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EDITORIALS
May 26, 2004

A good start for Mr. Chen

Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has passed the first test of his new administration. His inauguration speech was conciliatory in tone, reaching out to the millions of Taiwanese who voted against him and to the mainland by pledging not to take action that would increase tensions between the governments...
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2004

What of Afghan POWs?

ISLAMABAD -- Startling revelations of the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops in Iraq comes as a powerful reminder of the plight of prisoners of war in U.S. custody in other trouble spots, most notably Afghanistan. Indeed, the moral authority of the world's so-called lone superpower has declined...
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2004

Labor is game but Howard forges on

SYDNEY -- It is fitting that an Australia-U.S. free-trade agreement should be signed the day Prime Minister John Howard celebrated 30 years in Federal Parliament. Both events mark historic steps in Australian politics and in a firm alliance with the United States.
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2004

Mr. Singh's promise

The selection of Mr. Manmohan Singh as prime minister designate in India is a welcome development. Mr. Singh is a known quantity, committed to continuing the positive legacies of the former government while smoothing their rough edges. Equally important, his appointment represents the healing of one...
JAPAN / POLITICS IN FOCUS
May 25, 2004

LDP factions commanding less loyalty

The Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction, led by former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, held its annual fundraising party April 21 at a Tokyo hotel and generated the majority of its annual revenues -- all in one night.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2004

On the move after decades of pacifism

A quiet pride is evinced in the dispatch of Japan's Self-Defense Forces troops for peacekeeping in Iraq even though the polls say a bare majority opposes the deployment. Says a business executive: "That's their profession; that's what they've been trained for."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 23, 2004

'Transculturation' of migrating musical styles

LOCATING EAST ASIA IN WESTERN ART MUSIC, edited by Yayoi Uno Everett and Frederick Lau, foreword by Bonnie Wade. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 2004, 388 pp., with musical examples, $27.95 (paper). This somewhat misleadingly titled collection is an assemblage of papers given at the 1998 Third...
COMMENTARY / World
May 23, 2004

How separate are religion, government?

SINGAPORE -- Religion and the state in East Asia have always had a tenuous relationship. But as political and social development accelerate with the accumulation of wealth and a growing middle class, East Asia appears to be ultimately confronting the issue of separating religion from secular politics....
EDITORIALS
May 21, 2004

Mr. Roh goes back to work

The South Korean Constitutional Court's decision to overturn the Parliament's vote to impeach President Roh Moo Hyun ended two months of political limbo in that country. With the president able to resume his duties, Seoul can make important progress on matters ranging from foreign policy to much-needed...
COMMENTARY
May 21, 2004

Risks of Pyongyang's favors

HONOLULU -- What a week! Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is packing his bags for another trip to Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and the United States has announced a troop transfer from South Korea to combat duty in Iraq.
EDITORIALS
May 20, 2004

Widening pension scandal

Japanese politics appears to be at the mercy of a widening pension scandal as one political leader after another bows out of posts for failing to pay national pension premiums. The latest casualty is Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, who on Monday announced he will not succeed Naoto Kan as president of the Democratic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 19, 2004

The sorrows of superficiality

On Oct. 31, 1999, race driver Mika Hakkinen finished first at the Suzuka Speedway to win the Japan GP and that year's F-1 Driver's Championship. It was a close and dramatic victory for the likeable Finn, and among his delirious fans on that day was the French artist Sylvie Fleury. Soon afterward, when...
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2004

Why India accepts a foreign-born leader

NEW DELHI -- The world's largest-ever election in India has produced the biggest upset, bringing to power a foreign-born woman leader, Sonia Gandhi, and radically transforming Indian politics.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 18, 2004

Students pay price in visa crackdown

When American students Angela Luna and Richard Nishizawa tried to board a plane bound for San Francisco in March, airport authorities threw them in a small holding cell and held them incommunicado for several days before banishing them from Japan for five years.
Features
May 16, 2004

On the trail of manifest destiny

Two hundred years ago this week, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their Corps of Discovery set out to explore the American West. Sunday TIMEOUT asks what the expedition, its leaders and the Shoshone woman who was their guide still mean to us today
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 16, 2004

Shooting politicians in a barrel more fun than addressing pension problem

In the past two weeks the pension scandal that has touched so many lawmakers has progressed from a political embarrassment to pure farce. The offered reason for regret is that the people's "trust in politics" has been damaged, a suggestion that's risible even under normal circumstances.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2004

Iraq has thrown off Bush's game plan

LONDON -- When the legendary New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel left the dugout for the pitcher's mound, there was only one question. Would he stick with his pitcher or signal to the bullpen for a reliever? Sometimes there was a brief discussion and Casey would walk back to the dugout. Often, however,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 16, 2004

EU stretching the envelope

MOSCOW -- Nobody truly knows where Europe ends. Geographically, it is supposed to run all the way east to the Ural Mountains, but few would argue that this definition should be taken seriously. What matters is culture and politics and the allegiances resulting from both. With the recent expansion of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 14, 2004

DPJ names 33 pension delinquents; LDP mum

The Democratic Party of Japan said Thursday that 33 of its 244 Diet lawmakers did not pay mandatory premiums for the nation's basic pension system, leaving the Liberal Democratic Party as the only major party still refusing to disclose the payment records of its members.
JAPAN
May 12, 2004

War criminals' poems uncovered

The themes found in a newly uncovered collection of traditional Japanese verse would be familiar to any reader here: the melancholy passing of the seasons, fleeting beauty, the inevitability of death.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 11, 2004

Kan falls on his sword over failure to pay pension fees

Naoto Kan announced Monday that he will resign as chief of the Democratic Party of Japan over his past failure to pay mandatory state pension premiums.
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2004

Moment of truth for Mr. Sharon

The Likud Party's rejection last Sunday of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw all settlements from the Gaza Strip would seem to be a fatal blow to the prime minister and to hopes for peace. Cynics might claim that the result is exactly what Mr. Sharon, one of the settlers' strongest...
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Exit seen as pre-election damage control

While Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda's resignation came as a surprise to many, Nagata-cho watchers described it as damage control in the leadup to the House of Councilors election in July.
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Exit seen as pre-election damage control

While Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda's resignation came as a surprise to many, Nagata-cho watchers described it as damage control in the leadup to the House of Councilors election in July.
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Fukuda resigns from Cabinet

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda shocked the political arena Friday by stepping down for mishandling the issue of public pension premiums that some Cabinet members -- including himself -- failed to pay.
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2004

Koizumi's open-ended legac

On April 26 the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi entered its fourth year in power. Following his three-year rule under the slogan "No growth without reform," the Japanese economy is finally on a recovery track.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 2, 2004

Ryuichi Hirokawa: Picture this . .

With soldiers silhouetted against dramatic desert sunsets, or helicopters swooping over cityscapes, most mainstream-media photographs we see of the war in Iraq are nothing if not models of artistic composition and taste.
EDITORIALS
May 1, 2004

Challenging upgrade for the EU

The European Union enters a new era Saturday when it admits 10 new members, eight of them former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The future is fraught with uncertainty, but one thing is clear: The East and West are coming together, putting their Cold War divisions behind them. A greater...
JAPAN
May 1, 2004

Hatoyama, others in DPJ didn't pay pension premiums

Yukio Hatoyama, former president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and three other DPJ lawmakers have admitted they failed to pay into the national pension program during certain periods.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years