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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 1, 2004

Koizumi: Robot? Dummy? Dictator? All three?

A comedy troupe called The Newspaper has recently been lampooning Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's performance at the last G-8 summit. According to the weekly magazine Aera, in one skit, a member dressed as Koizumi explains why he committed Japanese troops to a multinational force without first consulting...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 1, 2004

Atmospheres that transcend time

KAWASE HASUI: The Complete Woodblock Prints, by Kendall H. Brown, with essays by Amy Reigle Newland and Shoichiro Watanabe. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, two volumes, 550 pp., 700 color illus., 2002, $265.00 (cloth). Kawase Hasui (1883-1957), sometimes deemed "the foremost 20th-century Japanese landscape...
COMMENTARY
Aug 1, 2004

Mideast role challenges EU

PARIS -- France and Germany no longer make the law in Brussels. In spite of a long fight, they failed to get their Belgian candidate elected to head the European Commission and could only accept the appointment of Jose Durao Barroso, who, as prime minister of Portugal, backed U.S. intervention in Iraq....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2004

Fistful of troubles for Chirac

PARIS — Ever since French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britain's entry into the European Common Market and took his country out of the integrated military structure of the NATO alliance, France has had a reputation as a country that knows how to say "no" — a reputation greatly bolstered by...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2004

Teachers develop trilingual textbook

OSAKA -- English teachers from Japan and South Korea who are trying to deepen international exchanges in Asia through language education have together developed a unique textbook.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2004

Supporters seek asylum for chess legend Fischer in Germany

Supporters of fugitive chess legend Bobby Fischer said Thursday in Tokyo that they are asking several nations, including Germany, to offer the American political asylum.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2004

Supporters seek asylum for chess legend Fischer in Germany

Supporters of fugitive chess legend Bobby Fischer said Thursday in Tokyo that they are asking several nations, including Germany, to offer the American political asylum.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2004

Accused deserter Jenkins reassigned to the U.S. forces based in Japan

The United States has reassigned accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins to the U.S. forces based in Japan from South Korea, where he was posted when he apparently defected to North Korea in 1965, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2004

Migrants' remittances home exceed ODA

Elisa Rey puts a wad of yen into a small, brown envelope at her home. Far away in Peru, her monthly remittances -- set aside from her job in an electronics factory south of Tokyo -- have already built a house that few could dream of in her poor suburb of Lima.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2004

Accused deserter Jenkins reassigned to the U.S. forces based in Japan

The United States has reassigned accused U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins to the U.S. forces based in Japan from South Korea, where he was posted when he apparently defected to North Korea in 1965, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Wednesday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jul 27, 2004

A pottery master and mosquitoes

Bernard Leach John writes that his parents will be hosting Japanese friends in the U.K. this coming autumn.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2004

Mob figure owns up to overseeing loan-sharking enterprise

A mob figure accused of masterminding one of the nation's most extensive loan-sharking rings pleaded guilty Monday before the Tokyo District Court.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2004

Man gets suspended term for illegal stay

A Bangladeshi man suspected of having links to alleged al-Qaeda member Lionel Dumont was handed a 30-month sentence Monday, suspended for five years, for violating immigration laws.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2004

Iraqi clerics laud Japan's role in reconstruction

Senior Iraqi clergymen expressed gratitude Monday for Japan's reconstruction efforts in their country and asked for further support in the fields of medicine, electricity and the media.
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2004

DPJ's fortunes are rising

In the July 11 Upper House election, the opposition Democratic Party of Japan made dramatic gains, winning more seats than the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (50-49). The DPJ also surpassed the LDP in the proportional representation bloc of November's general election. With the two parties dominating...
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2004

Like NTT phone fee, line brokers face extinction

Kanji in the window of a three-story building near JR Okachimachi Station in central Tokyo advertise "denwa tokubai" (discounted telephone lines).
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 27, 2004

Know the law

You might have noticed the dragnet in Japan these days.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 26, 2004

Separate but equal acts of reconciliation

NEW YORK -- In "My Life" (Knopf, 2004), former U.S. President Bill Clinton writes: "Elizabeth Eckford, who at 15 was deeply seared emotionally by vicious harassment as she walked alone through an angry mob, was reconciled with Hazel Massery, one of the girls who had taunted her 40 years earlier."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 25, 2004

Kabuki star in Fuji TV's "Tuesday Special" and more

On July 25, kabuki star Nakamura Kankuro will wrap up a historic weeklong run in New York City. Though Kankuro has performed in New York before, this time he brought his portable Heisei Nakamura-za theater and had it erected in the plaza of Lincoln Center.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 24, 2004

Morio Matsui

In times of difficulty and pain, Morio Matsui says he has always been saved by his painting.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 21, 2004

Too deep for tears

Greece has been buzzing with excitement following the Euro 2004 victory and before the countdown to this summer's Olympics. When I arrived in Athens on July 1, it looked like the whole city was being given a long overdue clean-up. After strolling around the Acropolis gardens where people were chatting...
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2004

Boy extorts 1 million from classmate

A Japanese sixth grader bullied a classmate into giving him more than 1 million over several years so he and his friends could buy video games, fishing gear and snacks, an official said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 21, 2004

Back and in full effect

Summer festivals are always rich with reunions and resurrections. What better way to jump-start a sagging reputation, cap a triumphant return or herald a new chapter in an artist's career?
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 20, 2004

Bill of rights

As the government moves to beef up the country's military preparedness, once again the issue of the protection of foreigners' rights has been raised.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2004

Going global with civic virtues

How do we instill civic virtue in the global marketplace to civilize and tame it so that we arrive at the place where the market serves the people instead of where people are served up to the market? Around half of the world's 100 largest economies are private companies. This gives the private sector...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jul 18, 2004

Candela rise above definitions of East and West

Japanese culture is famed for importing artistic forms and converting them to new patterns, but one local group of foreign musicians is trying to reverse that trend. Candela, a group of four American musicians with diverse musical backgrounds, creates jazz-based music with Japanese melodies; folk tunes...
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2004

Homeless team heads for Sweden to battle in second futsal world cup

Thirty years of ups and downs -- the last five of which he has spent living in a park -- have not rusted Takashi Ito's ball-control skills as much as he had thought they would.

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