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JAPAN
Feb 13, 2002

Imperial Couple to visit Poland and Hungary in July

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko will make a two-week official goodwill visit to Poland and Hungary in July, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2002

JobTimes goes online

A new online recruiting site opens its doors today, targeting university students and people searching for employment in a bilingual environment.
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2002

Wrong cure for Japan's economic ills

So U.S. President George W. Bush has decided the future of Asia depends on overcoming Japan's puzzling, decade-long economic stagnation. But do he or his advisers understand what is really wrong with that economy?
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2002

Fujitsu, Accenture to join hands

Fujitsu Ltd. and Accenture Corp. said Tuesday they will jointly provide information technology-based solutions to firms seeking to improve their business strategies.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2002

Business confidence still near record low: survey

Business confidence in Japan remained virtually unchanged in the October-December period, edging up by just a point over the previous quarter as concerns over the economy and unemployment continued to weigh heavily on managers' minds, according to a survey released by the government Tuesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2002

Northwest expansion on track despite Sept. 11

The business expansion plans of Northwest Airlines tied to the opening of a new runway at Narita airport and a new terminal at Detroit Metropolitan Airport have been largely unaffected by the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Tokyo-based executive of the airline.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2002

Southeast Asia receives terrorism wake-up call

HONG KONG -- The wake-up call has been loud and clear. As the alarm sounded, it confirmed that terrorism in Southeast Asia is a problem in need of attention. The most urgent wake-up call did not come from the southern Philippines, where around 650 U.S. troops are now being deployed as Washington opens...
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2002

Owners to be shamed into quake-proofing buildings

The Itabashi Ward Office in Tokyo will submit to the ward assembly a draft disaster-prevention ordinance believed to be the first in Japan to penalize owners of buildings that do not measure up to quake-resistant standards, according to ward officials.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 13, 2002

Marc-Andre Hamelin

Canadian pianist Marc-Andre Hamelin was the only classical musician to play live at the 2001 Grammy Awards Ceremony, a distinction that some of his peers might find dubious and others downright horrifying. It isn't clear what benefit the gig afforded Hamelin in terms of record sales, but in a roundabout...
BASEBALL / MLB
Feb 13, 2002

Ishii holds 'last' press conference

Southpaw Kazuhisa Ishii, whose contract details with the Los Angeles Dodgers were officially announced in Los Angeles on Friday, held what he called his "last" press conference Monday, a day after returning to Japan to wait for his visa.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2002

Korean art of fine living

In celebration of the upcoming 2002 World Cup soccer finals co-hosted by South Korea and Japan, the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum will hold an exhibition titled "Masterpieces of Korean Art from the Joseon Dynasty" from Feb. 19. The exhibition consists of 300 works of art of the Joseon, or Yi, Dynasty...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 13, 2002

Michelle Wilson: 'Wake Up Call'

With searing vocals, Michelle Willson delivers her clear-eyed statements on work, love and life from a woman's point of view. And in that regard, nearly every cut on her fourth release, on which she teams up with the tight, rocking Evil Gal Festival Orchestra, is a wake-up call.
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2002

BOJ still sees economy as deteriorating

The Bank of Japan on Tuesday left its overall assessment of the nation's moribund economy unchanged in its February economic report, but made slight upgrades its views on exports and inventory conditions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 13, 2002

A traveler possessed by light

Part of the game of art nowadays is for artists, whatever their influence or orientation, to avoid classification. Once this happens, their work often devolves into well-worm cultural cliche. One 20th-century artist who escaped this process, though, was Paul Klee (1879- 1940), whose work is as hard to...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 13, 2002

Shiokawa backpedals on 1% growth pledge

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa apparently backtracked Tuesday on his weekend assertion that Japan's economy will grow 1 percent in fiscal 2003.
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2002

Human torso found in trash

A headless, limbless human torso was found Tuesday morning in a plastic bag at a trash collection site in front of an apartment building in Sumida Ward, Tokyo, police said.
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Feb 13, 2002

Nimaime wa so-so, baby

I hate to say it, but Love Psychedelico has succumbed to the dreaded "second-album syndrome" with "Love Psychedelico Orchestra," which was released Jan. 9. It's not a bad album -- in fact it has some great songs, like the opening track, "Standing Bird," which features a wonderfully infectious keyboard...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 13, 2002

Monoland: 'Cooning'

What the Berliner four-piece Monoland are doing with atmospheric rumbling and washes of distortion is not completely new to modern music. The confluence of dreamy vocals and sonic thunderclap recalls the short-lived shoegazer movement of the late '80s to mid-'90s. It was then that bands like Ride and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 13, 2002

An art collector's dream on display

"In the mid-1950s, I saw an irresistible inflow of Western culture, mostly American, into war-devastated Japan. I witnessed a fading of our culture, which had been passed to us from generation to generation. As I watched the change, I felt a sense of fear that our next generation might not know what...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 13, 2002

Romance at the edge of reason

"I always believed it was taboo to portray madness on stage, and I never dared to do it before," Hideki Noda writes in the program notes to "Urikotoba (Fighting talk/Words for sale)," his latest enterprise as writer/director, now playing at Spiral Hall in Tokyo's Aoyama district.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2002

Space business still awaiting liftoff

The second H-2A rocket, which is touted as the leading player in Japan's space development at the beginning of the 21st century, was successfully launched last Monday, deploying one of the two probes it was carrying into orbit. Following the successful launching of the first H-2A rocket in August 2001,...
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2002

Blame economy for weak yen

LONDON -- An article by Haruhiko Kuroda, vice finance minister for international affairs, appeared in the Financial Times on Jan. 23 under the headline "The yen's fundamental weakness." Perhaps it should have been titled "the fundamental weaknesses of the Japanese economy."

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