Search - japan

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Oct 4, 2002

Finding inner silence in the shamisen

When Catriona Sturton first arrived in Japan in August 2000, she knew very little about Japan or its culture. Little did the 24-year-old assistant language teacher know that she would become a skilled shamisen player. But that is exactly what happened -- her musical performances were recently broadcast...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 4, 2002

Foreigner crime stats cover up a real cop-out

The National Police Agency recently announced that the number of crimes committed by foreigners on temporary visas jumped by 25.8 percent.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 3, 2002

Hewitt whips Chang to ease into third round

For many who dream of playing professional tennis without the height to rack up aces like Goran Ivanisevic or the serve-and-volley game to dominate like Pete Sampras did in the '90s, the 175-cm Michael Chang has been a huge inspiration.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 30, 2002

Great Tokyo Air Raid was a war crime

On Dec. 7, 1964, the Japanese government conferred the First Order of Merit with the Grand Cordon of the Rising Sun upon Gen. Curtis LeMay -- yes, the same general who, less than 20 years earlier, had incinerated "well over half a million Japanese civilians, perhaps nearly a million."
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2002

Photos, information released on latest group of war orphans

The government released on Friday photographs of and information about six newly recognized war-displaced Japanese left behind in China in the closing days of World War II.
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2002

Doctors import banned drug thalidomide through loophole

Some doctors in Japan are using the banned drug thalidomide to treat cancer and other illnesses, according to a survey conducted by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2002

Canada program offers help to isolated parents

A group of child-care experts is offering help to mothers in Japan via a Canadian parent-education program aimed at building self-esteem and creating a supportive network of friends, families and experts.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2002

Fact-finding mission to track abductees in North Korea

The government will send a fact-finding mission to North Korea for four days beginning Saturday to gather information on Japanese nationals abducted to the Stalinist state.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL
Sep 26, 2002

Trees that tower over the past and present

An visitor to Kyoto's world-famous gardens and temples could not fail to be awed by the stands and avenues of towering Kitayama sugi (Japanese red cedar, or peacock pine; Cryptomeria japonica).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2002

U.K. comic is drawn eastward once again

As a lad in Liverpool, comedian Simon Bligh knew it was just a matter of time before he'd end up in Japan. Even the most English of culinary treats was being subjected to Orientation, drawing him Eastward.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 25, 2002

Supreme Court upholds ban on book

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court decision to halt the publication of a novella, marking the first time in postwar Japan that the top court has endorsed such an action in a libel suit.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 25, 2002

Abduction ordered via radio

One night in June 1980, Radio Pyongyang broadcast an apparently random five-digit number -- 29627.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 25, 2002

Printers who made an impression

LONDON -- In 1945, as the Japanese contemplated defeat, devastation and occupation by a foreign power for the first time, the future must have seemed bleak and uncertain. But along with the terrible toll on life and property, the war years damaged Japanese society in ways that were harder to see.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Sep 23, 2002

Youth must lead creative destruction

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The turn of the century is an important opportunity to engage in questioning and re-evaluating some of the global community's basic tenets, assumptions, policies and directions. On these matters we are being well-served by some excellent books.
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2002

Label that foils compromise

Sept. 11, 2002, brought us no closer to sensible thinking about the causes of events a year earlier. The United States concentrated on its own sufferings, and plans for revenge against "terrorists." In Japan, a high-level NHK roundtable dragged out that favorite of aid agencies seeking bigger budgets,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 22, 2002

Pecs, posing and living sculpture

"The main thing I want people to understand is that bodybuilding is the real thing. Bodybuilders are doing what all athletes are doing -- dieting, working out. There are no secrets to it. But, if all people see is a bunch of oiled, near-naked guys striking poses up on stage, they're going to think it's...
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...
BUSINESS
Sep 21, 2002

Government will draft new measures in October to cull bad loans: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday the government will devise measures next month to accelerate the disposal of nonperforming loans held by the nation's financial institutions.
BUSINESS
Sep 21, 2002

Inose slams road entity, private firm links

About 700 firms that have hired retired officials from Japan Highway Public Corp. received annual orders totaling more than 1 trillion yen from four road-related semigovernmental bodies in each of the past five years, it was learned Friday.
EDITORIALS
Sep 20, 2002

Following up the Pyongyang summit

North Korea's acknowledgment of its involvement in the kidnappings of Japanese nationals marks a major milestone in the off-and-on normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang that began in 1991. With the negotiations resuming next month, following Tuesday's summit agreement between Prime Minister...
Japan Times
JAPAN / BABY BUST
Sep 20, 2002

Education costs seen adding fuel to fall in birthrate

At age 4, Mari takes swimming, gymnastics, drawing and English-conversation classes. And that's after kindergarten.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2002

Abductees' families kept in dark

North Korea gave Japan the dates eight of its abducted nationals died, but the Foreign Ministry withheld the information from the next of kin until it was reported in a newspaper, government officials said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Sep 20, 2002

Koizumi backs BOJ bad-loan disposal measures

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday the government will take every possible measure in cooperation with the Bank of Japan to accelerate the disposal of nonperforming loans and prevent a financial crisis.
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 19, 2002

BOJ eyes unprecedented purchase of stocks from ailing banks

In a surprise break with market principles, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday that it is considering purchasing stocks held by the nation's most troubled banks, effectively bolstering their financial standing and stock prices at its own expense.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2002

Send abductees home before talks: Tokyo

The government wants the surviving Japanese who were kidnapped by North Korea to return to Japan before it resumes diplomatic normalization talks with the Stalinist state next month, officials said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2002

Yuki Ogura: The other side of modern

Visitors to the current exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo might be excused for thinking they'd been misled. Instead of encountering a display of works expressing the essence of 20th-century Japanese art, perchance, or the challenge of assimilating Western artistic techniques, this...
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2002

Comic book on Hiroshima A-bombing translated into Korean

OSAKA -- A Korean translation of "Hadashi no Gen" ("Barefoot Gen"), a long Japanese comic book about the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima, has been completed by a lecturer at Kinki University in Osaka.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb