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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 2003

The ebb and flow of the Group summit

LONDON — When then-French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing organized the first meeting of world leaders in the form of the Group of Seven in 1975, the idea was that they would conduct a relaxed private dialogue about settling major problems facing the world, with the emphasis on joint economic programs....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 2003

Empowered by consumerism

THE NEW JAPANESE WOMAN: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan, by Barbara Sato. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003, 241 pp., $19.95 (paper). Barbara Sato's excellent analysis of changes in gender discourse and women's identity in the 1920s recasts the landscape of 20th-century women's...
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2003

Koizumi, Roh set Pyongyang policy

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun agreed Saturday that both dialogue and pressure are needed to prod North Korea into abandoning its nuclear weapons programs, although Roh preferred to place more emphasis on discussions.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 8, 2003

The police should be mapping out a future

Every year, the National Police Agency sponsors a nationwide traffic safety promotion campaign that is mainly carried out at the community level. In my neighborhood in Tokyo, the campaign involves setting up tents that are manned by local volunteers.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 8, 2003

Synergetic possibilities at the heart

The piano trio is the heart of jazz. This core unit of piano, bass and drums pumps life into the music. All jazz groups, big or small, rely on the piano, bass and drums (called "the rhythm section") for their crucial thrust of energy. Taken out of a larger group, the piano trio contains all the essentials...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 2003

Taisho Sophisticates

TAISHO CHIC: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia, and Deco, text by various contributors. Honolulu Academy of Arts, 2002, 176 pp., 7,390 yen (cloth). There are certain historical periods that resonate with a style and sophistication that is inimitable. They last for only a short, intense few years. The Restoration...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 8, 2003

Four musicians on a mission shared

In harmony like the great string quartet they are, Joel Smirnoff, Ronald Copes, Samuel Rhodes and Joel Krosnick each listened carefully to whichever one of then was taking the lead in explaining their missions as educators and performers -- and their love of music.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Jun 8, 2003

In the city where history once took centerstage

KITAKYUSHU, Fukuoka Prefecture -- If you stand on the waterfront at Moji Port in Kitakyushu, you can take in the city's finest view: More than 1,000 ships and boats pass through Kanmon Strait each day, against the backdrop of Kanmon Bridge, whose elegant lines connect Honshu with Kyushu.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2003

The case of the indignant diva

One of the odder human traits is our apparently inborn ambivalence toward celebrities. There would be no such thing as a celebrity if the rest of us did not, in some sense, celebrate certain people -- for their artistic gifts, their looks, their wealth, their charm, their brains or whatever else it is...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 8, 2003

Every step you take

As one of the longest-running variety shows, "Downtown DX" (Nippon TV, Thursday, 10 p.m.) is the progenitor for almost every other one. Hosted by the comedy duo Downtown -- Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masanori Hamada -- the shows's format centers on celebrity guests relating anecdotes about themselves.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 8, 2003

In step with beauty, life and death

Dancer Akiko Motofuji is an institution in her own right. She began studying ballet more than seven decades ago at the age of 3 but -- inspired by the burst of artistic experimentation that swept postwar Japan -- in the 1940s she discarded her points and plunged instead into the world of avant-garde...
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2003

Key points of Koizumi-Roh summit

The following are the key points of a joint statement released Saturday by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun after talks in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Jun 8, 2003

Diplomacy buoys Koizumi

The administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi became 2 years old at the end of April. At its inception, his Cabinet enjoyed a public approval rating of more than 80 percent, the highest ever for a postwar administration. Around the beginning of last month, it still maintained a high level of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 8, 2003

Butoh: Dance in a surreal realm

We are between sanity and insanity, beauty and ugliness. Good and evil don't matter; emotion lurches from serenity to rage without warning. East and West, too, have merged: Leering Japanese ghosts waltz to Edith Piaf; a forest hag dressed for a Versailles ball strikes wild kabuki poses. Fear turns frolicksome...
JAPAN
Jun 8, 2003

Key points of Koizumi-Roh summit

The following are the key points of a joint statement released Saturday by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun after talks in Tokyo.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jun 7, 2003

Tigers extend lead

Shinjiro Hiyama led off the eighth inning with a tie-breaking solo homer and added a run in the ninth with another roundtripper as the front-running Hanshin Tigers whipped the Yakult Swallows 7-4 at Jingu Stadium on Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Police chief eyed for security job

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara plans to name the Hiroshima Prefectural Police chief as one of his vice governors in charge of security issues, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Official denies fiddling with text of Koizumi-Bush talks

Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka denied Friday that he attempted to delete the word "pressure" from documents prepared to brief reporters on the outcome of last month's Texas summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush.
EDITORIALS
Jun 7, 2003

Economic anxieties ignored at Evian

The world economy remains mired in the doldrums. The outlook has hardly improved in spite of an optimistic economic assessment from the Group of Eight summit in Evian, France. Two specters loom over the horizon: global deflation and a weaker dollar. Leaders of the world's top industrialized nations,...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Official denies fiddling with text of Koizumi-Bush talks

Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka denied Friday that he attempted to delete the word "pressure" from documents prepared to brief reporters on the outcome of last month's Texas summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Police chief eyed for security job

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara plans to name the Hiroshima Prefectural Police chief as one of his vice governors in charge of security issues, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2003

Official denies fiddling with text of Koizumi-Bush talks

Deputy Foreign Minister Hitoshi Tanaka denied Friday that he attempted to delete the word "pressure" from documents prepared to brief reporters on the outcome of last month's Texas summit between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush.

Longform

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