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COMMENTARY
Sep 21, 2002

Underestimating the players

SEOUL -- The success of Tuesday's Japan-North Korea summit in Pyongyang shows just how much critics underestimated both Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Both demonstrated a considerable amount of diplomatic skill, and courage, during this historic one-day...
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2002

Kawaguchi apologizes over abductee information fiasco

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi apologized Friday for the ministry's failure to disclose information it received from North Korea regarding the dates of the deaths of eight abducted Japanese nationals.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2002

Three Kyushu assemblies agree to request probe into abductions

Three local assemblies in Kyushu separately adopted written opinions Thursday pressing the central government to fully investigate North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens.
BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2002

Toyota top income earner for third consecutive year

Toyota Motor Corp. remained Japan's top taxable income earner in fiscal 2001, dominating the nation's top 50 businesses for the third year in a row, according to a list released Thursday by the National Tax Agency.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jul 7, 2002

Hisio: The pleasure zone is your oyster

Now that the monthlong soccer carnival has samba'd off stage, it's safe to venture back into the heartland of Roppongi again. This is highly welcome, as there are several places that we've been looking forward to trying out -- and top of the list is Hisio, with its newly opened oyster bar.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jun 16, 2002

Refined wining and dining without pretension

Japan's trendy wine boom ended a few years ago. Still, interest in wine did not plummet; instead, it normalized. In groceries stores, elderly ladies and hip twentysomethings alike scrutinize the wine shelves. At many Tokyo izakaya pubs, diners can opt for a glass of house wine with their sashimi, odenor...
BUSINESS
Jun 4, 2002

Despite heavy resistance, change is in the air

The reformist administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is in a crisis as a result of strong resistance to the slogan of structural reforms with no safe haven, under which he formed his Cabinet in April 2001.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jun 2, 2002

Snobbery will not be permitted

Once upon a time, wine in Japan was a hushed affair, conducted with starched linens and stiff-backed chairs. Elusive first-growth Bordeaux and top Burgundy accompanied the tense, dutiful rituals of business negotiations. The mood was earnest; the cost high. It sometimes seemed as if the highly codified...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 16, 2002

Expansion in Japan unlikely

Dear Wayne Graczyk: I'm writing to express support for the move of the Nippon Ham Fighters to Sapporo. I think this would be good not just for the Fighters and the city of Sapporo, but for all of Japanese baseball.
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Apr 16, 2002

Careful with that tree, Eugene!

After months of teetering on the brink of full-blown silliness, World Cup organizers finally appear to have plunged into a vortex occupied by Teletubbies, giant talking tadpoles and Benny Hill lookalikes.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Apr 9, 2002

Where death stalks the forest, for man and beast

THE SUNDERBANS, India -- Sumitra Mondal felt uneasy from the moment her husband refused to eat a proper breakfast. Her spouse, Patiram, was a fisherman and they lived with their three children in a thatched mud hut in the Sunderbans, a vast mangrove swamp in eastern India. On that crisp December morning...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Mar 17, 2002

Favorites that come widely recommended

The information in this column usually covers the gamut of sake nomenclature, types and brewing methods, as well as culture, history and the occasional oddities. But beyond the single recommendation in each column, rarely does it address the question, "So, uh, what are the good sake? What should I be...
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Mar 10, 2002

Bartender, can you make that a double?

I was once asked to invent a list of bars with brief descriptions as part of an April Fool's joke for a magazine. In fact, one of the bars I included did (and still does) exist. But it was one I had not been able to review, because the master refuses publicity in order to maintain exclusivity. So I gave...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 30, 2002

The Dismemberment Plan

In addition to the usual semi-coherent tour diary and merchandising gambits, The Dismemberment Plan's Web site contains a list of the 10 greatest songs of all time that, apparently, changes on occasion. Though the idea of such a mutable list is seemingly contradictory, it sums up the aesthetic of the...
BUSINESS
Dec 20, 2001

Wary foreign investors shunning Indonesia

JAKARTA -- Foreign investment in Indonesia has been locked in a downward spiral. Despite optimism at the appointment of the current government, the country has barely been able to attract capital from outside. The terror attack against the United Stated on Sept. 11 only partly explains the negative sentiment....
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Nov 30, 2001

Kids get down to classroom clean-ups

A few weeks before my son started first grade, I asked my friend Nagako to help me read the list of school supplies I needed to buy.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 16, 2001

64 ballplayers qualify for free agency

Yomiuri Giants infielder Kazuhiro Kiyohara and Seibu Lions catcher Tsutomu Ito are among 64 players who have qualified for free agency this season, according to a list released Sunday by the commissioner's office.
BUSINESS
Sep 7, 2001

Toyota Motor named earnings king for 2000

Toyota Motor Corp. retained its status as top earner of taxable income for the second year in a row in fiscal 2000, according to rankings of the top 50 corporate earners released Thursday by the national taxation authority.
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2001

State to prioritize targets of Koizumi's reforms

The government decided Monday to compile a list of priority items under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's structural reform program, government officials said.
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2001

Seoul bars Japanese accused of atrocities during colonial rule

Compiled from wire reports SEOUL -- The South Korean government imposed a permanent entry ban Friday on 25 Japanese accused of civilian massacres and abuses during Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
BUSINESS
Aug 14, 2001

An 'A' for Failure

By Mark McCormack A visit to an Ivy League college to attend the graduation of his son bore an unexpected dividend for one of our agents. He was so taken by one of the speakers, a mathematics professor, that he approached him afterward about doing a book. It was an excellent example of maximizing the...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 10, 2001

Publishing still in a slump; DaVinci stays popular with young

Last month, the National Tax agency made its annual announcement of those paying more than 10 million yen in income tax and, as always, the list reflected major trends of the times.
JAPAN
May 30, 2001

Tanaka listed as richest of Cabinet's 17 ministers

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka tops a list ranking the personal assets of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his 17 Cabinet ministers, measured when the Cabinet was established April 26.
JAPAN
May 17, 2001

Softbank chief No. 3 taxpayer

Softbank Corp. President Masayoshi Son ranked as Japan's third-largest individual taxpayer in 2000, up from 16th in 1999, the National Tax Administration said Wednesday in an annual report listing the top 100 taxpayers.
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2001

Endocrine disrupter check widened

The Environment Ministry on Wednesday added four more substances to a priority list of agents that are being studied to determine the risks they pose as endocrine disrupters, ministry officials said.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

Potholes on the road to preservation in China

China's former communist radicals and today's capitalist developers appear, in some respects, to have much in common. During the Cultural Revolution, with its almost visceral hatred of tradition, Red Guards were instructed to destroy anything "bourgeois," or tainted by the past. A decade earlier, Chairman...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2001

In Thailand, good losers teach a key lesson

SISAKET, Thailand -- "If the counting is fair, losers must accept the results," said Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, trying to calm down an anxious nation as rioting spread to over a dozen provinces in the wake of national elections Jan. 6. Having just lost the premiership as his party was trounced...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami