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Japan Times
JAPAN / AFTER 2 1/2 YEARS
Sep 4, 2003

Koizumi half way toward reforming public firms

Can Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi live up to his pledge to save the nation's ailing economy by reforming monstrous public corporations?
EDITORIALS
Sep 3, 2003

Deteriorating job environment

The unemployment rate in Japan remains at a disturbingly high level of more than 5 percent, although the overall economy shows some signs of recovery. Particularly hard hit are workers in their 40s and 50s, who continue to bear the brunt of corporate restructuring. Once out of work, those who have passed...
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2003

WTO's tantalizing drug deal

The Doha Round of trade talks, launched in November 2001, has been a slow and bitter slog, with little cause for optimism. That is why news last week of a deal on inexpensive medicines raised such high hopes. The prospect of an agreement could restore momentum as World Trade Organization members head...
EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2003

A hopeful start

The much-heralded six-nation talks in Beijing ended Friday without any specific progress on North Korea's nuclear weapons development. But all parties agreed to resolve the issue peacefully while addressing Pyongyang's security concerns. Japan and North Korea reached no explicit agreement on the abduction...
COMMUNITY
Aug 31, 2003

What's it really like to win?

Everyone who buys a takarakuji ticket dreams of winning big, but what is it like to actually hit the jackpot? The Japan Times spoke with a 36-year-old who won a 100 million yen jackpot seven years ago, and heard how his win brought him a fortune -- and some hard lessons in life as well.
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2003

Governments must plan today for tomorrow's energy needs

LONDON -- Electric power -- or lack of it -- is once again in the news. It is not just the millions of East Coast Americans and Canadians who have suffered with monster blackouts. Power cuts have become drearily regular in France, Japan, China, Spain, Italy, not to mention in struggling Iraq. And shortages...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 29, 2003

Zico should keep perspective

The question on everyone's lips after Japan's resounding 3-0 thrashing of a second-string Nigerian team, was has Japan turned the corner and will Zico now be given the elbow room he has so craved in order to take the national team to a new level?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 28, 2003

Aging can be a laugh

A teenager is being interviewed for a part-time job.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2003

Promise seen in stock rebound

With the Nikkei stock average climbing past 10,000 points for the first time in more than a year, it seems that some of the pessimism about the Japanese economy has disappeared. The index has followed an upward trend since April when it tumbled to the 7,600 level, the lowest since the bubble burst in...
COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2003

The curious afterlife of Ada Lovelace

Celebrity is a fickle thing, as Ada Lovelace's famous father, the poet Lord Byron, learned to his cost -- sexual scandals and seesawing public opinion drove him into exile and to his death. For his daughter, however, the ups and downs of fame have mostly been posthumous.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Aug 24, 2003

The incredible remixing man

A good remix uncovers an element of the song that was already there so the listener perceives it in a whole new way. A bad remix often ends up as a vehicle for someone else's ego, with the original becoming so contorted and manipulated that it is unrecognizable in the final product.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 24, 2003

Is anyone out there looking?

In streets and parks, at schools, airports or shopping centers, you won't go far in Japan these days without encountering artworks in some shape or form, from monumental sculptures to decorative tiles underfoot -- or even simply children's drawings on display.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 24, 2003

Should Japanese history be rewritten?

HARING THE BURDEN OF THE PAST: Legacies of War in Europe, America and Asia, edited by Andrew Horvat and Gebhard Hielscher. Tokyo: The Asia Foundation & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2003, 341 pp., 1,000 yen (paper). The legacies of war continue to dog Japan and are divisive at home and in Asia. Despite the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 17, 2003

Adding color to pre- and postwar mentalities

During the ceremony to mark the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba blasted the United States for "worshipping nuclear weapons as God" -- a statement that, understandably, received a great deal of media attention. And while U.S. President George Bush, who is advocating...
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2003

Time to reconfirm postwar values

It seems that the Showa Era (1926-89) -- a turbulent period best remembered for the Pacific War -- is fading fast into the past. Reinforcing that impression is the fact that a bill designating April 29 as "Showa Day," a national holiday dedicated to the memories of the Showa Era, passed the Lower House...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2003

