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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2002

A straight-shooter wherever she goes

With her Nikon camera, dozens of film rolls and a strong social conscience, photojournalist Natsuko Utsumi travels the world to capture the human face of the issues that shape public debate.
EDITORIALS
Nov 10, 2002

Instruments of pain

You have to love scientists. Diligently they toil away at their abstruse projects, oblivious to such important issues as war and peace and terrorism and who's going to win the Kyushu Basho. We pay them next to nothing, ignore their pointy-headed little reports and cheer them on only when they score the...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2002

Mitsuyo Ohira : Lessons in life

High-flying lawyer Mitsuyo Ohira doesn't have the kind of past you'd expect. After falling victim to bullying at junior high school, she attempted suicide by disembowelment, dropped out of school and hung out with drug-using delinquents. All that before, at age 16, becoming the wife of a gang boss.
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2002

Politician meets Dalai Lama on Narita stopover

A senior Japanese government official held talks Saturday with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual leader, as he made a stopover in Japan on his way to India after a visit to Mongolia.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 10, 2002

Balladeer does it in his own good time

If there are no second acts in American lives, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, for some musicians at least, there's a second take. After famed recording sessions in the late 1950s that made him popular, Jimmy Scott's unique vocal style was not heard again on a new recording for some 30 years. Then, in the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Nov 10, 2002

Delicate pauses to refresh

There are really two kinds of restaurants.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002

On a voyage to Ionia

THE INLAND SEA, by Donald Richie. Stone Bridge Press, 2002, 255 pp., $16.95 (paper) Since the publication in English of Yukio Mishima's 1954 romance novel, "The Sound of Waves," there has been a fondness for visualizing Japan's Inland Sea, with its islands of olives, oranges, sunburned fisherfolk and...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002

The mismeasure of Emperor Meiji

EMPEROR OF JAPAN: Meiji and His World 1852-1912, by Donald Keene. Columbia University Press: New York, 2002, 922 pp. + xiii + 18 pp. of illustrations, $39.50 (cloth) Like any great story, history prefers that its leading men (and women) have some sparkle, whether a foible (Henry VIII's marital tangles;...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Nov 10, 2002

Magazine muckrakes where major media won't make waves

The Asahi Shimbun's April 9, 1999, morning edition featured a front-page story by the monthly magazine Uwasa-no-shinso (The Truth Behind the Rumors) that sparked a scandal leading to the downfall of the then head of the Tokyo High Public Prosecutor's Office.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 10, 2002

Ishihara could be spiked with his own barbs

Exactly a year ago in the weekly women's magazine Shukan Josei, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara shot off a few of his patented provocative statements. His remarks about middle-aged women were particularly noteworthy. "Old ladies have proved to be the biggest obstacle to the progress of civilization," he...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2002

Getting up close with photojournalism

When a photojournalist sets out to document the human condition and aims the camera's lens at another person, he or she breaches the membrane of privacy that surrounds us all. It's a lot like joining in a dance -- but being (almost always) uninvited.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2002

A wretched winter for Tories and royals

LONDON -- This is proving to a wretched winter for two of Britain's most hallowed institutions. The reasons say much about the way the country has changed -- and is changing.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 10, 2002

Isolate Pyongyang if it doesn't come clean

WASHINGTON -- In June 1994, as the United States and North Korea stepped back from the brink of war over the North's nuclear weapons program, a moderate consensus in the U.S, South Korean, Japanese and Chinese governments applauded the Agreed Framework for averting a crisis through dialogue and negotiation....
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Police search offices of JR West

OSAKA -- Osaka Prefectural Police on Friday searched a key operational headquarters of West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) two days after a rescue worker was run down by a train while assisting a teenager.
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2002

Government may act on phone fees

Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Toranosuke Katayama hinted Friday that the government may intervene to resolve the issue of Chinese telecom companies raising connection fees for phone calls from Japan to China.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Cornucopia direct from 'Fruit Kingdom'

Fresh pears, apples and persimmons from the "Fruit Kingdom" are available at Yamagata Plaza Yutorito.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 9, 2002

Gagne admires teammates Ishii, Nomo

There's one good thing about Kazuhisa Ishii not playing in the Japan-MLB All-Star Tour.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 9, 2002

Big leaguers wary of Giants

The Japanese channel was one of many shows Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins tuned into as a kid in his hometown of Oakland, Calif. He remembers watching scores and highlights of baseball games played in Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Social responsibility a safe investment

One Akiyama thrived in the fast-paced, high-stakes world of finance for 18 years, working as a U.S. government bond trader for several brokerages in Tokyo and New York. Until about a year ago.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2002

Bar code's replacement packs data into a series of squares

A seemingly random collection of black-and-white blocks will become an increasingly common sight when we buy soda out of a vending machine, bet on a horse race or purchase items at a store.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Medical staff grilled over incorrect data

Tokyo Metropolitan Government health officials questioned staff at a hospital and a clinical testing company Friday over incorrect medical data given to more than 10,000 patients over a six-month period beginning April.
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2002

Shiokawa wants 'major cuts' in national capital gains tax

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Friday the capital gains tax should be significantly reduced -- although not to zero, because that would cause problems for the tax system.
COMMENTARY
Nov 9, 2002

Overwhelming school ordeals

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair was right when he emphasized that education was the top priority for Britain. It is certainly a major issue in Japan, too. Britain and Japan face real problems in education, but the issues for each country, while interesting to compare, are different and almost equally...
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2002

Korean group faces antisubversion probe

The antisubversion law may be applied to a pro-Pyongyang group of Korean residents in Japan because of its alleged involvement in suspected illicit transfers of funds to North Korea, a senior Public Security Investigation Agency official said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 9, 2002

Restoring hemp to natural place in Japan's culture

Even as a child, Yasunao Nakayama knew of the importance of hemp, called "suna" in Japanese but most commonly known as "asa." His grandfather grew a plot of the stuff, for use in ritual Shinto ceremonies.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2002

High-level talks planned on future of North Korea reactors

Japan, the United States and South Korea will hold high-level talks Saturday in Tokyo on whether to continue a project to build light-water reactors in North Korea, now that Pyongyang has admitted it has been working to develop atomic weapons in defiance of its pledge not to do so.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2002

Illegal immigrants held at Tokyo pier

Twelve people arrested early Thursday at Oi pier in Tokyo were among about 20 Chinese from Dalian suspected of entering Japan illegally, police said.

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