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EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2002

Check the spread of missiles

The seizure and release of a North Korean ship carrying Scud missiles bound for Yemen highlights two serious international issues: Pyongyang's readiness to export destabilizing weapons and the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The ship and its cargo were released because there was no apparent violation...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 17, 2002

Putting in a bad word for Japanese

The other night, the wife and I were watching NHK's evening news when the announcer began a segment on the topic of "domestic violence." The term he used was exactly that. Well okay, not exactly: what I heard was domesuchikku baiorensu.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 16, 2002

Groundhopper

* Japanese name: Hishibatta * Scientific name: Formosatettix japonica * Description: Groundhoppers (also known as pygmy grasshoppers) are in the same order (Orthoptera) as crickets and "regular" grasshoppers, but they are smaller (less than 20 mm long) and sturdier. Like their orthopteran relatives,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Fight poverty by closing education gaps

NEW YORK -- Among the issues highlighted by the 2002 "State of World Population: People, Poverty and Possibilities," released by the United Nations Population Fund on Dec. 3, is the impact of poverty on education and, consequently, health -- particularly that of women of reproductive age. According to...
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Countdown to catastrophe

On Nov. 26, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted a note to Kichisaburo Nomura, Japan's ambassador in Washington, and special envoy Saburo Kurusu. Whether that note was an ultimatum that made it virtually certain Japan would wage war -- or whether it represented the latest U.S. effort...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 14, 2002

A nation that's set up for looking down

Only in Japan is it possible to ride a crowded train to work, stop to buy your "o-bento" lunch at the convenience store, and arrive at work -- all without ever having eye contact with anyone. That is because people spend a lot of time looking at the ground in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 13, 2002

Time to say arrivederci to the old-school cucina

Out with the old and in with the new. That's the prevailing state of the game in Tokyo's restless, ever-changing restaurant scene. Sometimes this can be exhilarating, as with the brilliant refurbishment of the top floors of the My City building in Shinjuku. Sometimes, though, the process can feel downright...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 10, 2002

One of the real good guys

How do you describe one of the real "good guys." For those of us 'kids' growing up in Tokyo there was one very special person.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2002

Myanmar's generals allergic to dialogue

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and many world leaders have welcomed the recent release of 115 political prisoners from various prisons in Myanmar. At the same time, many leaders have voiced concerns about the more than 1,000 remaining political prisoners, human rights abuses and the lack...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 8, 2002

Soaring lineup to peak your curiosity as well as appetite

On Monday at 8 p.m., TV Asahi presents the fourth special in its ongoing documentary series about the history of human endeavor with "The Legend of Human Flight."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 8, 2002

On the night side of life

The last trains have long gone and the stations are shuttered.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 8, 2002

Swiftlets threatened by bowls of soup

Entering a Borneo emporium in 1922, American missionary Elizabeth Mershon noted that "many strange and evil-smelling articles greet the eye and the nose."
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 8, 2002

Take me back to the ball game

WE ARE NIPPON: The World Cup in Japan, by Simon Moran. S.U. Press, 2002, 190 pp., 1,500 yen (paper) As anyone who was here will undoubtedly recall, things got a little raucous in Japan and South Korea last summer. But hosting a World Cup will do that to a nation or, as in this case, two nations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 8, 2002

Brief encounters in the darkness

It stirs to life when the high-rise office lights click off floor by floor, when bleary-eyed men in suits drift away to their homes in the suburbs and beyond. It simmers with activity even as the most garrulous crows snooze beneath the stars.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 6, 2002

Newcastle's Robson set for dramatic return to Nou Camp

LONDON -- Dreams, apparently, do come true.
EDITORIALS
Dec 6, 2002

Aceh on the brink of peace

At long last, there is an end in sight to the two decades of deadly conflict in Indonesia's separatist province of Aceh. The Indonesian government of President Megawati Sukarnoputri and the Free Aceh Movement, the guerrilla group established in 1976, are expected to sign a peace agreement in Geneva next...
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2002

A 'liberal' disposition for creating wealth

MANILA -- Often I begin workshops or classes dealing with liberalism by asking participants to share their definition of that political concept by jotting catchwords on little cards that are then collected and pinned to a moderation board. Not only is this method, as I have come to learn, highly participatory,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 2, 2002

Rigorous, fair inspections first

United Nations-led inspections of areas where Iraq is suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction have resumed after a hiatus of four years. On the first day, last Wednesday, an 11-member team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, or UNMOVIC, as well as a six-member...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 2, 2002

Click beetle

* Japanese name: Ubatamakomeshiki * Scientific name: Paracalais berus * Description: Click beetles have a hinged body and a spine beneath the thorax that fits into a groove under the abdomen. They are 16-19 mm long, with flattened, elongated, bullet-shaped brown bodies. Also known as snapping, break-back...
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

Essential dangling modifiers

Yuko, 38, an office worker, has keitai straps appropriate for each season -- furry ones for winter and beaded ones for summer. When the temperature changes, she adds another to her collection.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 1, 2002

New ways to kei-mmunicate

"The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas -- and friends will converse with each other without leaving home."
EDITORIALS
Nov 30, 2002

A new law to help the abductees

The government is set to provide financial and other support for Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea and their family members who return to Japan. On Thursday the Lower House unanimously passed a special bill for this purpose, which is due to clear the Upper House next week and take effect Jan....
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2002

Government wants Jenkins to be treated in Japan

The government has demanded that North Korea send Charles Robert Jenkins, a former U.S. soldier married to a returned Japanese abductee, to Japan to treat his illness at a hospital here, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 30, 2002

Celebrating 'washi' in tune with Kyoto winters

Traditional farmhouses amid wintry landscapes. Schoolchildren under brightly colored umbrellas cross snow-covered paddy fields. Footprints mark an otherwise pristine street scene after a snowfall. Then, as if to remind us that summer will soon be coming round again, a woman bearing a child on her back...
BUSINESS
Nov 29, 2002

Hashimoto faction targets Takenaka

Senior members of the Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction urged Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka on Thursday to quit next month.
Japan Times
JAPAN / THROUGH THE DOOR
Nov 29, 2002

Reluctance to accept refugees draws fire

Since October last year, there have been at least 34 cases in which asylum seekers at immigration facilities purposefully injured themselves, with some even going so far as to attempt suicide, the Justice Ministry has admitted.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDUSTRY TRENDS
Nov 29, 2002

Department stores gear up for yearend gift season

Department stores nationwide go into full swing this weekend for the all-important yearend gift-shopping season, hoping to finish on a high note a year marked by battered sales.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2002

Hardline aide has Koizumi's ear when it comes to Pyongyang policy

A foreign policy hardliner has gained a stronger presence in the administration since he accompanied Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Pyongyang for his historic Sept. 17 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.
EDITORIALS
Nov 28, 2002

Staving off banking disaster

The latest financial reports from Japan's major commercial banks tell more of the same story: The huge overhang of nonperforming loans continues to block a return to health. To be sure, banks made a profit in their main lines of business in the first six months of fiscal 2002, as they did in previous...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years