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JAPAN
Mar 24, 2003

Forum closes with vows to prioritize water issues

KYOTO -- The 3rd World Water Forum closed Sunday with a declaration promising to make water issues a top priority among governments but failing to narrow the gap on the issue of privatizing water supplies and sanitation services.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2003

Kyoto water forum opens amid internal wrangling

KYOTO -- A two-day meeting of ministers from 170 countries opened Saturday in Kyoto at the World Water Forum, with delegates making firm promises to deal with the world's water crisis.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2003

Ethnic schools hit extra test rule

Officials of schools for foreign residents urged the education ministry Friday to allow their students to take university entrance exams without having to pass a separate qualifying test.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2003

Japan agrees with conclusion drawn by U.N. inspectors

Japan agrees with the conclusion of the United Nations inspectors that Iraq has failed to cooperate sufficiently with their probe into its suspected weapons of mass destruction program.
COMMENTARY
Dec 30, 2002

Missiles challenge diplomac

Defense chief Shigeru Ishiba's rash remarks regarding a joint Japan-U.S. missile defense project deviate from Tokyo's official defense policy and could give the impression that Japan is advancing the bilateral initiative beyond research to the development stage.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Capturing today's relevant aspirations

On Oct. 8 I wrote about the second report by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, published Sept. 23, on reforming the U.N. An important innovation in this report (Chapter Two entitled "Doing What Matters") is that it actually tackles the substantive agenda of the organization's work program....
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 22, 2002

Time to change, or find another planet

First of two parts Next week, tens of thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, activists and policy analysts will descend on Johannesburg, South Africa, for the largest conference in human history: the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2002

Isle faces other uses after '08 Olympics rejection

OSAKA -- A report issued Friday by the city of Osaka advocates turning Maishima, a man-made island off Osaka that was the centerpiece of the city's failed bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, into a business, academic and recreation center.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2002

Diagnostic options seen skewed by dearth of autopsies, probes

Recent controversy over a diagnosis of sudden infant death syndrome has exposed deep-rooted divisions among Japan's SIDS researchers.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 11, 2002

Who's winning the 'coca war'?

LA PAZ, Bolivia — On a hot December afternoon last year, 150 farmers in Chimore, a town in the Chapare region of central Bolivia, unloaded bananas and pineapples onto the Santa Cruz-Cochabamba highway. There was no market in sight and even if there was, the goods were not for sale. Rather, they were...
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2001

Panel threatens NTT with splitup

An advisory panel to the telecommunications minister said that Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. should be reorganized or split up if steps to promote competition in the telecom market fail.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2001

JAL reports plunge in interim profits, sees red for full year

Japan Airlines Co. said Thursday that the Sept. 11 terror attacks caused its interim net profit to plunge 61.3 percent to 16.4 billion yen and may lead the group into the red by the end of fiscal 2001.
BUSINESS
Sep 5, 2001

Ota flies Kansai privatization kite

OSAKA -- Osaka Gov. Fusae Ota said Tuesday the operator of Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture could be fully privatized, either on its own or via a merger with another corporation.
BUSINESS
Jun 20, 2001

Nation must be aggressive on patents, white paper says

Japan must devise an aggressive strategy to obtain patents abroad so the nation's inventions can be recognized internationally, according to a government white paper released Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2001

Major banks' dud loans soar 1.7 trillion yen

The combined balance of the 16 major banks' bad loans, classified as requiring "special attention" for recovery, soared by 1.73 trillion yen in fiscal 2000 to 6.3 trillion yen, according to a Financial Services Agency report released Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2001

Koreans' dream of unity is still remote

SEOUL -- In less than a month, Koreans will commemorate the first anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit. In mid-June last year, the leaders of the divided country met for the first time and vowed to open a new chapter in peninsular relations. Numerous political and academic events will take...
BUSINESS
Apr 24, 2001

Japan in quandary over Iran rail project

After several years of warming and rapidly advancing relations, Japan and Iran may be at a crossroads once again.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2001

Bush may not be wrong to reject Kyoto

U.S. President George W. Bush has announced his opposition to an international global-warming treaty, citing the harm it could do the U.S. economy and the costs it would impose upon its workers. Predictably, this decision not to pursue approval of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change generated a firestorm...
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

LDP panel pushes for collective defense

A panel of the Liberal Democratic Party called Friday for a change in government's interpretation of the Constitution so that Japan can engage in collective defense to reinforce its alliance with the United States in the Asia-Pacific region.
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2001

The IOC gets down to business

The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to select the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics at a Moscow general meeting in July, according to the IOC rule that says selection should be made seven years before the summer or winter games are held. To collect the necessary data, the committee...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 21, 2001

Tiny birds and dwindling treasure

BANGKOK -- Imagine for a moment that you are an edible-nest swiftlet. You are a dusky bird, tiny enough to fit in the palm of a hand. In southern Thailand, where you live, you soar above the turquoise waters and jungle-clad islands of the Andaman Sea. You build your nests inside island caves hidden by...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 1, 2001

New opportunities for Japan-U.S. ties

The administration of U.S. President-elect George W. Bush will include many pro-Japanese officials. This reflects U.S. political history. Many officials of President Bill Clinton's administration had served under President Jimmy Carter, who came to power 12 years earlier. For example, former Secretary...
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2000

Easier entry to Japan urged for participants in big events

An advisory panel to the Transport Ministry on Friday urged the government to introduce a "preclearance" system for customs, immigration and quarantine procedures for foreign participants in major international events, such as the planned soccer World Cup in 2002.
COMMUNITY
Nov 19, 2000

Abuse rife in culture with no rights for kids

Newly arrived and living on a "danchi" estate in 1986, I would often hear the heart-rending cries of small children standing outside in the cold and darkness pleading to be let back into their homes. In the West, the worst form of punishment is to be grounded. In Japan, it is the opposite, with children...
EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2000

Dreaming of a better world

It is tempting to dismiss this week's Millennium Summit at the United Nations as pure hype. After all, it declared its aim was the eradication of poverty and war in the 21st century. Good luck. Yet, if the U.N. and its members do not hold such ambitions, then there is very little hope for our world in...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes