Search - question

 
 
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Jan 17, 2002

Nintendo's Arakawa surprises with retirement announcement

Nobody really cared who the president of Nintendo of America was when Minoru Arakawa founded the company in 1980. With games like "Radarscope" and "Sheriff," it was just another Taito wannabe trying to break into the U.S. arcade market.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 2002

Relief step best left unused

Banks were once regarded as a symbol of financial security. People deposited money with banks, confident that it would be fully protected. Bank failure was simply out of the question. The myth of the "invincible bank" collapsed following the burst of the economic bubble a decade ago. Now depositors know...
COMMENTARY
Jan 14, 2002

Hardly another Argentina

LONDON -- "What is the difference between Japan and Argentina?" Answer: "five years." That was the riddle, or sick joke, said by the Financial Times in London to be circulating in Tokyo over the recent holidays. My immediate reaction was that the idea behind the question was silly and showed ignorance...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2002

China starts showing signs of turning green

Is China -- a demographic and potentially economic leviathan -- getting serious about international cooperation to protect the environment after more than two decades of putting development first?
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2002

Koizumi's trade plan hailed by Megawati

Compiled from wire reports JAKARTA -- Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri on Saturday embraced Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's vision of cooperation linking Northeast and Southeast Asian countries.
SUMO
Jan 13, 2002

Maru favored to win Hatsu Basho

The Hatsu Basho gets underway this Sunday with only one yokozuna competing -- Musashimaru. Yokozuna Takanohana will be absent for the fourth consecutive tournament.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2002

Why North Korea's people starved

THE GREAT NORTH KOREAN FAMINE: Famine, Politics and Foreign Policy, by Andrew S. Natsios. United States Institute of Peace Press, 2002, $19.95 (paper) This is a grim and troubling account of the 20th century's fifth great famine, a calamity that swept through North Korea during the 1990s, claiming an...
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jan 13, 2002

Take me to your anti-leader

The Shibuya Takeshi Orchestra is one of the most singular, challenging and unusual jazz units in Tokyo. Many local groups strive for accomplished technique, pushing their instruments to the far edge of rapid-fire playing or polishing one style to perfection. The Shibuya Takeshi Orchestra, however, delights...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 13, 2002

Matsugen: Noodles at the cutting edge of Azabu

To call Matsugen a new-wave soba shop would be misleading, since the noodles it rolls, cuts, cooks and serves are entirely traditional. But judge it on looks and attitude alone, and it belongs without question to the present century, not the last.
EDITORIALS
Jan 12, 2002

A new framework for stability

The Korean Peninsula remains a potential flash point. The question for 2002 is whether North and South Korea, still technically at war, will be able to promote stability in the region. The answer partly depends on how domestic politics develops in South Korea, which will hold local elections in June...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2002

Indo-Pakistani chances for peace improve

It now appears that war between nuclear powers India and Pakistan can be prevented. Islamabad's current crackdown on militant organizations may not have fully satisfied New Delhi, but Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's gesture at the recent conference of the South Asian Association for Regional...
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2002

METI to submit bill to regulate spam

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry will submit a bill, possibly next month, proposing legal revisions to regulate unsolicited e-mail advertisements sent to consumers, ministry officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2002

Fujimori gives lecture at university in Tokyo

Alberto Fujimori, Peru's disgraced former president, made his first public appearance in 14 months Thursday, delivering a lecture at Takushoku University in Tokyo.
SUMO
Jan 11, 2002

Konishiki making impact after sumo

Hollywood, home to some of the biggest stars on earth, soon may have to make room for the biggest star of all. Former sumo wrestler Konishiki on Thursday revealed his plans to make it big in Tinseltown.
BUSINESS
Jan 10, 2002

Coalition wants extra budget by end of month

The three ruling parties aim to enact a 2.5 trillion yen supplementary budget for the current fiscal year on Jan. 31 in a bid to stimulate the economy, coalition sources said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2002

Argentina: A nation too few believe in

LONDON -- Five presidents in 12 days; riots and looting that have left 32 dead; the biggest default on sovereign debt in history; and the prospect of a return to military government or a toned-down, spruced-up version of fascism lurking around the corner. What is wrong with Argentina?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 9, 2002

Back from the brink

The German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) said that people not drawing on 3,000 years of tradition are living on the edge of extinction. How, then, did Japanese craftsmen recover from the trauma of World War II, when their proud traditions, seemingly tainted by recent history, were thrown...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 9, 2002

Alec Empire

Alec Empire is a terrorist, let there be no question about that. Slide one of his records onto your grandmother's gramophone while she's making a cup of tea and then, on lowering the needle, watch her writhe in agony until she can take no more and commits seppuku with a knitting needle. Then again kids,...
JAPAN
Jan 8, 2002

North Korean ship searched after refusing to be boarded

Coast guard personnel and police inspected an uncooperative North Korean freighter Monday in Chiba Prefecture but found nothing unusual and believe a tip about suspicious men in wet suits that led to the search was a hoax, a senior Japan Coast Guard official said.
COMMENTARY
Jan 8, 2002

India set to keep full press on Pakistan

NEW DELHI -- The biggest question now is whether war will break out between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan. Although no right-minded citizen in either country wants war, many forget that Pakistan has thrust an undeclared war on India for years, bleeding India noticeably. Thus the aim is not...
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2002

Fine-tuning needed for globalization

In the new year, the world will have to grapple with daunting political and economic challenges that surfaced toward the end of the 20th century. The terror attacks in the United States on Sept. 11 -- which The Economist called the "the day the world changed" -- complicated the problems.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2002

New national nursing-care system gives the poor short shrift: survey

About half of local government heads think the national nursing-care insurance system introduced in April 2000 lacks measures for helping people with low incomes and for coordinating facilities, according to a survey conducted by Kyodo News and its associated newspapers.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2002

More troubling than another spy boat

SEOUL -- Pyongyang surely can be said to have stepped over the line once it is confirmed that the suspected spy boat that played tag with the Japanese Coast Guard last month was indeed from North Korea. The incident has led Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his administration to perform an...
EDITORIALS
Jan 6, 2002

Back to work, back to 'normal'

On the one hand, 2001 zoomed by, didn't it? It seems just an eye-blink since we were last cleaning up after New Year's feasts and fireworks, sitting in traffic jams to get back home and gearing up for the Monday-after return to work. It is a well-established fact that the older we get, the more often...
COMMENTARY / World / GUEST FORUM
Jan 5, 2002

Writing: A craft that anyone can learn

"Speeches are not magic. A speech is essentially a combination of information and opinion written on paper and spoken. If you can have a thoughtful conversation, you can probably write and give a thoughtful speech."
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jan 4, 2002

Medic's lifesaving mission

Human rights activist Dr. Masaki Tada leads a double life. He has just returned from Peshawar, Pakistan, where he struggled to save the lives of Afghan refugees with the meager resources at his disposal. In Japan, he plays a very different role -- as president of Josai Hospital, a modern, fully equipped...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji