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JAPAN
Jan 15, 2005

South Asia to get tsunami warning system

leader when it comes to predicting tsunamis based on simulations," Inoue said. According to Tatsuo Kuwayama, head of the Meteorological Agency's tsunami research section, 100,000 tsunami patterns have been calculated based on such things as magnitude and fault direction for earthquakes that could occur...
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2005

Bad options in Iraq

With elections scheduled to take place in less than three weeks, the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate. There are real doubts that a national vote can be held, a prospect that would seriously -- if not fatally -- undermine the legitimacy of the resulting government.
EDITORIALS
Jan 12, 2005

A permanent Security Council seat

Japanese diplomacy faces formidable challenges in 2005, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. With momentum building for reform of the United Nations, this will be a crucial year in Japan's bid for permanent membership on the powerful U.N. Security Council.
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 12, 2005

Blue skies over architectural utopias

The latest offering from the Mori Art Museum lives up to its big name: "Archilab: New Experiments in Architecture, Art and the City, 1950-2005." The first architecture exhibition at the Mori, this is a big show, ambitious in both scale and manner of presentation. Featuring drawings, videos and maquettes...
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2005

Now to work for Mr. Abbas

A s expected, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas has won elections to succeed Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Abbas is viewed as a moderate and a technocrat; there are widespread hopes that he will make genuine efforts to push for peace with Israel. If he does, he will be dealing with a newly...
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2005

Improving Japan's leverage

To promote national interest in diplomacy, it is essential to set goals, establish basic policies to achieve them and work out overall strategies, while keeping in mind the links between individual goals and between those of nations and regions. However, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi lacks such strategies....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2005

Finding succor in tragedy

WASHINGTON -- It is said that even the darkest cloud has a silver lining. So what positives could possibly be connected with the sorrowful destruction from Sumatra's tsunami? The catastrophe has shown us several things:
EDITORIALS
Jan 4, 2005

The year for the Middle East?

The year 2005 may herald a new era of hope for the Middle East. The death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has provided the opportunity for all parties to push with renewed vigor for a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Amazingly, the interested parties appear to be making the most...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 4, 2005

Racism is bad business

The Community Page has commented at length on socially-sanctioned exclusionary practices in Japan. However, it has rarely touched upon their quantifiable, longer-term effects.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jan 3, 2005

Putin's tragic gaffes of 2004

MOSCOW -- The year 2004 has had mixed blessings for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He won re-election in a landslide, and though the results were probably rigged, by and large they still reflected voters' sympathies well enough: Russia likes its president.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2005

Tama's population fall shows how baby boom is bust

Tama New Town -- a bedroom community in Tokyo's western suburbs -- is no longer new.
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2004

Zoos grope to captivate visitors

Gone are the days when a new panda or elephant guaranteed a boost in zoo visitors.
EDITORIALS
Dec 31, 2004

Year of shattered ideals

This year was widely expected to be a pageant of democracy. Elections were scheduled around the world, and they went off, almost without exception, without a hitch. That happy outcome was the brightest result in a year colored by disappointment. The year 2004 may well be remembered for the many promises...
BUSINESS
Dec 30, 2004

Realtors form strategic partnership

Struggling condominium builder Towa Real Estate Development Co. said Wednesday that Mitsubishi Estate Co. will become its largest shareholder under an agreement to create a "strategic partnership."
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2004

Towa may receive capital from Mitsubishi Estate

Struggling condominium builder Towa Real Estate Development Co. has entered the final phase of talks with Mitsubishi Estate Co. on receiving capital, sources said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Dec 27, 2004

Extract the Yasukuni thorn

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's practice of making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine is a thorn in the side of Japan-China relations.
EDITORIALS
Dec 26, 2004

A Christmas admonition

Last Sunday Pope John Paul II said something that, while directed to Roman Catholics, perhaps deserved a wider audience. Speaking in the runup to the Christmas season, the pope expressed regret at the suffocation of the holiday by what he called "material things" and called for a simpler, more community-minded...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 26, 2004

Great goalkeeper not a necessity for a championship club

LONDON -- There is a growing suspicion that apart from having the best team in the Premiership, Chelsea also has the two best goalkeepers in England's top league.
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 24, 2004

Kyoto aid group helping farmers revive agriculture in Afghanistan

When a nongovernmental organization based in Kyoto sent a study team to Afghanistan's Herat Province in November 2001, just a month after the Taliban regime had collapsed under the onslaught of U.S. retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks, it found a human disaster in progress.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 22, 2004

Net gain: Adding Carter, subtracting 'Zo

NEW YORK -- If Vince Carter never plays a game for the Nets it was still a great trade.
EDITORIALS
Dec 20, 2004

Seeing eye to eye with a neighbor

Grass-root ties between Japan and South Korea look better than at any time since the end of World War II. Mutual understanding and friendship have deepened visibly over the past few years, as demonstrated by the successful cohosting of the 2002 World Cup and the surge of Japanese interest in South Korean...
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2004

Weigh antiterror measures

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary David Blunkett (who resigned last week) have been doing their utmost to alert the British people to the terrorist threat. This is seen by some as a cynical attempt to divert criticism of government support for the Americans in Iraq and to...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2004

Miyake Island prepares for homecoming

MIYAKE ISLAND -- The white skeletal trunks of dead trees and hulks of cars rusted away by volcanic gas that line the roads here give visitors the impression that this is no man's land.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Dec 16, 2004

Serendipities abound in a wintery wonderland

Recently I spotted a Quetzal from Central America, a Snowy Owl from the Arctic, a Short-tailed Albatross from a remote Pacific island -- and a hovering Skylark. Amazingly they were all together, along with woodpeckers and barbets, thrushes and flycatchers, finches, frigate birds, other albatrosses and...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2004

Egypt backs Japan's UNSC quest, troop dispatch to Iraq: ambassador

Cairo supports Japan's bid to be a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and its deployment of Ground Self-Defense Force troops to southern Iraq, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr said.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past