Hiroshi Matsubara - The Japan Times

August 15, 2024

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Hiroshi Matsubara

JAPAN

Dec 30, 2000

Aum ranks' rights compromised by fear

NAGAREYAMA, Chiba Pref. -- As night falls, all the houses in this quiet bedroom community melt into darkness.

JAPAN

Dec 30, 2000

Children of Asahara forced to pay for guru's alleged crimes

RYUGASAKI, Ibaraki Pref. -- Watching them play on the floor amid scattered toys and books, it's hard to believe that these two boys were once hailed by thousands of Aum Shinrikyo members as holy children and heirs to their guru's legacy.

JAPAN

Dec 2, 2000

Bill foot-dragging belies pluralist goal

The postponement of debate on a bill that would grant limited suffrage to foreigners until next year at the earliest has prompted long-term foreign residents of Japan to question whether the nation is serious about embracing the foreign population.

JAPAN

Dec 1, 2000

Opponents sidetrack suffrage debate

The ongoing debate on a bill to grant foreigners voting rights is being sidetracked by opponents who claim the issue can be resolved by amending the nation's naturalization policy.

JAPAN

Nov 30, 2000

Suffrage bill may be unconstitutional

Debate on a controversial bill that would grant permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local elections will probably be carried over to the ordinary session that is to convene in January.

JAPAN

Nov 29, 2000

Foreigners progress toward suffrage

After his three-year campaign to abolish mandatory fingerprinting of foreign residents bore fruit in 1992, Lee Young Hwa decided more needed to be done to address the larger, more fundamental human rights issues they face.

JAPAN

Oct 22, 2000

Sanya turning from laborer to tourist district

In Tokyo, where it's difficult to find a decent room for less than 6,000 yen a night, foreign backpackers and other budget travelers go to the day-laborer district.

JAPAN

Oct 4, 2000

Mobster's 'suicide' raises questions

The official account of how a gangster died during questioning at a Yokohama police station in 1997 is being challenged in court by the victim's daughter, who says Kanagawa Prefectural Police are hiding crucial evidence that could disprove the alleged suicide.

JAPAN / History

Sep 30, 2000

MacArthur Honor Guard to fete his exit

In March 1951, at the age of 21, U.S. soldier David Valley was ordered to immediately leave the Korean Peninsula -- where the war was raging -- and go to Tokyo to serve on the Honor Guard of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of the allied powers.

JAPAN

Sep 24, 2000

Research facility prompts fears of contamination

Residents of one of central Tokyo's most densely populated areas are complaining that the air they breathe may be being contaminated by innumerable pathogens escaping from the the building next door.

JAPAN

Sep 19, 2000

Tokyo called on to protect gays' rights

Private groups are calling on the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to add homosexuals to its list of people whose basic human rights need to be protected.

JAPAN

Sep 8, 2000

Miyake Island evacuees found to be physically, mentally taxed

The process of evacuation from volcanic Miyake Island and the glare of the national spotlight is taking its toll on some evacuees.

JAPAN

Sep 5, 2000

Last of the evacuees leave Miyake

The remaining evacuees from Miyake Island stare at the island's landscape from a Tokyo-bound ferry Monday afternoon. The last 406 remaining residents of Miyake left the volcanic island on Monday and were expected to arrive at a Tokyo pier later Monday night.

JAPAN

Aug 27, 2000

Women join the ranks of the nation's lost

With 92,000 yen in her pocket, the 52-year-old woman left her native city in northern Kanto for Tokyo on March 15, seeking a new job in the nation's capital after she was fired from a hotel where she had worked for 10 years.

JAPAN

Aug 11, 2000

Aum rulings set line between life and death

While the trial of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara continues at a snail's pace more than five years after his arrest in 1995, a series of court rulings handed down this year has drawn a clear line between who among the cult's senior figures will live and who will die.

JAPAN

Aug 1, 2000

Disneyland offers gays chance to come out in the sun

As is always the case at weekends during summer vacation, Tokyo Disneyland was packed by tens of thousands of visitors Sunday.

JAPAN

Jul 16, 2000

Row blazes over merits of parking garage

Near the north end of chic Shibuya shopping street Koen Dori, roughly 50 local residents and construction workers have held a standoff every night for nearly a month.

JAPAN

Jul 14, 2000

Private sector is the key to homeless problem

Rosanne Haggerty Japan must make collective efforts to house a growing homeless population by creating incentives for the private sector to pitch in, said Rosanne Haggerty, director of a New York-based nonprofit organization working to create shelters for homeless people.

JAPAN

Jul 7, 2000

1932 essays recall patriotism of nisei

When 31-year-old Californian Joyce Hirohata was having difficulty writing her high school valedictory speech, her father handed her a book published by her grandfather, Paul Tsunegoro Hirohata.

JAPAN

Jul 2, 2000

The 'island' village among giants

Though it's one of Tokyo's busiest school districts, the area around JR Yoyogi Station lacks the lively atmosphere that marks other teenage haunts.

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.

Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.

In search of the ‘Japanese dream’

By Thu-Huong Ha

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