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COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2002

Jiang's 'thought' deified in his own time

HONG KONG -- The constitution of China's Communist Party, revised at the recent 16th Party Congress, elevates President Jiang Zemin to virtually the same level as that of party founder Mao Zedong and the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. Each is identified as "chief representative" of the Communists...
Japan Times
JAPAN / THROUGH THE DOOR
Nov 27, 2002

Education for some refugees is ray of hope

The men in uniform white shirts and dark shorts sitting in the classroom looked too old to be junior high school students; some had gray hair, close-cropped.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THROUGH THE DOOR
Nov 26, 2002

Japan tries to reform refugee system

Japan has often been criticized for closing its doors to asylum seekers. Following the high-profile incident in May at the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, China, in which Japanese officials let Chinese police take a family of North Korean asylum seekers out of the compound, the government has...
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2002

Tiny gain seen in gender equality

One in four members of national government councils and boards as of the end of September were women, a slight increase of 0.3 percentage point from the same period last year, according to a survey by the Cabinet Office's Gender Equality Bureau released Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2002

Koizumi pushes hard for additional tax cuts

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday instructed the Cabinet to start work on the specifics of a supplementary budget for fiscal 2002 and pushed for further tax cuts to revitalize the economy.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 23, 2002

Angela Bilbao de Infante

Next year, the International Ladies Benevolent Society will celebrate its 50th anniversary of nonstop, wholehearted, generous help to charitable organizations and people in need in Japan. A continuing, major fundraising event is the annual Christmas Fair. This year's chairwoman for the fair is Angela...
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2002

Science grads shift to service sector

The service sector, especially software industries, became the largest employer of university science and technology graduates last spring, overtaking manufacturing, according to the National Institute of Science and Technology Policy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Nov 21, 2002

Marriage of East and West

About a kilometer south of Oji in Tokyo's present-day Kita Ward, there used to be a pond called Naga-ike, from which a small river ran southeast about 6 km to feed Shinobazu Pond in Ueno. Named the Yata, the short but abundant flow was usefully exploited to support horticulture and rice-farming in its...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2002

State seeks job opportunities for youngsters

The government urged business leaders Tuesday to boost employment opportunities for high school graduates and other juveniles who find it increasingly difficult to find jobs.
BASEBALL / MLB
Nov 20, 2002

Giambi sees big things ahead for 'Godzilla'

As hard as it is to imagine a Japanese ballplayer batting in the heart of the order for the New York Yankees, Jason Giambi won't second-guess Hideki Matsui's potential.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 20, 2002

The dangerous art of living quietly

Oriza Hirata's 1995 Kishida Drama Award-winning "Tokyo Notes" opened in Japan for the first time in four years Sunday, after touring overseas to critical acclaim. Now being staged at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Kinshicho by Seinendan, the company Hirata founded in 1983, this portrait of...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Nov 17, 2002

Despite years of experience, nature still fascinates weaver

KYOTO -- Fukumi Shimura has been weaving kimono from naturally dyed thread for 47 years, but she is continually surprised by the mysteries of nature.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2002

Threads bared: Tokyo's Spring/Summer collections

Think Zen: the spirit of darkness; the essence of white. This was one of the main themes from Tokyo's fashion designers, who have just presented their Spring/Summer 2003 collections.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2002

Foreign students nearing 100,000

There were 95,550 foreign students in Japan as of May 1, up 21 percent from a year earlier, the education ministry said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 16, 2002

East meets West moves over for East meets East

While accepting that cultural exchange is hardly a new concept, Astrid (de los Rios) Nishimaki has her own very individual slant on the subject. "My aim is to bring Latin America, Arab countries and Japan closer together through the lingua franca of artists and creators."
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2002

Nuclear institute misused 1.5 million yen

Officials of the Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute misappropriated 1.5 million yen in funds in fiscal 2000 to cover unauthorized food and drink expenses, the state-run body said Friday.
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2002

Tsutaya operator has record first half

Culture Convenience Club Co., operator of the Tsutaya video rental chain, said Thursday it posted record earnings in the fiscal half, thanks to a robust growth in membership and the popularity of DVD movies.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language
Nov 15, 2002

Shinta Cho wins award

Children's book writer and illustrator Shinta Cho won the 2002 ExxonMobil Children's Culture Award on Tuesday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Nov 15, 2002

Perfectly at home with the local culture

Fame comes easy to Doug Brittain, a four-year resident of Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. Last August, the 28-year-old assistant language teacher became the grand champion in the island's annual Akadomari Sumo tournament.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Nov 14, 2002

Oooh no! There goes Tokyo!

Who can resist a game with a campy, self-effacing sense of humor? People like it in movies, and they like it in video games.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2002

Corporate whistle-blowers still left out in the cold

Prompted by a recent spate of corporate misdeeds, moves are afoot, albeit slowly, to provide legal protection for whistle-blowers.
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2002

Lower House approves legal education bills

The House of Representatives passed three bills Tuesday aimed at improving the educational system for legal professionals in a bid to increase both their quality and number.
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2002

Fading concern over HIV poses threat

Alarmed by a rapid surge in people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, health officials and experts say warnings about the importance of prevention are no longer being heard.
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2002

Disclosure of research poor: board

The Board of Audit has told a government-affiliated corporation distributing public subsidies to private schools that 31 universities did not sufficiently return to society the benefits of research made possible by a total of 2.1 billion yen in grants, corporation sources said Saturday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Nov 10, 2002

Balladeer does it in his own good time

If there are no second acts in American lives, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, for some musicians at least, there's a second take. After famed recording sessions in the late 1950s that made him popular, Jimmy Scott's unique vocal style was not heard again on a new recording for some 30 years. Then, in the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002

On a voyage to Ionia

THE INLAND SEA, by Donald Richie. Stone Bridge Press, 2002, 255 pp., $16.95 (paper) Since the publication in English of Yukio Mishima's 1954 romance novel, "The Sound of Waves," there has been a fondness for visualizing Japan's Inland Sea, with its islands of olives, oranges, sunburned fisherfolk and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 10, 2002

Getting up close with photojournalism

When a photojournalist sets out to document the human condition and aims the camera's lens at another person, he or she breaches the membrane of privacy that surrounds us all. It's a lot like joining in a dance -- but being (almost always) uninvited.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2002

Seoul reluctant to hold antipiracy talks

The South Korean counterpart of Japan's Cultural Affairs Agency is apparently reluctant to hold bilateral discussions over widespread product-piracy concerns in Asia, according to agency officials.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 6, 2002

Feminist charts no-woman's-land between peaceniks and the SDF

On Sept. 3 and 4 this year, soldiers at a Ground Self-Defense Force base in Kumamoto Prefecture in Kyushu were joined by an improbable guest: Japan's premier feminist and antiwar artist, Yoshiko Shimada.

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