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BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2002

Highway firm's income from tolls shrank in '01

Japan Highway Public Corp. recorded an actual decline in expressway toll income for fiscal 2001, the first fall in four years, officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 7, 2002

USJ's problems may stem from a cultural divide

OSAKA -- The Universal Studios Japan theme park is in the throes of a cultural divide over the handling of negative publicity generated by a recent slew of scandals, with some local media outlets accusing American officials of dodging the issue.
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2002

Battered Nikkei dips to 9,439

Tokyo stocks finished lower Tuesday for the fifth straight day amid concern over the U.S. economy, with the key Nikkei index temporarily falling below 9,500 for the first time since early February and close to an 18-year-low.
BUSINESS
Aug 6, 2002

Professor champions cause of small manufacturers

Small and midsize manufacturers don't make for as flashy headlines as giants like Sony and Toyota. They are sometimes even collectively considered a symbol of a debt-laden Japan Inc.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2002

Maestro hopes to energize, inspire, connect with Asian youths on tour

Bright Sheng has just finished a 3-hour rehearsal with the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hong Kong. You can detect a hint of tiredness in his voice, but it's overlaid with a definite tone of achievement, and excitement even, for what lies ahead.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2002

Christians, Muslims seek peace in Kyoto

KYOTO -- Muslim and Christian religious leaders from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States agreed Sunday in Kyoto to explore ways to ease tensions that have been on the rise since the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. last year. They intend to expand on lessons learned in the Bosnian conflict.
COMMENTARY
Aug 5, 2002

Virtues that bolster China

I traveled to China July 11-16 to deliver a lecture at a congress of econometrics at Jilin University. It was my first visit to China in three years.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 5, 2002

Failure to cap deposit insurance means banking system will fester

Starting in April 2003, the government will no longer protect deposits when banks fail and instead introduce a "payoff" scheme offering partial protection of up to 10 million yen per depositor per bank.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2002

Drug deals fund Pyongyang: agent

A former high-ranking North Korean intelligence agent who sought refuge in Japan a few years ago claims that drug smuggling is an important source of foreign currency for Pyongyang, a Japanese daily reported Saturday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 4, 2002

The world according to a certified oddball

Once you finally know them, most people are . . . nice. A rosy sentiment paraphrased from Atticus Finch in the fiction classic "To Kill a Mockingbird." Words I now twist to match my own barbed view of life in Japan.
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Aug 4, 2002

For a little taste of home that's not from home

There are three smells that I associate with summer in Japan: the scent of katorisenko — the green, spiral-shaped incense that is used to ward off pesky mosquitoes; the sweet-sticky smell of the colored syrup in seasonal kaki-gori shaved-ice shops; and the odors of yatai outdoor food stalls — especially...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Aug 4, 2002

The sweet, soft option

Fukuoka sake, in general, hovers just below the surface of mass attention. You don't hear about it too much, and it doesn't have an image of overall style in the minds of most folks. But this belies its historical significance and, more importantly, ignores the fact that great sake can be found in Fukuoka....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 4, 2002

Shock of the new: modernism as a cultural force

TOPOGRAPHIES OF JAPANESE MODERNISM. By Seiji M. Lippit. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, 301 pp., $22.50 (paper) Among the many results of the 19th-century "opening" of Japan to the West was a truly massive internalization of foreign culture, one which is now so advanced that concepts such...
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2002

JNOC poised to start operating gas-to-liquid plant

The government-run Japan National Oil Corp. said Friday it and five companies will start operating this month a gas-to-liquids pilot plant in Tomakomai, Hokkaido.
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2002

Report cites 'age of anxiety' triggered by Sept. 11 attacks

In response to last year's terrorist attacks against the United States, the government's annual defense white paper, released Friday, emphasizes the unstable international security situation and the importance of the Self-Defense Forces in dealing with new types of threats.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Aug 3, 2002

Solstice weekend under the fog; Camping with the aliens

I knew it was going to be an interesting weekend the moment my press armband arrived in the mail marked No. 13, though I'm not superstitious enough to turn my back on an event like the Solstice Music Festival.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2002

Keeping up with family weddings around world

Betty Glover from Perth, Australia, cannot walk too easily these days. This does not stop her from traveling however. Assisted by daughter Mo (Maureen) and son-in-law Deg (Derek), she is just coming to the end of a two-month trip to the U.K. and -- a bit of a surprise this one! -- Japan.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2002

Monetary base up 25.1% in July

Japan's monetary base rose 25.1 percent from a year earlier to 86.08 trillion yen in July, marking the 18th consecutive month of expansion, the Bank of Japan said in a report released Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 3, 2002

Hema Parekh

At her family home in Bombay, as part of her religion Hema Parekh was taught "never to take away another's right to life." That meant she lived as a vegetarian.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2002

New car, truck, bus sales off 5.8% for July

Sales of new cars, trucks and buses in July fell 5.8 percent from the same month in 2001 to 367,902 units, marking the 11th consecutive month of decline, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2002

North Korean agent sought in abduction

Tokyo police obtained an arrest warrant Thursday for a North Korean agent who is suspected of acquiring a Japanese passport by pretending to be an Osaka man he abducted and spirited away to North Korea in 1980, police sources said.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 1, 2002

'Rami' has Swallows fans squealing with delight

Call him the Shigeki Maruyama of Japanese baseball, with a little Tony Robbins thrown in for good measure.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 1, 2002

A camphor by any other name

Growing among the the laurel-dominated evergreen forests of central and southern Japan is a tree with a host of names and a host of uses.
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 1, 2002

Tokyo's paradise isle under threat

Mikura Island in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo is a spectacular natural paradise known the world over for its community of bottlenose dolphins, estimated to be almost as numerous as the island's 240 inhabitants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 31, 2002

New and improved Pops!

How can anyone market one of the world's great orchestras in an era when orchestral music is growing ever less essential to the cultural fabric and the recording industry itself is ailing?
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2002

Attack-response law dead in the water?

When the government submitted a set of emergency-response bills to the Diet in April, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was breaking a decades-long taboo under the war-renouncing Constitution.

Longform

"Shake hands with Lima-chan," a statue that shares the name of the Peruvian capital looks in the direction of Peru, where a sister statue, "Sakura-chan," is located. Erected in Yokohama's Rinko Park in 1999, it commemorates Peruvian-Japanese friendship.
The journey of Peru’s Nikkei: Finding identity in Japan