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BUSINESS
May 27, 2003

Norway to push whale meat exports

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who arrived Monday in Tokyo, will promote controversial plans to export whale meat to Japan during three days of trade and business talks.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 25, 2003

Still stomping up a storm

Who needs drums when you've got a bucket and a broom? Who needs maracas when you've got a box of matches? Who needs cymbals when you've got garbage-can lids?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 25, 2003

Getting into hot water for health

In the hot-spring heaven that is Japan, there are a countless number of onsen from Hokkaido to Okinawa, from those of luxurious spas in nondescript concrete buildings to rotenburo set in pristine natural surroundings.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 25, 2003

The boy bachelor

Last week, the National Tax Bureau released its annual list of the country's top tax-payers, and at the summit of the pile of show business personalities was Masahiro Nakai, the self-effacing leader of the boy group SMAP. Nakai's high salary is easy to understand: He appears in at least a half-dozen...
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2003

Al-Qaeda sends world a warning

A series of bomb attacks last week killed hopes that the threat from al-Qaeda was diminishing. Experts worry that the string of apparent successes in the international war against terrorism might even trigger more attacks. Ominously, the terrorists are focusing on softer targets, proving once again that...
COMMENTARY
May 23, 2003

Politics placed before health

WASHINGTON -- If the infectious disease SARS breaks out around the globe, it most likely will come from China, the world's most populous state with a primitive health-care system and vast rural population. And if severe acute respiratory syndrome spreads from China, the cause will be the Chinese government's...
SUMO
May 23, 2003

Asashoryu remains sole leader

Asashoryu looked every ounce the grand champion as he blasted out ozeki Tochiazuma to remain the sole leader at the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament on Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink
May 23, 2003

Akebono lives life to the full

"It was," my dining companion recalls with a sigh, "a diet with just one purpose: to get you to put on weight."
COMMENTARY / World
May 22, 2003

Euro's supporters face uphill battle in Britain

LONDON -- If a strong economy and a strong currency are meant to go hand in hand, the 12-nation euro zone is disproving conventional wisdom, and posing stiff challenges for policymakers with implications for the wider world economy.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
May 22, 2003

EA scores big time with 'MVP Baseball'

Who knows what burr got under Electronic Arts' saddle, but the biggest name in sports games is really sharpening its act. The publisher of such megahits as "John Madden NFL Football" and "FIFA Soccer," EA has always kind of stunk at baseball. Not anymore.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
May 22, 2003

Political scientist gained key perspective in Japan

On March 19, just hours before U.S. forces began their raids on Baghdad, more than 50 U.S. government intelligence experts as well as scholars and embassy staff from several South Asian countries assembled in a top-floor room at John Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies for a...
CULTURE / Music
May 21, 2003

Pop goes the question

Name a record you love that's overlooked:
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
May 19, 2003

It's time to meet expectations by installing stock-market package

Japan managed to avoid the so-called March crisis as share prices picked up temporarily toward the end of the month. However, the stock market remained in a slump in April, with the Nikkei average dipping at one point to the 7,600 range.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 18, 2003

Heavens above: a job from hell

Most reporters would have jumped at the assignment, with gusto.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 18, 2003

Top-floor Tokyo

It was 10:30 on a cloudy weekday morning in May, and 40-year-old Masakazu Meguro and his coworkers who make up Calcio Atleta las Manos were happily spending the morning of their precious day off to playing "futsal."
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2003

Let Asia resolve the North Korean crisis

WASHINGTON -- The Iraq war is over, but the Korean Peninsula is growing hotter. Obvious disagreement over policy toward the North has clouded South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's visit to the United States, while Washington's recent nuclear talks with North Korea ended in acrimony. U.S. President George...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 15, 2003

Big-mouth bulbuls time it just right

Second of two parts Imagine, if you can, an opinion poll of Japanese forest plants. Question: which bird is most important to you? The brown-eared bulbul, or hiyodori, would have to take a bow.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 14, 2003

A 'smashing' place for pots

It was 20 years ago today . . . that the famous Kikuchi Collection of Modern Japanese Ceramics was shown to "smashing" reviews at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The 300-piece collection sparked a great interest in modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics that has continued to this day. The...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2003

From Myanmar to Mae Sot

MAE SOT, Thailand F rom a distance, the textile factories near Mae Sot, Thailand, loom like fortified castles. The main buildings resemble fully encased airplane hangers. Cement walls enclose the compounds, though sometimes these, in a decorative touch, are plastered with white stucco. Entrance is via...
COMMENTARY
May 12, 2003

A rocky British partnership

LONDON -- Prime Minister Tony Blair has staked his reputation on achieving a significant improvement in British public services. Under previous Conservative Party administrations, public services were allowed to run down as public expenditures were reduced.
SUMO
May 11, 2003

Asashoryu looks for revenge

Asashoryu had the chance to become the first yokozuna debutant ever to win the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in March. But the pressure proved too great and he blew it on the final day.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 11, 2003

English 'samurai' feted in a hostile land

Anyone who's read James Clavell's "Shogun," or seen the TV mini-series of the same name, is already indirectly acquainted with William Adams, the first Englishman to settle in Japan after a solitary ship of the Dutch trading fleet he was piloting drifted ashore in present-day Oita Prefecture in April...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 11, 2003

Changes in consumer concerns

CONSUMER POLITICS IN POSTWAR JAPAN: The Institutional Boundaries of Citizen Activism, by Patricia Maclachlan. Columbia University Press, New York, 2002, 270 pp., $18.50 (cloth) This excellent study richly evokes the struggle and frustrations of Japanese consumer organizations in the post-World War II...
BASEBALL / MLB
May 10, 2003

Fukudome breathes life into Dragons

Kosuke Fukudome nailed a three-run homer in the eighth inning and singled home the go-ahead run in the ninth as the Chunichi Dragons came from behind to beat the Yomiuri Giants 7-5 at Tokyo Dome on Friday for their third straight win.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 10, 2003

Matt Lagan

People say that the show must go on. They also say that what may happen behind the scenes only the actors know.
COMMENTARY
May 8, 2003

Positioning for the next crisis

In my last column in late April, I treated critically the transformation of America's foreign policy between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war against Iraq, focusing on the unilateralist policy of the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. At the end of that column, I gave...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
May 8, 2003

More breathing space in the classroom

Last month, just before the new school year started in Japan, I ran into a neighbor at the supermarket. She's a bit high-strung and gets worked up over school matters, so I try to avoid her. But she collared me by the cabbages and dropped her voice to a dramatic whisper. "Have you heard? The Suzukis...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FRONT-RUNNERS
May 7, 2003

Shimadzu enjoys fruits of research and development program

If he had been a researcher at a major Japanese university, Koichi Tanaka could not have won the 2002 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 7, 2003

Phil Woods

The intense be-bop style created by Charlie Parker changed the shape of jazz and created an entirely new vocabulary for the saxophone. Few sax players could keep pace with the incredible dexterity and musical intelligence of Bird, though many tried.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 7, 2003

Koby Israelite: "Dance of Idiots"

'Dance of the Idiots" takes the thrust of heavy metal and slams it together with a Balkan restlessness while maintaining a strong Jewish spiritedness. If you've grown up in a musical or cultural blender, this record will make perfect sense to you. If you haven't, it will strike you as highly imaginative...

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