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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2004

Chinese benefits for Japan, Hong Kong

In Japan, as in Hong Kong, there is a real sense of economic revival taking shape. Such optimism in Hong Kong is fueled by the growth in the flow of people, funds and goods and services between Hong Kong, the mainland and Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 21, 2004

Toyota freshens image, goes after younger drivers

With video games, baby strollers and manicure kits to welcome visitors, dealers at a Toyota showroom in suburban Tokyo are working to convince buyers that today's models have nothing to do with their parents' boring old cars.
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2004

Is the Senkaku row about nationalism -- or oil?

The Senkaku Islands are a group of rocky, deserted islets in the East China Sea that are known as a home for albatrosses.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2004

Mr. Bush sets his sights on Mars

For as long as humankind has been capable of wonder, men and women have looked to the stars and dreamed. For centuries, they had to be content with just that. Only a mere half century ago, we first escaped the Earth's atmosphere; a decade later an American astronaut lowered himself to the lunar surface....
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2003

205 oil tanks damaged in Hokkaido earthquakes

A government-affiliated organization that checks the safety of storage tanks has found that more than half of the 395 large outdoor oil tanks in and near Tomakomai, Hokkaido, were damaged in the late September quakes that sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the city.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 16, 2003

Political intrigue and mystery imagined in present and past

THE THIRD WORLD WAR: A Terrifying Novel of Global Conflict, by Humphrey Hawksley. London: Pan Books, 2003, 514 pp., £6.99 (paper). THE HELL SCREEN, by I.J. Parker. New York: St. Martin's Minotaur, 2003, 338 pp., $24.95, (cloth). Long before Dec. 7, 1941, at least three novels -- the earliest published...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2003

APEC future rests on political relevancy

SEOUL -- Another APEC summit has come and gone but has anything really changed? The question that needs to be asked is whether the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is still relevant? No one attending the recent APEC summit in Bangkok really wanted to leave -- especially after the magnificence...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 30, 2003

Style trumps substance in Bangkok

BANGKOK -- The appearance of the 21 leaders of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in their handmade shiny silk shirts said a lot about this year's summit in Bangkok -- style over substance.
COMMENTARY
Oct 20, 2003

ASEAN further devalued itself at summit

HONG KONG -- It is almost impossible to see the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' ninth summit in Bali earlier this month as having regenerated the regional body, even though that was the objective asserted by the participants.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2003

It's time for Japan to stake wind power claim: advocate

A favorable wind is blowing for renewable energy these days amid mounting environmental concerns and fears of over-reliance on exhaustible fuels.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2003

Hospital network planned to combat cancer scourge

The government said Friday it will establish a nationwide network of hospitals to treat cancer as a step toward upgrading the nation's medical infrastructure.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2003

METI pushes more robust framework on greenhouse gases

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry released an interim report Friday on global warming, calling for a new framework that covers the majority of ozone-depleting greenhouse gas emissions.
BUSINESS
Jul 19, 2003

Execs call for political manifestos

KARUIZAWA, Nagano Pref. -- Business executives called Friday on the nation's political parties to show voters their manifestos so that they can compete on the basis of concrete policy goals in the next general election.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 13, 2003

Opportunity knocks for women in Japan's climate of change

With the days of the Asian Tigers long gone, and Japan Inc. now more of a pussy cat gone belly up, the talk is no longer about the world's second-biggest economy taking over the world, but about the profound structural changes that will be necessary just to keep it afloat.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2003

Asia's future leaders take center stage

SEOUL -- "If you've got it," as the saying goes, "flaunt it!" And Asia's "New Leaders" have got "the right stuff" in spades. But what to do with it?
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2003

Number of people over 75 topped 10 million in 2002

The number of people aged 75 and older topped 10 million for the first time last year in another sign Japanese society is steadily aging, the government said Tuesday in an annual report.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2003

Breakwalls against U.S. tide

SINGAPORE — Big-power rapprochement was high on the agenda in both St. Petersburg, Russia, and Evian, France, this past week a month after U.S. President George W. Bush declared victory in Iraq aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. But how does this rapprochement mesh with perceived American unilateralism?...
COMMENTARY
May 26, 2003

French reforms under fire

PARIS -- Six weeks ago, his strong opposition to the war in Iraq won French President Jacques Chirac overwhelming support in the polls. Today he has been forced to turn away from the international scene and face a rapidly developing social crisis centered on pension and education reforms.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2003

ASEAN counting on China

SINGAPORE -- As the third generation of Chinese leaders since 1949 hands power over to the fourth, Southeast Asia and the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are following the landmark political transition with keen interest. What does ASEAN expect from the transition?
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2003

Fuel-cell cars now have a place to fill up

Fuel-cell vehicles took a short drive closer to the garage on Wednesday with the opening of a showroom and filling station for experimental FCVs in Yokohama's Tsurumi Ward.
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2003

WHO clears the air

There are more than 1 billion smokers worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that the number of people dying each year from cancer, cardiovascular disease and other smoking-related conditions has reached 4.9 million a year -- up from 4 million deaths a year when negotiations began on a treaty...
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2003

Group urges sales tax hike, public works cuts

The government should hike the sales tax and cut public spending over the next eight years in an attempt to balance the national budget, an influential business organization said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2003

Kepco looks at Wakayama for spent nuclear fuel storage

OSAKA -- Kansai Electric Power Co. may construct an interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Gobo, Wakayama Prefecture, using land earmarked for a thermoelectric plant, it was learned Friday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 19, 2002

Mr. Hu at the pinnacle of power

Now that the Chinese Communist Party has completed a smooth leadership transition, the world is watching how Mr. Hu Jintao, the new party chief, will navigate his one-party socialist state of 1.3 billion people through the treacherous waters of globalization. Predicting his future course is complicated...
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2002

In pursuit of terrorists and oil

NEW DELHI -- U.S. President George W. Bush is taking a big gamble with his single-minded mission to get rid of a toothless but unsavory dictator, who, far from being a menace to U.S. security, is not a threat even to his neighbors. Bush, who accuses Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein of being "a homicidal...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2002

Exactly when does old age really begin?

"Put simply, we are having fewer children and living longer," says Michelle Gunn, an Australian journalist and social-affairs writer. Our time is undeniably the age of longevity.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2002

Depressive points the way out of the gloom

For 10 years, Rei Ueno, 40, worked hard as a freelance writer. He took on almost every job that came to him. It was not unusual for him to make it home after midnight -- he also played hard.

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