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COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Sep 28, 2002

Plague of smoke and scandal

MOSCOW -- The last few months have been tough on the people of Moscow. The exceptionally hot, dry summer resulted in peat fires in the capital's suburbs.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Sep 27, 2002

"Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident," "Jake's Tower"

"Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident," Eoin Colfer, Puffin Books; 2002; 288 pp. The risk with sequels is that they don't always live up to the expectations generated by the first book. But this story is clearly an exception.
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2002

North Korea willing to reveal all about abductees: Foreign Ministry

North Korea has expressed readiness to disclose all information regarding the Japanese it abducted, including information on the cause of death of eight of them, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2002

It's not the economy, stupid!

Gerhard Schroeder will remain the German Chancellor after Germany's recent elections, but his majority in Parliament has become extremely narrow. His Social Democrats (SPD) got 38.5 percent of the vote, and so did the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) of his rival, Edmund Stoiber. The main reason Schroeder...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 26, 2002

U.K. comic is drawn eastward once again

As a lad in Liverpool, comedian Simon Bligh knew it was just a matter of time before he'd end up in Japan. Even the most English of culinary treats was being subjected to Orientation, drawing him Eastward.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 26, 2002

Oral hygiene, oral history and aural pollution

Flouride in Japan The queries we get! About looking after our teeth, for example. Nancy Ridenour, who lives in Gifu, recalls being told a decade ago by a Colgate rep that fluoride is not introduced into Japanese toothpaste, nor is it legal in water here. As a result, she's been bringing in supplies...
COMMENTARY
Sep 24, 2002

Building corporate integrity

A spate of corporate scandals have rocked Japan this year. Snow Brand Foods Co. and Nippon Ham Co. mislabeled beef, abusing the government's buyback program that was set up to bail out the beef industry following the outbreak of mad cow disease in Japan. Trading giant Mitsui & Co. was implicated in a...
BUSINESS / ON MANAGEMENT
Sep 24, 2002

What the U.S. Open can teach you about managing big changes

The recent U.S. Open at the Bethpage Black Course has been bountifully praised, and for all the right reasons: for being the first true public Open, for restoring a historic course to its original design and playing conditions, and for attracting fans from a considerably more populist demographic. The...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Sep 23, 2002

The future of the U.S. economy: tasks for top nations and the IMF

One year has passed since the terrorist attacks that hit New York and the Pentagon. Although the war in Afghanistan ended rather quickly, the danger of terrorism lingers on, and the Bush Administration's policy of not ruling out pre-emptive attacks has fueled new tensions. The recent slump in stock markets...
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2002

Label that foils compromise

Sept. 11, 2002, brought us no closer to sensible thinking about the causes of events a year earlier. The United States concentrated on its own sufferings, and plans for revenge against "terrorists." In Japan, a high-level NHK roundtable dragged out that favorite of aid agencies seeking bigger budgets,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Sep 22, 2002

Recession? What recession?

For many, the mere thought of Champagne is enough to make the pulse race and the tongue tingle. Josephine de Beauharnais, the wife of Napoleon and Empress of France 1796-99, once remarked that "making love without a bottle of Champagne alongside my bed is merely silly." For those looking to indulge in...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 22, 2002

The fallout of Japan's national energy policy

In Japan, Fumiko Kometani, the wife of American screenwriter Josh Greenfeld and mother of journalist Karl Taro Greenfeld, has a reputation for being a grouch. A longtime resident of the United States, she writes for a number of Japanese publications and very rarely has anything nice to say about either...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Sep 22, 2002

Shinsekai Saikan: Old school from the New World

Shinsekai Saikan (or Xinshijie Caiguan, to give it the proper Pinyin reading) has plied its trade at the Jinbocho Crossing since 1946 -- so long, indeed, that it's become one of the neighborhood landmarks. The name may be "New World Restaurant," but this is definitely an establishment of the old school....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 21, 2002

Ian Bailey

SHROPSHIRE, England -- A plaque over the porch of a remarkable black-and-white house in a small hamlet in Shropshire gives the date 1636. This records the age of the front of the house. Parts of the rest are older. Owner Ian Bailey has documents that are dated 1589, when the first known inventory was...
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 21, 2002

