaos and inspiration that is India. Relishing both the miracles of technology and the wonders of the ancient, Kale stopped in Madras, Delhi and Bombay,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 19, 2003

Celebrating kabuki's 400th birthday in style

Celebrating the 400th anniversary of the birth of kabuki, this month the Kabukiza in Ginza offers "Yoshitsune Senbonzakura (Yoshitsune and 1,000 Cherry Trees)" in its entirety. Performed by an excellent cast, the program runs for eight hours.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Tokyo Sowa execs guilty of fraud

Five former executives of bankrupt Tokyo Sowa Bank were found guilty Tuesday of falsely making it appear the bank had adequate capital reserves through a bogus capital increase scheme worth 18.9 billion yen.
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2003

Heed the voice of the people

Last weekend, more than 6 million people demonstrated worldwide, pleading for peace and protesting U.S. plans to wage war against Iraq. The demonstrations, the largest since the Vietnam War, are proof that U.S. President George W. Bush has not convinced the world that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

Aid for workers of Japanese ancestry

The labor ministry plans to strengthen support for foreign workers of Japanese ancestry to help them find jobs and better settle in the country, ministry officials said Monday.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Iraq is expected on G7's agenda

Finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven industrialized countries may discuss how a U.S.-led attack on Iraq could affect the world economy when they get together Friday in Paris, according to the government's chief spokesman.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

Koizumi attacks global antiwar rallies

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Monday condemned rallies staged worldwide over the weekend against a threatened U.S.-led attack on Iraq, saying they could send the wrong message to Baghdad.
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

236 sue over visits to Yasukuni

OSAKA -- A group of 236 people, including 124 Taiwanese, filed a lawsuit Monday seeking 2.36 million yen in damages over Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's controversial visit to Yasukuni Shrine in January.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Feb 18, 2003

A kind word, visa sponsorship and tax refunds

A kind word I was sitting in the NTT Telephone shop waiting to have a telephone repaired and a bit discouraged.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Economic growth remains flat amid uncertainty: BOJ

Growth in the economy remains flat amid "substantial uncertainty" about the outlook, the Bank of Japan said Monday in its monthly economic and financial report for February.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Toyota launches revamped Harrier SUV with crash radar

Toyota Motor Corp. on Monday released its remodeled Harrier luxury sport utility vehicle on the domestic market, touting the inclusion of what the automaker says is the world's first precrash safety system using "millimeter-wave" radar.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 18, 2003

Japan's TV news in a world of its own

Watch a newscast produced in United States or Europe, and you'll see a fast-paced program consisting of lots of short segments augmented by a slew of computer-generated graphics.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2003

Contract is out on alien fish in moat

Something fishy is lurking in the near-sacred moat ringing the Imperial Palace -- an invasion of American species that Japan says must be stopped.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / NOTES FROM THE SMOKE
Feb 18, 2003

Disturbing artwork and disturbed fish on the Koenji trail

A recent visit to the suburb of Koenji reminded me of my JET program orientation in Kansai; I visited a temple, learned some outlandish local customs, ate sushi, and was shown around a vintage toy store with cosmic price tags.
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2003

Revival of the 'twin deficit' threat

A budget crisis is returning to the United States. Along with worsening trade deficits, record budget shortfalls projected for the fiscal year 2003 and beyond are reviving a nightmare threat of "twin deficits." It is worrisome for global growth and security that the world's only military and economic...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2003

Empress' speech put into booklet

The Tokyo publishing house Suemori Books Co. has recently published in a bilingual booklet Empress Michiko's speech from a children's book congress in Basel, Switzerland.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2003

U.S. planning military buildup in Japan to guard against North Korea

Washington has told Tokyo of its plan to beef up its military presence in Japan to prepare for a possible emergency amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, it was learned Sunday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 17, 2003

"Holes," "Love That Dog"

"Holes," Louis Sachar, Bloomsbury; 2000; 233 pp. It's hard to say why life is so downright unfair to some children. Take Stanley Yelnats: He gets bullied at school and is ignored by his teachers. And then one day, he gets hit on the head by a pair of sneakers that seems to fall out of the sky. He doesn't...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2003

Japanese firms in Middle East prepare for war

Japanese firms in the Middle East are preparing for a possible attack on Iraq by distributing gas masks to its employees and confirming evacuation routes, officials of the firms said.
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2003

Poverty fuels Afghanistan's drug trade

ISLAMABAD -- The recent crackdown on opium producers by Afghan officials, resulting in the arrest of more than 100 poppy farmers in eastern Afghanistan, promises only to intensify global concerns about the central Asian country becoming the world's largest source of raw material for heroin.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2003

Mother made daughter steal: police

A woman has been arrested in eastern Japan for allegedly ordering her 15-year-old daughter to shoplift, police said Sunday.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 17, 2003

The art of making excuses

Part of growing up in Japan is about naturally acquiring shoseijutsu -- phrases and expressions that get you through difficulties and make good impressions.
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2003

Fears of 'anti-Americanism' overblown

MANILA -- In 1996 Samuel Huntington published his epochal work "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order." In it, he argues that, since the demise of the Cold War, cultural divides have become the focal points of international conflicts. Judging from recent editorials in American and...

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