Search - about-us

 
 
COMMENTARY
Mar 1, 2001

Bush presidency, Ehime Maru tragedy bring national security issues to the fore

The issue for 2001 is whether Japan's leaders will take responsibility for their own national security. The stage is set for them to make this choice and the United States is ready to cooperate no matter what decision they make.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Yamamoto receives 18 months for fraud

The Tokyo District Court on Wednesday sentenced former Lower House lawmaker Joji Yamamoto to 11/2 years in prison for defrauding the state out of more than 25 million yen.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

The spy game: high stakes, low payoffs

LONDON -- It's an impressive list: CIA official Aldrich Ames jailed for life in 1994 for spying for Moscow; CIA agent Harold Nicholson jailed for 23 years in 1997 for the same offense; FBI employee Earl Pitts sentenced to 27 years later the same year for passing information to Moscow; U.S. Army Col....
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 1, 2001

IOC delegates: the questions they should be asking

The International Olympic Committee has come Japan to check out Osaka's facilities for staging the 2008 Olympics.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

ACCJ opposes larger role for auditors

The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan on Wednesday called on the Japanese government to create a greater role for independent directors rather than enhancing the role of auditors in legislating corporate governance.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

U.S. likely to further ease interest rates

New York share prices remain in a corrective phase, but the downturn could soon run its course.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

Don't bet against China's industrial policy

Cambridge, ENGLAND -- At a recent conference in Berlin organized by the Institute of Asian Affairs of Hamburg, Ireland's leading China specialist said quite unequivocally that China's industrial policy has failed. As the speaker has long been known as one of the most vocal supporters of China's state-owned...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2001

NHK's hollow take on easy-money bubble era

What's impressive about the new Steven Soderbergh film, "Traffic," which opens here in April, is how thoroughly it presents all the ramifications of America's drug war by exclusively dramatic means: no charts, no explanations of cause and effect, no polemics. The movie's three separate plot vectors intersect...
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

105 million yen stolen from man's home

Five or six masked men entered the Tokyo home of a major telephone dating club operator and stole around 105 million yen in cash and 30 million yen in jewelry from three safes, police said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Sega bets on silver lining in Dreamcast's demise

Sony Corp. emerged as the victor in the battle of the video game consoles in Japan, but the loser may prove to be the sweetheart among consumers.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Sansui continues to struggle with losses

Sansui Electric Co. said Wednesday it posted a group net loss of 1.33 billion yen in the year to December, compared with the previous year's loss of 1.86 billion yen.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

Admiral gives apologies to families of missing

A special envoy dispatched by U.S. President George W. Bush apologized Wednesday in Tokyo to representatives of relatives of nine people still missing after the sinking of a high school fisheries training ship by a U.S. submarine.
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2001

Shiseido updates Braille manuals

Shiseido has updated the Braille and large-print versions of its skincare and makeup manuals and the Braille labels on its products, to make its cosmetic and skincare lines easier to use for those with sight-related disabilities.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Mar 1, 2001

International spa secrets

Some of the best recipes for a do-it-yourself spa come from those cultures known to go in for a bit of sybaritic pampering. Japan is high up on the list: A highly developed sense of aesthetics, a long tradition of bathing and a sublime appreciation of ritual have helped beauty practices here evolve into...
COMMUNITY
Mar 1, 2001

Spreading the word of Zen

They don't hold formal conferences or seek out media coverage of their more than 20 years of charitable work in Myanmar. Rather, members of the Asian Buddhist Association put their time into the project itself and traversing Japan drumming up interest among grassroots Buddhist groups, nongovernmental...
EDITORIALS
Feb 28, 2001

The legal drug menace

We like to think of drug abusers as "them," people other than us. That is wrong, says the International Narcotics Control Board in its annual report released last week. It highlights the over-consumption of controlled drugs in developed countries. And it underlines the culture that makes drug use so...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2001

Navy's No. 2 officer meets Mori, promises efforts to raise ship

In an effort to soothe Japanese public sentiment and contain damage to bilateral ties, a U.S. special envoy visited Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Tuesday and promised that the U.S. government will do its utmost to salvage a Japanese vessel that sank Feb. 9 off Hawaii after being hit by a U.S. submarine....
JAPAN / BENCH REFORM
Feb 28, 2001

Fight gets under way to increase public's access to legal aid

Lawyer Masaki Kunihiro had never dreamed his life would be so busy in the small city of Hamada, Shimane Prefecture.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2001

Mori pressured to announce resignation by late March

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Tuesday came under greater pressure to step down, with a scenario emerging for his resignation as early as the end of March.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2001

U.S. admiral apologizes over sub accident

A special envoy from Washington arrived in Japan on Tuesday afternoon to convey apologies from the United States to Japan over the Feb. 9 sinking of a Japanese high school fisheries training ship off Hawaii, which left nine Japanese missing and presumed dead.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Venture to produce CTP plates

Mitsubishi Paper Mills Ltd. and Okamoto Chemical Industry Co. said Tuesday that both will set up a joint venture in April to produce printing plates for computer-to-plate press technology, which reduces production time.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Kao ties with ADM on fat-reducer venture

Household products maker Kao Corp. said Tuesday it and major U.S. agribusiness firm Archer Daniels Midland Co. have agreed to form a joint venture to make and sell a Kao cooking oil ingredient that helps reduce the amount of fat amassed in the body.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2001

Alleviating anxiety in Seoul

SEOUL -- On the surface, U.S.-South Korean relations have seldom seemed better. Last fall's contentious issues -- negotiations over revisions to the Status of Forces Agreement and over South Korean missile-development plans -- were settled amicably. The new U.S. administration has firmly endorsed the...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 2001

How the anti-Iraq raids played in France

PARIS -- It was hardly a surprise that less than a month after U.S. President George W. Bush's inauguration, the U.S. Air Force should have launched a raid against Iraqi missile batteries and radars close to Baghdad. The flights of the U.S. and British jets supposed to protect the "no-fly" zones where...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

Take the path of the pilgrims to mortal happiness

Two types of pilgrim come to Matsuyama in Shikoku's northeasterly Ehime Prefecture: Buddhists and bathers.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Finance chief backs further stimulus

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Tuesday he supports a proposal to compile another stimulus package to support Japan's fragile economic recovery.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Finance chief backs further stimulus

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Tuesday he supports a proposal to compile another stimulus package to support Japan's fragile economic recovery.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Feb 28, 2001

Copying without an original

In the movie "Mr. Baseball," Tom Selleck's character complains to his Japanese girlfriend that Japan copies everything. She quickly replies, "We may copy it, but we make it better." After a visit to Ashbys of London, located near Akasaka-Mitsuke Station, one would have to agree.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

A phoenix from the ashes

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt -- Down by the corniche, a legend of classical antiquity is rising from the ashes as miraculously as a phoenix. This summer, the new $200 million Bibliotheca Alexandrina, a spectacular piece of high-tech architecture billed as the revival of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, is due...

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan