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JAPAN
Aug 2, 2001

Panel touts benefits of ODA budget

An advisory panel to Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka on Wednesday stressed the importance of official development assistance with regard to Japan's foreign policy.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Monitors to attend East Timor poll

Japan will dispatch 14 monitors to East Timor between late August and early September to assist international monitoring of the election late this month for the territory's constituent assembly, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Three men held over Chinese worker scam

A Japanese man and two Chinese men were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of taking commissions from the salaries of Chinese nationals whose services they had illegally procured for Japanese hotels and inns, authorities said.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 29, 2001

Tie the knot, raise a family, take the plunge

TBS's new daily, 30-minute hiru-dora (afternoon drama) series premieres Monday at 1:30 p.m. "Kids War 3," which TBS is promoting as a "home comedy," is the third 45-episode series about the ups and downs of the Imais, a Brady Bunch-like family trying to make do in contemporary Japan. Haruko (Akiko Ikuina)...
EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2001

Reviving 'PKO' for shares

The Financial Services Agency this month worked out a detailed plan to set up a quasi-public body to purchase surplus shares unloaded by private banks. A related bill is expected to reach the Diet floor perhaps during an extraordinary session that opens this autumn. The problem is that the plan is designed...
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jul 27, 2001

Hawaiian JETs sing a new island song

The song "Neba Neba Natto" may never make the Japanese music charts, but it is becoming a classic of a sort. The song, by Nikkei Aloha, has a laid-back Hawaiian tempo and humorous lyrics paying homage to natto (fermented soybeans).
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001

U.K. politics interferes with euro issue

LONDON -- It is a subject that most pragmatic politicians in Britain, including the prime minister and the front-runner for the leadership of the Conservative opposition, would prefer to ignore. Since the Tories were led toward electoral defeat in June by their obsession about Europe, the political establishment...
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2001

Missing the target on small arms

A United Nations conference last weekend approved a historic agreement to fight global trafficking in small arms. Despite years of preparation, agreement hinged on last-minute negotiations, largely to meet U.S. objections. Fortunately, delegates understood the magnitude of the problem and put progress...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Something for everyone under the big blue sea

Dykkerne Rating: * * 1/2 Director: Ake Sandgren Running time: 91 minutes Language: DanishNow showing This is my second week in a row writing on a film from Scandinavia, so I'm suffering somewhat from Big Blonde People Overload. Especially since the latest involves apple-cheeked, sturdy-boned youngsters...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 25, 2001

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

Though I have been a fan of Joe Strummer since The Clash, even I had my doubts last year, when I first saw him live with the Mescaleros at Akasaka Blitz. The band spent a shaky first hour probing the audience for signs of recognition of songs from their first album "Rock Art and the X-Ray Style." In...
LIFE / Travel
Jul 24, 2001

Religious sites, relics indicate Christ beat Buddha to Japan

In 1949, former Kyoto University professor Sakae Ikeda wrote a letter in a Japanese newspaper requesting help. "Whoever may want to help reintroduce Nestorianism . . . to Japan . . . is requested to write me," the letter pleads.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Jul 22, 2001

CCP is going nowhere fast

When the International Olympic Committee awarded Beijing the 2008 Summer Games, the decision was widely publicized as a move that would promote reforms in China, improve its human rights situation and eventually open China to the world. This is not unlike the rationale for awarding the 1980 Summer Games...
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

When we had heroes

They were voices in the silence, stars in the night they showed the way and they showed what was right
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 22, 2001

Breaking up (all that fat) is so very hard to do

While my stomach is not particularly gregarious, neither would one call it meek.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 22, 2001

It's not always easy to see yourself as others do

On the face of it, the current controversy over Japanese history textbooks is just one more example of Japan not facing up to its militaristic past. On a deeper level, however, Korea's decision to forgo further liberalization of Japanese cultural imports until the offending texts are revised underscores...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 22, 2001

Dead-end lives in the suburbs of Tokyo

LIFE IN THE CUL-DE-SAC, by Senji Kuroi. Translated by Philip Gabriel. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2001, 231 pp., $12.95. To read this version of "Life in the Cul-de-Sac" is to experience two conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there is admiration for the storyteller, as the dozen linked...
COMMUNITY
Jul 20, 2001

Checklist of things to look for in a swimming school

A good school should build self-confidence, teach safety precautions in water and create a warm, friendly and happy atmosphere among students and instructors. Visit a few fitness clubs or private swimming schools in your neighborhood and consider some of these points:
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2001

'Field of Dreams' schemes bleed taxpayers

A good deal of discussion on Japan's economic problems emphasizes the need to trim wasteful public works projects. Critics are quick to zero in on "hard" schemes such as bridges, highways, airports and dams that eat up huge chunks of tax money and are rarely used.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 18, 2001

Lasorda not doggin' it in Osaka

Tommy Lasorda gets around. On Sunday, July 8, the 73-year-old former Los Angeles Dodgers manager was at the Osaka Dome, "producing" an American ballpark event for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, wolfing down some Dodger Dogs and doing a TV interview. Two days later, "Tumblin' Tommy" was coaching third base for...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 18, 2001

Top ceramic artists take a final bow

The 38th Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition's grand prix-winning work looks as if the top is going to snap off at any moment and destroy the piece. Yet it defies gravity, frozen in time by fire.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2001

Can Japan's 'pied piper' pull it off?

In July 2001, two very different people offer hope to the people of Japan. One is baseball player Ichiro Suzuki, the star of the Seattle Mariners. His cool looks and great hits suggest the possibilities of the sporting dream across the sea. The other is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, with his wavy...
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2001

Aid and ethics must go hand in hand

The man who was called Peru's Rasputin is back behind bars. Mr. Vladimiro Montesinos, who backstopped former President Alberto Fujimori during his decade in office, has been caught in Venezuela after 10 months on the run and whisked to Lima. His life in exile was much like his years as Mr. Fujimori's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Inking the moment

A sheet of white washi paper, a brush, an ink stone, a black ink stick and a good mood -- these are the ingredients for a work of shodo (calligraphy).
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 13, 2001

Indonesian human-rights law wide open to manipulation by military and its allies

When a law clearing the way for ad hoc courts to try human-rights violations was passed in Indonesia last November, some saw it as a sign that high-ranking military officers would finally be punished for the many abuses committed by the nation's armed forces.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

Girls know what girls want

At first glance, it looks like a small shop filled with hundreds of colorful fancy goods.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat