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Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 8, 2003

Bygone beauties in the modern age

Shoen Uemura was a rarity -- one of the few Japanese female artists who worked in a traditional style and found recognition and acclaim. "The Shoen Uemura Retrospective," an exhibition showing at the Hiroshima Prefectural Art Museum (then moving to the Utsunomiya Museum in Tochigi Prefecture later this...
EDITORIALS
Oct 6, 2003

Can Rengo stand up for the weak?

Over the years the image of Japanese trade unions as labor's standard bearer has become steadily tarnished. Their activities no longer hit the headlines except during annual labor-management negotiations. Even the name "shunto" -- the spring labor offensive -- now seems almost irrelevant because the...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 6, 2003

British National Party must be stopped

BRUSSELS -- There has been a step-change in the activity and success of the British National Party. It is now a serious element in electoral politics. Driven by new ways to attract voters, party members no longer cry "repatriation." Instead, their slogan "pensioners before asylum seekers" is aimed at...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 5, 2003

Role of victims in court needs careful monitoring

In the past, the press was often accused of bearing down too hard on victims of crimes and their families. In the most extreme cases, the media would camp outside the homes of victims who didn't want to talk to them (the family of the Kobe boy who was beheaded by another boy in 1995) or imply that a...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2003

World holds vested interest in a successful South Africa

PRETORIA -- The last 10 to 15 years have not been the best advertisement for the human species. Our brutality toward fellow human beings, including children and women, seems to plumb ever-lower depths. The positive side of identifying with fellow members of a particular religion, race, tribe or ethnic...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2003

Fertility experts urge health insurance help

In response to the increasingly serious problem of Japan's falling birthrate, patients and medical professionals involved in fertility treatment are calling for the cost of treatment to be covered by national health insurance.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2003

NPO hypes green acres to city retirees

Faced with a bleak future of depopulation and possible oblivion, Japan's rural communities are looking to gray power for a new lease on life.
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2003

Ogasawara alien species targeted

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the village of Ogasawara set up a joint committee Friday to address the negative effects of imported species on the Ogasawara Islands, nominated by Japan as a site for the UNESCO World Heritage List.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 4, 2003

Surf is always up for Internet addicts

At least I have a decent excuse.
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2003

Outsourcing perceived as rural revival measure

In a bid to reinvigorate the nation's fragile rural economies, the government will review legal barriers that prevent the outsourcing of local administrative services to the private sector, economic and fiscal policy minister Heizo Takenaka said Friday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Oct 4, 2003

Dad(o) hands down a family tradition

Frederic Holyszewski (aka Dado, Deedrah) was raised in the countryside of Fontainebleau, south of Paris. His parents handed down strong family traditions that grew out of a humble background. It was a charmed setting in which to grow up -- Fontainebleau even has a castle. And music was a pillar of his...
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2003

Fertility treatment carries heavy price

Women typically pay between 500,000 yen and 4 million yen to undergo in vitro fertilization treatment, sometimes borrowing money for the procedure, according to a recent study in Oita.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2003

Saving a Japanese monument

Japan still has an entry on the World Monuments Fund's biennial "watch list" of the planet's 100 most endangered cultural sites, according to the 2004 update released last week. It is time to ensure that the historic port town of Tomonoura, which was first included in the 2002 list, is not on it two...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 3, 2003

Luxor: Pride of Italy, transplanted

You eat better at Italian restaurants in Tokyo than you do in Italy. A preposterous statement of unreconstructed chauvinism? An urban myth propagated by a few disgruntled tourists ripped off in Rimini? No, that is the considered opinion of a growing number of people familiar with both countries and their...
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2003

Diplomat says antiwar stance led to his firing

A senior Japanese diplomat who left the Foreign Ministry on Aug. 29 is planning to challenge the ministry as he believes he was "virtually fired" due to his opposition to Japan supporting the U.S.-led war on Iraq, the ex-diplomat told Kyodo News in a recent interview.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 1, 2003

Tigers' pennant forced Giants skipper to fall on his sword

That was a shocker. Talking here about the resignation of Yomiuri Giants manager Tatsunori Hara on Sept. 26. Sure, it had been rumored for days, but I for one did not expect it would really happen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2003

Praise be! Hip-hop art gets religious

Picture a classic Byzantine icon of the crucified Christ. The savior's body, having been taken down from the cross, is surrounded by his grieving loved ones. Now imagine that scene in the 21st century. Replace the body of Jesus with that of slain gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur, laid out on a car hood, with...
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2003

New Cabinet avoids tough issues on first outing

Making its debut Monday at a Diet debate, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's new Cabinet faced tough questions on postal privatization and Japan's future role in rebuilding Iraq.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 28, 2003

Kawabata's Yomiura City

A short story by Yasunari Kawabata; translated by Burritt Sabin
CULTURE / Music
Sep 28, 2003

Singing in the ageless language of love

Among the rags-to-riches stories that make the annals of popular music such a colorful read, few tales are as dramatic as that of Ibrahim Ferrer, now age 76.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 28, 2003

Journals of Joseph Campbell

SAKE & SATORI: Asian Journals -- Japan, by Joseph Campbell. California: Joseph Campbell Foundation/New World Library, 2002, 350 pp., b/w photographs, $22.95 (cloth). In 1955, the eminent mythologist Joseph Campbell came to Japan and stayed for five months. Author of "The Hero With a Thousand Faces,"...
JAPAN
Sep 27, 2003

Koizumi promises to pummel postal services into submission

Flush with his sweeping victory in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed Friday to privatize postal services in April 2007.
EDITORIALS
Sep 27, 2003

DPJ's uphill road to power

The birth of the new Democratic Party of Japan -- the largest opposition party to debut since 1994 -- promises to create more constructive tension in Japanese politics. The DPJ, which has absorbed the smaller Liberal Party, is looking to the coming general election as an opportunity to snatch power from...
BUSINESS
Sep 27, 2003

Postal-privatization plan due by fall 2004

Heizo Takenaka, economy and fiscal policy minister, said Friday he will compile a postal-privatization plan by fall 2004.
BUSINESS
Sep 26, 2003

One-off factor trims Japan's debt

Although Japan's outstanding public debt has edged down slightly from a record high, the decline was due to a one-off event that prevented it from blowing out even further, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 25, 2003

Education minister wants kids to be more patriotic

The Fundamental Law of Education should be revised in ways that would encourage children to regain a sense of patriotism and learn about religion, according to the new education minister, Takeo Kawamura.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Sep 25, 2003

When the grass is greener on the other side

I was starting a load of laundry, my son's dirty trousers in hand, when I sensed something was wrong. I couldn't put my finger on what was troubling me. I held up my kid's khakis, looking for a clue. It wasn't that his pants were filthy. They are always filthy. It wasn't that they were full of holes....
Japan Times
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 25, 2003

Aso questions Koizumi's timetable to privatize postal services entity

New home affairs minister Taro Aso expressed skepticism Wednesday over the timetable put forward by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to privatize the postal services entity.
BUSINESS
Sep 25, 2003

Brokerages plan April 1 merger

Midsize brokerages SMBC Friend Securities Co. and Izumi Securities Co. said Wednesday they will merge April 1 to streamline operations and bolster customer bases.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDEN PATHS
Sep 25, 2003

Lush 'theme park' of the shoguns

Four hundred years ago, Edo was little more than a fishing village in the large domain of Tokugawa Ieyasu. But then, in 1603, the new shogun made this quiet spot his power base, and over the next two centuries Edo became one of the greatest cities in the world. Remarkably, the Koishikawa Korakuen garden,...

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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