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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jan 31, 2002

Taking a look at animals' 'me' and 'you'

We take for granted our ability to easily recognize the people we interact with regularly. We also take it as a given that we can distinguish between the many thousands of other people we meet superficially during our lives, perhaps never learning who they are, yet knowing each one of them as a different...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2002

Jobless rate in December rises to new high of 5.6%

Japan's unemployment rate climbed to a record-high 5.6 percent in December, pushing the average jobless rate for 2001 to a new high of 5 percent, the government revealed Tuesday in a preliminary report.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2002

Mr. Arafat's dwindling options

Jaffa Street is a popular thoroughfare in downtown Jerusalem, its stores and sidewalks invariably crowded with shoppers and pedestrians. It has also become one of the bloodiest frontlines in the war between Israel and Palestinians. Last week alone, there were two terrorist attacks on Jaffa Street. The...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2002

Playwright offers art to lift Japan out of crisis

In these gloomy times, it seems everyone in Japan is chanting the mantra of structural reform, yet progress is excruciatingly slow. The greatest obstacle is not the political old guard nor the foot-dragging banks. Instead, the main problem is lack of art, according to playwright Oriza Hirata.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 27, 2002

Merchant's rich harvest

When Natalie Merchant was a member of 10,000 Maniacs, the seminal '80s folk-rock group, her songs betrayed a liberal social consciousness. In contrast, her 1995 solo debut, "Tigerlily," was willfully insular: a song cycle of love-gone-bad and a glum, some might say pissed-off, cover portrait. Characterized...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2002

90% of stations will be safer by March

Nine out of 10 major train stations in Japan have made, or are in the process of making, structural changes to platforms to help people who have fallen onto the tracks escape oncoming trains, the government said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2002

Japanese test low in science knowledge

Japan ranked third from the bottom in scientific knowledge tests conducted last year in Japan, the United States and 12 European nations and compiled by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jan 24, 2002

A case for campaign finance reform

WASHINGTON -- Controversy is raging about the Enron collapse. Is it a political story? Is it a criminal story? Is it a business story? Is it a story about personalities? The Enron story is all three. The real question is which category is the most important. and that all depends on your perspective....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 20, 2002

Lingual skills key to global communication

You would think that four national languages would be enough. Not for the Swiss. Along with German, French, Italian and Romansh, English is making considerable inroads.
COMMUNITY
Jan 20, 2002

Kabukicho: where worlds collide

About 1 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 1, 2001, a fire of undetermined origin swept through the No. 56 Myojo Building in Shinjuku's Kabukicho district, resulting in the deaths of 44 people on the upper two floors. While investigators say they have ruled out arson, stories in the tabloid press continue...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jan 17, 2002

Group seeks to close digital gender divide

The old stereotype of the "computer geek" -- taped Coke-bottle glasses, pens and protractors in breast pocket -- has gotten a series of upgrades over the last decade. The geek has morphed into the "techno-wizard," complete with a huge salary, power, influence and sometimes even new glasses.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2002

City in Chiba tries to dig out from illegal dumping

ICHIHARA, Chiba Pref. -- People here see some dramatic shifts in their city's landscape. Like a time-lapse film, valleys are buried, and small mountains are razed only to have new knolls swell up in their place.
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

The real deal in Kansai's kitchen

OSAKA -- Osaka's Kuromon Market has never ceased to fire the Japanese public imagination in its 180 years of existence. Back in the 1940s, it was described in Sakunosuke Oda's novels, including his well-known "Meotozenzai." And these days, Kuromon is on television, in a popular NHK morning serial "Honmamon"...
COMMENTARY
Jan 12, 2002

Japan's economic black hole

Realism is finally impinging on the economic debate here. The "structural reform" ideologues may remain blind to the contradiction between urging privatization and liberalization even as they are being forced effectively to nationalize a banking system suffering from past liberalization excesses. But...
Events
Jan 8, 2002

Therapist uses dance to access link between body and mind

KYOTO -- With opera music playing in the background, around 30 middle-aged and elderly women perform a series of stretches led by instructor Mariko Takayasu.
JAPAN
Jan 8, 2002

New Year's temple, shrine visits dip

About 84.91 million people visited Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples across Japan during the first three days of the year, down 3.84 million from last year, the National Police Agency said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 8, 2002

Foreign brides fill the gap in rural Japan

TOZAWA, Yamagata Pref. -- Cheerful laughter echoed through this snow-covered village in the Tohoku region one morning as a group of women sat down to chat over tea.
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.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2002

JET Program doing its job but in need of reform: expert

The Japan Exchange and Teaching Program has improved English education in Japan and has promoted mutual cultural understanding between Japanese and people from other countries since its inception in 1987, according to the chairman of the program's evaluation committee.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2002

Town ties fate to remnants of an industry

KUSHIRO, Hokkaido -- Although the new year was just around the corner, there was little joy to be seen in the southeast end of this port city.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2002

This summer it's Sydney's turn 'to sizzle'

SYDNEY -- At times like these, Australians are wondering whether they really do live upside down. While the Northern Hemisphere, shivering in the cold, was welcoming in 2002 with hot drinks, Australia has been battling bush fires.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2002

Emperor confident better times are ahead

Emperor Akihito expressed confidence in his New Year's address that the Japanese people will overcome their hardships in 2002 and move toward a brighter future.
JAPAN / Media
Dec 30, 2001

'Kohaku': the best, or just best behaved?

"Kohaku Utagassen," NHK's New Year's Eve music extravaganza, which celebrates its 52nd anniversary on Monday night, has traditionally been seen as the year's most significant event for Japanese singers, with selection to appear on the show truly "legitimizing" a performer's career. As well, certainly...
BUSINESS
Dec 29, 2001

Jobless rate climbed to 5.5% in November

The unemployment rate climbed to 5.5 percent in November, setting a record high for the third consecutive month with job losses by middle-aged, full-time male workers showing a marked increase, the government announced Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2001

Japanese opt for domestic travel

Akihiro is planning to spend some of his New Year's holiday at a hot spring resort.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 28, 2001

Takuma enters guilty plea

OSAKA -- The man accused of storming into an elementary school in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, and stabbing to death eight children in June pleaded guilty Thursday, saying he wants to atone for the crime with his own life.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2001

Tax-evasion case reveals connivery behind Kepco's nuclear plant quest

KYOTO -- A recent ruling handed down by the Yokohama District Court on a tax evasion case details for the first time the methods employed by major power companies to circumvent national land laws and stymie local opposition to nuclear power plants.

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