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BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2002

Fujita seeks integration with Mitsui-Sumitomo

As banks and the government desperately work to solve the issue of mounting problem loans, many of which were extended to the construction industry, financially troubled contractor Fujita Corp. said Friday that it plans to merge its key construction division with Mitsui Construction Co. and Sumitomo...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / LEARNING BY HEART
Feb 15, 2002

Shitamachi schoolmates still together at 70

What is the secret of lifelong friendships that form in elementary school? I would never have thought to ask myself that question until my father-in-law announced he wouldn't be home for Sunday's family dinner because he was attending a party. Though he put it quite casually, the amazing thing to me...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 14, 2002

Of arms races and sex battles

On Valentine's Day, what better subject to tackle than sex? Well, maybe love, but that's not what gets evolutionary biologists all hot and bothered. Sex is where it's at -- the battle between the sexes. Males and females interact like two superpowers engaged in an arms race -- each escalation in arms...
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?
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.
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
Feb 11, 2002

Wrong time to be in the wrong place

Naohiro Takahara's Argentine adventure with Boca Juniors came to a suddenly and unhappy end a few days ago when the Argentine club decided to cut short the one-year-loan deal of the Japan striker.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 10, 2002

Japanese women 'defect' to the West

WOMEN ON THE VERGE: Japanese Women, Western Dreams, by Karen Kelsky. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001, pp. 294, $18.95 (paper) The pursuit of "things foreign" has become an increasingly common activity of Japanese women in recent decades. Whether it be through study and work abroad, or through...
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Feb 10, 2002

Hantei: Kushi-age on a higher plane

There are still people who believe the idea of a classy kushi-age is a downright contradiction in terms. After all, they reason, it's a cross between two basic, blue-collar staples: yakitori and tonkatsu. How could such a mongrel hybrid, better suited to greasy neighborhood nomiya, ever be worthy of...
COMMENTARY
Feb 9, 2002

Can U.S. find the right voice?

LONDON -- The United States is the predominant force in the world -- more so than ever. Its military reach is awesome (as Afghanistan has proved), its technology at the forefront, its universities the most advanced, its Nobel laureates the most numerous, its production now back to almost 30 percent of...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 9, 2002

Ueda-san: busy staying home no more

On our island, the passage of time is measured in lives. With the passing away of my neighbor Ueda-san, I feel like a part of Japan has gone with her.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2002

Diplomats: more than traveling salesmen

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Recently, the order of a prominent European political leader to his country's ambassadors to begin acting as salesmen made waves all the way to Asia. This is not an isolated case: To various degrees, politicians from Europe to Asia and Oceania are now calling for a new diplomacy...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 8, 2002

Arimori strides for success in life after marathon

Winning an Olympic medal, you would think, would be the greatest honor an athlete can achieve.
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2002

Wearable display does not block view

OSAKA -- Mitsubishi Electric Corp. has developed a headset-mounted liquid crystal display that does not block the viewer's field of vision, making a radical departure from the goggle-style displays being marketed as portable movie theaters.
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2002

BOJ Policy Board seeking to enhance its credit-easing tools

The Bank of Japan convened a two-day meeting of its Policy Board on Thursday to discuss ways of refining its credit-easing tools in a bid to ensure that its current quantitative-easing policy will not be undermined.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2002

Canberra sticks to its policy on illegal immigrants despite growing protests

SYDNEY -- Just as Australian Prime Minister John Howard was addressing world economic leaders in New York on the profits to be made from investing here, Afghan asylum seekers held in detention camps in the Australian desert were trying to die in hunger strikes.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2002

Look out for suicidal signals amid these hard times: doctor

Psychological stress is building among Japanese businessmen due to the crisis of lifetime employment, which has deep roots in the nation's way of living.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 7, 2002

Hypersexual farming

Humans have practiced selective breeding for thousands of years to develop plants, animals and fungi better suited for human use than they are in their natural states. No genetic engineering is required, yet the genes of selected strains are different, "improved." Even people opposed to genetic modification...
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2002

The only viable choice

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policy speech to the Diet on Monday could not have come at a worse time. The week before, he had invited public anger by firing Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, the most popular member of his Cabinet and the staunchest supporter of his reform plans. It was an "agonizing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 6, 2002

From Dakota to Nagoya with a pirouette

Next week will see the great and the good of the ballet world descend on Nagoya for the Fourth Japan International Ballet and Modern Dance Competition. This triennial event, inaugurated in 1993, is unusual among leading international dance competitions in featuring simultaneous classical and modern dance...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2002

Impressionist master of time and space

If the world seems like a dark place at the beginning of the present century, an exhibition of work completed at the beginning of the last may help put things back in a more optimistic perspective. "Monet -- Later Works: Homage to Katia Granoff," is on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till Feb. 11 and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 6, 2002

Diary of a not-so-mad man

"I'm not the Antichrist, I'm not the Iron Man, I'm not the kind of person you really think I am . . . I try to entertain you the best I can, I wish I'd walked before I ran," Ozzy Osbourne sings in "Gets Me Through," the opening track on his new album, "Down to Earth." It is at once a touching thank-you...
Japan Times
Events
Feb 5, 2002

Artificial jellyfish find niche market with aquarium hobbyists

NARA -- Jellyfish swimming up and down inside a water tank may be a comforting sight to see, but keeping them alive is another matter entirely. Help, however, is on the way, said Hideaki Okuda, a maker of artificial jellyfish.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2002

Kinki Nippon, Nippon Travel part ways

Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. and Nippon Travel Agency, the nation's second- and third-largest travel agencies, announced Monday that they have canceled a merger plan for January 2003 due to ramifications of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2002

Topix closes at new 17-year low

The Tokyo Stock Price Index closed Monday below 950 for the first time since April 1985 as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's policy speech to the Diet failed to ease investors' worries over a possible delay in structural reforms.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2002

TV anchor aims to set new standards for news reporting

Most television news programs in Japan neglect their responsibility to inform people of what is happening in society by failing to present news in an understandable way.
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Sake brewed with a feminine touch

SHIBATA, Niigata Pref. -- Orderly chaos might be a good way to describe the Ichishima Sake Brewery on this bone-chilling January morning.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 3, 2002

A little bit of Martha in every rabbit hutch

Considering the state of the Japanese economy, the current popularity of penny-pinching advice in the media is hardly surprising. There seems to be a fundamental paradox at work here, in that advertisers prefer programs and articles which encourage the spending of money, while the advice given out these...

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