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COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

A potter's journey

The late potter Michiaki Kaneshige said that even though he grew up in an ancient potting family, he never fully understood the value of Japanese culture until he left these shores.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Comic ambassadors

A rather naive man decides to nip off to Hokkaido to enjoy the Sapporo Snow Festival without booking a place to stay. Wandering the snowy streets, he eventually comes across a solution to his problem -- a love hotel.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 14, 2001

Red Army daughter seeks to set record straight

"My parents named me after the month of a certain political action," explains May Shigenobu. "But in Japanese I am known as Mei, which means 'life.' " The specific political operation to which she is referring? The bombing by Japanese leftwing radicals of Lod Airport in Tel Aviv on May 30, 1972.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 12, 2001

Is the world prepared to deal with the global economic downturn?

Economic policymakers must stand ready to take timely and decisive actions when incoming information suggests that the economy is most likely to significantly deviate from the targeted course for a sustained period. And in the uncertain world in which we live, they have to deal with both upside and downside...
MORE SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 12, 2001

New dawn for Mukai and his merry men

In 1999, the year of the last Rugby World Cup, Japan won the Pacific Rim Championship, recording a 37-34 victory over Samoa along the way. At the time many thought the victory marked the re-birth of Japanese rugby, and there was talk of Japan reaching the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Sadly, that was...
MORE SPORTS
Jul 10, 2001

Fiji captures Pacific Rim rugby title

Fiji's rugby team showed that any internal problems were behind it, when it beat Samoa 28-17, in the final of the Pacific Rim Championship on Sunday at Tokyo's Chichibunomiya Stadium.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 8, 2001

Fashioning jewels of enlightenment

KATMANDU -- Suman Ratna Dhakawa spills a tray of rings onto a bench and runs his fingers through the mass of metal as if it were a liquid. "My family all have been jewelry-makers, craftsmen or artists," says Dhakawa. "I have jewelry-making in my blood."
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2001

The Japanese Constitution gets a provocative look

FIVE DECADES OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN JAPANESE SOCIETY, edited by Yoshio Higuchi. University of Tokyo Press, 2001, 368 pp., 8,000 yen. A major stumbling block for Japan on its road to becoming a more influential member of the global community has been a profound absence of voice. Japanese politicians,...
MORE SPORTS
Jul 6, 2001

Fiji, Samoa to contest rugby final

Fiji and its Pacific rival Samoa will play the final of the Epsom Cup/Pacific Rim rugby championship following victories in their respective semifinals at Tokyo Stadium on Wednesday. Fiji won the first game, overcoming Canada 52-23, while Samoa beat host Japan 47-8, to move both island sides into the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2001

Life improving for Russian residents of the disputed Northern Territories

KURILSK, Russia -- After a time of neglect, the federal and local government are investing more in the economy of the Southern Kurils -- a group of disputed islands governed by Russia but also claimed by Japan. As the life of the islanders is gradually improving, they are less likely to agree to transferring...
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2001

A candid meeting at Camp David

There was something refreshing about the Japan-U.S. summit last weekend between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush -- not only because of the way in which the U.S. managed the meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland, but also because, more importantly,...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 1, 2001

Nakasone as No. 1 reformer

JAPANESE EDUCATION REFORM: Nakasone's Legacy, by Christopher P. Hood. London and New York: Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge, 2001. 222 pp., 50 UK pounds (cloth). When neoconservatism was riding high, a leftwing cartoonist drew a pastiche of Edward Hopper's famous painting of a sad roadside...
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2001

Mbeki to get invitation for October visit

Reflecting a recent foreign-policy focus on Africa, Japan plans to invite South African President Thabo Mbeki as a state guest in early October, government sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2001

Summit eyed as launchpad for fresh ties

With Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's first summit with U.S. President George W. Bush to be held Saturday outside Washington D.C., Japan hopes to set in motion full-scale efforts to build fresh ties under the new U.S. administration.
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2001

Firms must pick and choose when pursuing western ways

As Japanese firms seek to adopt more elements of western-style business management practices and ideas, pressure appears to be mounting on corporate executives to increase shareholder value.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 28, 2001

Tuffy enjoying a hair-raising season

It's Opening Day 1994 at venerable Wrigley Field in Chicago. You're playing for the hometown Cubs and facing Dwight Gooden of the New York Mets, one of the premier power pitchers in Major League Baseball. By the end of the day, you'll have have homered in your first three at-bats of the season and added...
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2001

Cuban dancer teaches salsa to promote cultural exchange

Swinging in from half a world away, Alberto Romay, a Cuban dance instructor based in Tokyo, is bringing a taste of the Caribbean country's culture closer to the people of Japan.
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2001

Another blast from Mr. Bix

To more than 80 percent of Japanese voters, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi looks like a populist reformer. But to the American winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, Koizumi is a "rightwing nationalist."
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2001

Textbook criticism on target

China and South Korea are demanding revisions in Japanese history textbooks approved by the government for use at middle schools, arguing that they contain distortions of facts. In making the demands, China singled out a textbook compiled by the Society for History Textbook Reform; South Korea directed...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 24, 2001

When reason became treason in China

JAPAN'S IMPERIAL DIPLOMACY: Consuls, Treaty Ports and War in China 1895-1938, by Barbara Brooks. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 2000, 272 pp., $55. Why did Japan suddenly lurch from being a good international citizen in the 1920s to becoming a regional rogue in the 1930s? Usually Japan's Asian...
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2001

Hiranuma says China broke rules

Beijing's decision to impose 100 percent special duties on three products imported from Japan is against bilateral and multilateral trade rules, trade chief Takeo Hiranuma said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2001

Chongryon head wants to reach youth, offers olive branch to Mindan

The new head of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), a pro-Pyongyang group, says the association sees the need to adapt to the demands of the younger generation and is ready to promote exchanges with the pro-Seoul Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan).
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2001

Multinational historians address East Asia

A group of historians from Japan, China and South Korea has been seeking a common stance on the region's history in the wake of controversy over recently approved Japanese history textbooks that some say justify Japan's wartime aggression.
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2001

Past still weighs heavily today

LONDON -- Those of us who were involved in the Pacific War look with suspicion and a tinge of fear at manifestations of Japanese nationalism, especially if it has ethnic or militarist overtones.
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jun 22, 2001

Surviving to write about the JET program

When Englishman David Chandler arrived in Japan in 1995 he never imagined he'd publish an award-winning book. Neither did he foresee that one day he would be sitting in the office of Japan's prime minister discussing his JET experience.
JAPAN / OF SOUND MIND
Jun 22, 2001

Ikeda massacre puts judicial psychiatry in spotlight

The June 8 killing of eight children by a knife-wielding man at an Osaka elementary school has inevitably rekindled the old debate about whether — and how much — judicial authorities should be able to intervene when dealing with mental patients accused of committing serious crimes.
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2001

Mrs. Tanaka passes her first test

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka's first official trip to Washington has ended with a measure of success. In a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, reportedly held in a friendly atmosphere, she reaffirmed the importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance and exchanged views on missile defense and...

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