Chiba puts Lions' PL party on hold

CHIBA -- Nate Minchey made sure things didn't go the way the Seibu Lions had expected Friday night.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 19, 2002

Mind over matter and danger signals by design

Our emotions in relation to other living things are worthy of a whole lifetime of study.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 19, 2002

When evil guitars desecrated the Budokan

Long before the 'hoorigans' descended on Japan last summer, the arrival of another group of Englishmen was giving Japanese officials sleepless nights.
MORE SPORTS
Sep 18, 2002

Sugiyama rolls into Round 2

Fifth-seeded Ai Sugiyama of Japan overcame compatriot Shinobu Asagoe in straight sets Tuesday to book her place in the second round of the Toyota Princess Cup.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2002

Koizumi to go in fighting

The first item on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's agenda when he meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il will be his demand for information about 11 Japanese believed abducted to the Stalinist state between 1977 and 1983, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Monday.
BUSINESS
Sep 16, 2002

Mortgage-lending confab aims to fire up European market

The movers and shakers of Europe's mortgage-lending industry are to attend an unprecedented conference that starts in Madrid on Sept. 22 in an effort to find solutions in light of globalization and ensuing difficulties they currently face -- including dilution within the financial services industry and...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 16, 2002

Dealing with Kim Jong Il

SEOUL -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on Tuesday represents the biggest step in relations between the two countries since the end of World War II in 1945. Koizumi, though, must keep a cool head in the face of any strategic ploy that...
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2002

Make way for manga

A merican popular culture: We hear that phrase and immediately think of a juggernaut, a one-way tide rolling round the globe bearing its fatally attractive, tradition-squelching icons. It used to be John Wayne and jazz and Audrey Hepburn and Mickey Mouse. Then came McDonald's and Snoopy. More recently...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 15, 2002

A river of ill repute

THE MEKONG: Turbulent Past, Uncertain Future, by Milton Osborn. Allen & Unwin, 2001, 295 pp., b/w & color photos, $25 (cloth) The waters of the Mekong, the world's 12th-longest and Southeast Asia's foremost river, do not, like the Thames, run sweetly. Nor have they inspired poets to dream on the river's...
SOCCER / J. League
Sep 15, 2002

Urawa Reds knock Jubilo off pedestal

Urawa forwards Yuichiro Nagai and Tatsuya Tanaka scored goals in the second half as the Reds stunned J. League first-stage champion Jubilo Iwata 2-1 at Iwata Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
COMMUNITY
Sep 15, 2002

Did Plato's Republic find a spiritual home in Japan?

Four hundred and two years ago this week, a battle was fought near the village of Sekigahara, 40 km northwest of Nagoya. Though short -- it was over soon after lunchtime -- the battle was decisive, ushering in . . . Plato's Republic?
Japan Times
JAPAN / THE OKINAWA FACTOR
Sep 14, 2002

Okinawans look to tackle problems on own terms

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- Every third Monday, members of an underground community bank gather in a bar in downtown Naha.
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2002

It's folly for U.S. to go it alone

LONDON -- "Go it alone" is clearly the prevailing mood in Washington. Officials and commentators alike argue that with the United States' overwhelming military might and Europe's alleged weakness, the world must be set right by unilateral American action, and the international community can either like...
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Sep 13, 2002

School selection comes to Japan at last

In many countries, parents have a choice of public schools. Not Japan. Here, you get just one choice: Send your child to the closest public school, or pay a lot of money for private school. But this is changing. School choice is coming to Japan.
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Sep 13, 2002

"Artemis Fowl," "Egg Drop"

"Artemis Fowl," Eoin Colfer, Puffin Books; 2002; 282 pp. "Stay back, human. You don't know what you are dealing with."
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 12, 2002

Agreeing to disagree makes no sense at all

The deluge of posters, pamphlets and platitudes that roared out of Johannesburg during the 2002 Earth Summit has ended, though to no one's surprise this summit's conclusions were much the same as those of the first Earth Summit in Rio a decade ago.

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