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CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2001

Poetry for every mood and season

RYOKAN: Selected Tanka, Haiku, translated by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizuguchi & Fujisato Kitajima. Kokodo, 2000, pp. 218, 2 ,000 yen. LOVE HAIKU: Masajo Suzuki's Lifetime of Love: Translations by Lee Gurga & Emiko Miyashita. Brooks Books, 2000, pp. 112, 1,600 yen. UTSUMUKU SEINEN /LOOKING DOWN:...
BUSINESS
Mar 26, 2001

New global financial products require careful tax treatment

During my time as a Diet member, I often raised the importance of using the Advanced Ruling System.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Hot rod 'tribes' roar into the night

It's 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night outside the Shibaura parking area, a thin strip of concrete and pavement stuck to a pillar under the belly of Tokyo's Rainbow Bridge. There's a flash of red taillights as vehicles speed in. New arrivals are greeted by leather-clad bikers revving their engines, spitting...
JAPAN
Mar 22, 2001

Murakami indicted over 72 million yen in KSD bribes

Public prosecutors indicted former House of Councilors member Masakuni Murakami on Wednesday on charges of taking 72 million yen in bribes from KSD, a government-authorized foundation for small businesses.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2001

The choice is North Korea's

WASHINGTON -- The curtain has come down on the first act of the Bush administration's Asia policy, and there are far more questions than answers about U.S. policy after President Kim Dae Jung's visit to Washington. The media feasted on the mixed messages from a skeptical President George W. Bush and...
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 9, 2001

Show me what you've got!

I'd like to greet all the players in the J. League and look forward to seeing the joy of football in Japan this year. I'd specifically like to welcome the new foreign players. My message to you, as well as to the Japanese players, is simply play your best, play football.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 8, 2001

'Samurai' blazing a trail in XFL

Being a pioneer has its rewards, but as many a sports trailblazer has learned over the years, going where no one else has gone before is not all glory. In fact, it can be downright tough.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 7, 2001

Great Domain Robbery

I got a whiff of this story last week at Inside.com. It was in a news brief about a journalist who had floated details about a company that would soon offer new top-level domain names.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2001

The horns of a dilemma

At first glance, it looks like humanitarianism on the cheap: Send the hundreds of tons of beef that are being discarded in Germany to North Korea, where millions of people are reportedly on the brink of starvation. But it is not that simple: Germany's cattle are being killed because they might have bovine...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Mar 5, 2001

Nanjing Massacre evidence twisted at historian's whim

A publisher asks me to make excerpts from Judge Radhabinod Pal's "dissentient judgment" and write an introduction to the selection. The Indian jurist Pal was one of 11 judges who sat on the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (the Tokyo Trial). He found Japan not guilty, the only one to...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 5, 2001

Paleolithic technology and the boom in cultural evolution

About 300,000 years ago something happened that was unlike anything in the previous few billion years, something that would have ever-expanding repercussions.
COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 2001

No quick fixes for Japan's ills

TOKYO and LONDON -- The 17th annual meeting of the U.K.-Japan 21st Century Group -- the bilateral think tank set up by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher way back in the '80s -- took place this year on Awaji Island in Kobe Bay, island of gods and puppets and,...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

The spy game: high stakes, low payoffs

LONDON -- It's an impressive list: CIA official Aldrich Ames jailed for life in 1994 for spying for Moscow; CIA agent Harold Nicholson jailed for 23 years in 1997 for the same offense; FBI employee Earl Pitts sentenced to 27 years later the same year for passing information to Moscow; U.S. Army Col....
COMMENTARY
Feb 24, 2001

Mori's lame-duck maneuvers

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is coming under increasing pressure to resign. One likely scenario, according to sources in the ruling coalition, goes something like this: In early March, after the fiscal 2001 government budget clears the Lower House, he announces his intention to step down, and later that...
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2001

Explain the collision

A troubling picture is beginning to emerge as details are revealed about conditions aboard the USS Greeneville when the submarine hit the training vessel Ehime Maru last week. That accident left nine students and instructors aboard the fisheries training ship missing -- they are presumed dead -- and...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 22, 2001

Selling tax cuts to Congress

U.S. President George W. Bush continues his attempt to make friends and influence important constituencies. He has spent more time with the Congressional Black Caucus than with the Republican leadership. He has traveled to schools to promote his education priorities. He has been to small businesses explaining...
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2001

Ministers silent as rumor mill spins over successor to Mori

With Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori facing mounting pressure to step down, speculation swirled Tuesday over who will succeed him.
BUSINESS
Feb 21, 2001

Miyazawa says 10% sales tax inevitable

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Tuesday that raising Japan's consumption tax rate to around 10 percent, the same level as in European nations, from the current 5 percent is inevitable in order to realize fiscal reconstruction.
COMMENTARY
Feb 19, 2001

Defense issues move to the fore

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, in a policy speech to the Diet Jan. 31, stated: "Emergency legislation (designed to defend Japan in the event of foreign aggression) is necessary to ensure the security of the state and the people. I intend to initiate considerations in this regard." Earlier, on Jan. 26,...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2001

Departing Foley believes strength of ties will prevail

The following are excerpts from U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley's interview with The Japan Times: What do you think the U.S. and Japanese governments should do to prevent overall bilateral relations from being damaged by the Feb. 9 accident in which a Japanese ship sank off Hawaii when it was hit by a...
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2001

Allies withdraw Mori criticism

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori came under fire again Wednesday as a top member of key coalition partner New Komeito called for his resignation.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 12, 2001

Hints of thaw in Indo-Pakistani relations

ISLAMABAD -- When Pakistani military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spoke on the phone for a few minutes after the devastating earthquake that hit parts of India recently, many observers were relieved.
COMMENTARY
Feb 10, 2001

Upheaval on the horizon

Diet debate started Tuesday on the fiscal 2001 government budget. The debate is likely to see head-on confrontation between the ruling and opposition forces. The government and the ruling coalition are hoping to pass the budget before fiscal 2000 ends March 31 in order to prepare for an Upper House election...
BUSINESS
Feb 7, 2001

Neither yen nor dollar face uphill factors

Given the recent slew of data showing a sharp slowdown in the U.S. economy, a strong dollar rebound appears unlikely in the near term.
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 2001

Reaching out to problem children

School teachers throughout the country recently held brainstorming sessions as part of a voluntary effort to promote educational reform. Reports and discussions at those meetings, attended by members of the Japan Teachers Union (Nikkyoso) and the National Teachers Union (Zenkyo), reinforced the perception...
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2001

Air traffic control to be improved

Air traffic control systems will be upgraded after investigators determined incorrect instructions from controllers caused Wednesday's near collision between two Japan Airlines jetliners, the Transport Ministry announced Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 2001

Air traffic control to be improved

Air traffic control systems will be upgraded after investigators determined incorrect instructions from controllers caused Wednesday's near collision between two Japan Airlines jetliners, the Transport Ministry announced Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2001

Tokyo, New Delhi eager to put synergy back in relations

Last week's massive earthquake in western India has thrown in doubt Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's planned official visit to Japan this month -- the first by a premier of the world's most populous democracy in nearly 13 years.

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