Enronization of the Bush administration

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush has become the new Kenneth Lay. As chief executive officer of the former juggernaut Enron Corp., Lay presided over a network of deception and malfeasance that led to one of the greatest investor ripoffs in U.S. corporate history. Enron inflated reported income and...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2003

Baron of porn spills it all

HONG KONG -- His pictures beamed across the nation's television stations and front pages of all of its newspapers from down market tabloids to sober-sided broadsheets: the grin on his face was as wide as a melon and he held, fanlike, a huge wad of currency notes for all the world, like a television game...
COMMENTARY
Aug 15, 2003

Talks on North Korea face usual impasse

HONG KONG -- At long last, the four major powers in East Asia and the two Koreas aim to honor Clause 60 of the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement. Clause 60 was supposed to have been implemented within three months of the July 27, 1953, signing of the ceasefire in the war. Now the stage looks set in Beijing...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Aug 14, 2003

Working with mentors to change the world

Former JET assistant language teacher Nicole Deutsch has an ideal job. She works with a dynamic team of people from all over the world. And at the end of the day she goes home feeling that she's helped to make the world a better place.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Aug 10, 2003

Akagi nurtures organic lifeform

Jazz pianist Kei Akagi clearly relishes the dual nature of the human mind. This is no surprise coming from someone who has divided his time between the United States and Japan, his college studies between philosophy and music, his musical training between classical and jazz, his jazz playing between...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 10, 2003

History of homegrown Japanese science finally adds up

Think Edo Period, and you think ukiyo-e, bonsai, yakimono and kabuki. Few think of science, or of the technological skill and spirit, which would later hatch Sony, Toyota and a core part of the country's national identity.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2003

The spirit of corrupt regimes alive in Japan

It's no secret that Japan discourages asylum-seekers, though officials never admit to it openly. When asked what the government would do about the 10 North Korean refugees who entered the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok on July 31, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said that it would be better for them...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2003

U.S. need not fear the ICC

NEW YORK -- In recent years regional courts have been set up in Europe and the Americas to deal with the most serious human rights abuses committed by governments. International "ad hoc" criminal tribunals have been set up to deal with atrocities and massive killings committed in the former Yugoslavia,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 9, 2003

To your health -- Japanese style

"Just what is good health," a wise man once told me, "other than the slowest way to die?"
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2003

Japan's role in Korea talks

The good news about North Korea is that it is now willing to talk in an expanded forum including Japan, South Korea and Russia. Whether this will lead to substantial progress in the nuclear standoff has yet to be seen, but at least the way is open for six-nation talks attended also by the United States,...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 5, 2003

NHK fees, will-writing and shipping

The NHK man Dear Lifelines: Recently my wife, who is Japanese, answered the door to an NHK rep. She was warned that not paying the monthly fee of 1,000 yen could wind her up in court. She paid.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2003

War notes for the leaders in Pyongyang

WASHINGTON -- In recent weeks, as the heavy global workload and overcommitment of the U.S. armed forces has become apparent, some have asked if the United States could handle a major crisis or a war in Korea these days.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2003

Visitors to stay -- for the time being

GLOBAL JAPAN: The experience of Japan's new immigrant and overseas communities, edited by Roger Goodman, Ceri Peach, Ayumi Takenaka and Paul White. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, 241 pp., £65, (cloth). Many in Japan have been slow to accept the fact that international labor migration does...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2003

Too rich, too complex to be run by slaves

HONG KONG -- China's new premier, Wen Jiabao, on his first visit to Hong Kong in his new job gave a resounding speech, declaring that local people were in charge of their own destiny. The question now is whether he meant it and whether the leaders in Beijing are prepared to trust the maturity of Hong...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2003

The transmutable Mr. Blair

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair is back in London after his whirlwind tour of Northeast Asia. For many of us the high point of his tour were the delightful moments at Tsinghua University in Beijing when, following a range of predictable questions that he answered with the usual bromides, he was asked...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight