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JAPAN
Oct 18, 2004

Voters would nix post reform: Mori

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party would lose in an election if he dissolved the House of Representatives and let voters decide on his plan to privatize postal services, according to former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2004

Japan will pay if ODA slides

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the start of Japan's official development assistance. Since October 1954, when Japan joined the Colombo Plan and provided technical assistance, ODA has been an important element of Japan's diplomacy. According to the Foreign Ministry's white paper on ODA, Japan...
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2004

Balancing work with other ways of life

LONDON -- Alan Milburn, the British secretary of state for health, resigned last year to "spend more time with his family." This excuse has often been used to cover some misdemeanor or a falling out with colleagues, but in this case it seems to have been genuine.
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2004

Afghanistan: the world's opium market

WASHINGTON -- Afghanistan's presidential elections came off with little violence but some damaging controversy. President Hamid Karzai's 15 opponents charged vote fraud.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2004

Peru's envoy hopeful for Fujimori extradition

Peru's ambassador to Japan expressed hope Saturday that Japan will extradite disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori to face murder and embezzlement charges.
EDITORIALS
Oct 17, 2004

Two paths to death

The past week brought news, as always, of the deaths of many strangers. But amid the usual numbing crush of reports of fatalities from wars, epidemics, accidents and murders, two stood out. Last Sunday in New York, the American actor and medical-research activist Christopher Reeve died of an infection-induced...
Events
Oct 17, 2004

Autumn sage festival in Kobe's herb park

Nunobiki Herb Park in Chuo Ward, Kobe, is holding an autumn sage festival through Nov. 21.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2004

Most prefectures to continue blanket testing for mad cow

Most prefectural governments plan to continue testing all cattle for mad cow disease, despite the national government's plan to exclude cows aged up to 20 months possibly by next spring.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2004

Why Deos Tihs Haedilne Mkae Snsee?

The following article appeared in the Oct. 17, 2004 issue of The Japan Times with most of the text scrambled. For that original version, visit www.japantimes.com/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?fl20041017x2.htm.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 17, 2004

Venturing intrepidly to a tropical idyll

As soon as the taxi driver pulled out into Singapore's Orchard Road, he began to talk. Babble, actually.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2004

A purrfect day out

You're kitted out with Kitty. You have your Hello Kitty toothbrush and pencil sharpener, your little lunchbox and tissue-holder, but still you have this odd impulse to spend some quality time with a real furry, warmblooded feline.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 17, 2004

NHK's five-part drama series, "Nebaru Onna" and more

A famous person once said, "You can't go home again," and for Hazuki (Naoko Iijima), the main character in NHK's five-part drama series, "Nebaru Onna -- Natto nante Dai-kirai (Tenacious Woman: I Hate Natto)" (NHK-G, Monday, 9:15 p.m.), going home is the last thing she wants to do.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 17, 2004

Five years in Japan, a lifetime of influences

ONE HUNDRED SENTENCES WRITTEN ON FANS, by Paul Claudel, translated by Robin Magowan. Blair Atholl: Fras Publications, 2004, 28 pp., £6.50 (paper). Although the Catholic diplomat, poet and dramatist Paul Claudel (1868-1955) lived in Japan for only five years, from 1921-1925, when he was the French ambassador,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 17, 2004

Marianne Faithfull: "Before the Poison"

On her last album, "Kissin' Time," the Swinging '60s most elegant demimonde survivor was feted by a coterie of younger admirers -- Beck, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker -- who fell all over themselves trying to do justice to her delicious rasp of a voice. The results were interesting but had more to do with...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 17, 2004

Revealing true colors of Chinese justice

WHEN RED IS BLACK, by Qiu Xiaolong. Soho Press Inc., 2004, 309 pp., $25 (cloth). Like so many other inventions and contraptions that have filtered down throughout history, fictionalized stories of crime and detection are believed to have originated in China. Whodunits set in the Middle Kingdom have been...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2004

Lights! Camera! Action! Let the AV roll ...

It's still early, but at this film set in a rented, two-story house in a Tokyo suburb, "adult video" actor Tetsuya Hatanaka is well ahead of schedule.
Features
Oct 17, 2004

In another language of crime and detection

Qiu Xiaolong, 51, says his first encounter with mystery fiction occurred around age 14 or 15, when he read Sherlock Holmes stories during the Cultural Revolution. "Of course I read the book by stealth at the time," he recalls. Japanese mystery films shown in China years later provided another source...
MORE SPORTS
Oct 17, 2004

Spears tackle Sungoliath to reach top spot in league

Rugby fans in Tokyo certainly got their money's worth on Saturday at Chichibunomiya.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 17, 2004

Drawing on love

She is a Japanese manga artist with a piercingly sharp eye for human traits and foibles. He is an American writer and language buff who can chat with equal ease in four languages. Together, they make for a magnetic -- not to say a "mangaetic" -- couple.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2004

Sumitomo Trust to file suit to halt UFJ merger

Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. is considering seeking a court order to halt negotiations between UFJ Holdings Inc. and Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. to merge their trust banking business, company sources said Saturday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 17, 2004

It's a taxing job dealing with the two-wheeled barbarian horde

On Sept. 13, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry gave its seal of approval to a local tax that was passed last year by Tokyo's Toshima Ward. Whenever a local government in Japan passes a local tax law, the ministry must check it out before it goes into effect in order to make sure it doesn't...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 17, 2004

Lew Tabackin

With a list of jazz critics' awards as long as his saxophone, Lew Tabackin is a jazzman's jazzman. As a soloist, he redefined the big-band solo, playing both sax and flute with the best big bands in jazz before beginning a lifetime collaborating with pianist, bandleader and wife, Toshiko Akiyoshi. His...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2004

Did Kosovo illuminate Iraq?

One of the curious features of the Iraq war last year was the serious split across the Atlantic. And what seemed to puzzle as much as infuriate Americans was why the major European powers, having signed on to war without U.N. authorization in 1999 against Slobodan Milosevic, "the butcher of Belgrade,"...

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