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JAPAN
Nov 27, 2003

Flag, anthem rules kill free-thought right: teachers

Miwako Sato, a public elementary school teacher in the western Tokyo suburb of Kunitachi, may file a lawsuit early next year over the use of the controversial national flag and anthem in schools.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2003

Experts make case for flu vaccination

Medical experts say a vaccination against influenza is an important preventive measure, despite the popularity of kits for swift diagnosis and drugs to fight the flu.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 25, 2003

The rise of the machines

She's young, beautiful, and fluent in several languages.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 24, 2003

High price of media-fabricated heroism

NEW YORK -- Good for her. U.S. Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, finally given a chance on TV to have her say, punctured the notion of heroism concocted by the Hollywood publicist placed in Baghdad and the American mass media, ever the willing partner of their government when it comes to war.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Nov 24, 2003

Navigating the deep Internet

MOSCOW -- There could hardly be a tougher opponent for a struggling college professor than the Internet. You ask your students to write an essay about Moscow, and you end up with the papers based on sources like www.moscow-taxi.ripoff.com and www.moscow-hotels.dump.ru. When, fuming with rage, you inform...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 22, 2003

Gardener puts down roots for budding business

As a highly qualified gardener and horticulturalist, Bernd Kestler has a great idea: collaborating with homeowners who want outdoor spaces designed to suit their lifestyles, or established gardens maintained, in much the same way a personal trainer works with individuals who want a new body image or...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2003

Wiretap law -- hard to use, easy to abuse?

In September, a 35-year-old Kawasaki mobster was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison for selling 269,000 yen worth of stimulants to seven people between December 2001 and February 2002.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 21, 2003

Chen winning back respect for Taiwan's position

NEW YORK -- Chen Shui-bian, Taiwan's president, recently made a whirlwind international tour. During a three-day transit in New York three weeks ago, he received the 2003 award from the International League for Human Rights. He attended centennial independence anniversary celebrations of Panama, then...
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2003

Turn the screws on North Korea: Ishiba

Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba told visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly on Tuesday that pressure should be used when trying to ensure peace with North Korea.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Nov 16, 2003

The new house band chez Tarantino

I feel like I'm in a "Kill Bill" outtake and I guess that's exactly what the three cool chicks I'm with intend. They lead me down a Nishi-Ogikubo side street and up a darkened staircase. At the top is a pair of doors and the handles are bolted-on samurai swords.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 15, 2003

Importing sake to U.K., Asahi beer back here

Lynfa Phillips is still feeling overcome by her welcome to the Tokyo headquarters of Asahi Beer. "Crossing Izuma-bashi bridge, I saw flags hanging limp at the approach to the building. One was the company flag, the next the Rising Sun, and then I saw a hint of white, red and green."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2003

Taiwan's spas bubbling over with popularity

TAIPEI -- Chu Chien-huei stretches her arms in a hot tub full of orchid petals on a sunny day at Spring City Resort, a hot spring hotel in Peitou, with her 5-year-old daughter at her side.
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2003

Government health facilities being used as holiday homes

Government rest facilities built for the sick are instead being used as holiday homes, a public auditors' report released Wednesday shows.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2003

Tokyo pauses briefly to fete 400th year

From his 14th floor office window, Tsunenari Tokugawa can almost see the exact spot where his ancestors settled four centuries ago. It's just a few blocks away -- but it might as well be in another universe.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2003

Pension crisis brings on number crunchers

The future of Japan's public pension system remains uncertain, and polls indicate the issue is a key concern of voters ahead of Sunday's House of Representatives election.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2003

Forum ponders attributes of 'globally useful Japanese'

Leading business executives and scholars gathered Friday in Tokyo to discuss what constitutes a "globally useful Japanese," and how individuals of this kind may be nurtured at businesses.
JAPAN / ELECTION 2003
Nov 5, 2003

Fate of justices in voters' hands

In the shadow of intense campaigning for Sunday's Lower House election, nine people are quietly waiting for voters to decide whether they deserve to stay in the nation's top judicial posts.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2003

Battle for power waged on voters' screens

The leader of the Democratic Party of Japan is fleetingly portrayed in a recent TV commercial as the stern-faced chairman of a fictitious Cabinet meeting, the scene accompanied by upbeat rock music.
Japan Times
JAPAN / ELECTION 2003
Nov 4, 2003

Party campaign strategies smack of desperation

With the coming election in mind, former House of Representatives member Kaoru Yosano last spring departed the Liberal Democratic Party faction led by Shizuka Kamei.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 2, 2003

Sharp-dressed Electric Six turn on the juice

In June of last year, the British radio remix duo that calls itself 2 Many DJs released its long-awaited debut mash-up album, which consisted of several dozen fairly famous songs by people as diverse as Lou Reed, Salt'n'Pepa and Dolly Parton laid end-to-end and on top of each other for a full hour of...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 2, 2003

On TV, what you get is not what you want

Last weekend, former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, prior to her official announcement to stand as a candidate in the upcoming House of Representatives election, held a press conference; or, more exactly, two press conferences -- one for the national newspapers and one for the TV networks. No magazines...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 1, 2003

Following the bouncing ball, pachinko-style

After almost a quarter of a century in this land, I generally find the cliche "inscrutable Japanese" to be undeserved. For I can "scrute" them OK.
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2003

Jobless rate steady at 5.1% in September

The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained at 5.1 percent in September, unchanged from the previous month, with both the number of people employed and those unemployed decreasing, the government said Friday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 30, 2003

Winged lords of high places

It was in early November 2002 that we drove on a rough mountain track from Guiyang to Caohai Nature Reserve on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2003

Mediation is the medium

"It's a transmission station," says David Elliott of the Mori Art Museum, which opened to the public Oct. 18. "It's a beacon beaming things out to the rest of the city, intimately connected with it."
JAPAN
Oct 28, 2003

Radiation leak 'could kill 400,000'

A large-scale radiation leak at a major nuclear reactor in Japan could kill more than 400,000 people and cost up to 460 trillion yen over 50 years, according to a study by a Kyoto Sangyo University researcher released Monday.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 28, 2003

Convicted Briton says he was drug run patsy

Most of us can name a time when our lives changed forever, but few can do so as precisely as Nicholas Baker: 11.30 a.m. on April 13, 2002.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 26, 2003

JT campaign aims to blunt war on smokers

Several weeks ago this newspaper published letters from non-Japanese readers who complained about a Japan Tobacco advertising campaign that depicts Western men and women with exaggerated noses sniffing cigarette smoke out of wine glasses. Two of the writers were angered by the image itself, saying that...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 23, 2003

No rush to judgment

In a meeting in Heidelberg earlier this month, science historians concluded that German science between 1933 and 1945 was exploitative and unethical. The organizer of the meeting, Wolfgang Eckhart, head of history of medicine at the University of Heidelberg, said in Nature last week: "We have proven...

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