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SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 6, 2002

New transfer rule won't help rumor mill

LONDON -- The FIFA-imposed transfer window, which means Premiership clubs will not be able to sign any new players until Jan. 1, has brought different reactions from various parties.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDUSTRY TRENDS
Sep 6, 2002

Demographic shift prompts toy makers to reach out to adults

Faced with an ever declining number of children, Japan's toy makers have started courting their parents, alluring them with frothy beer dispensers and matchbox luxury sedans.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2002

Koizumi may invite Kim to visit Japan

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi may invite North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to Japan when he visits Pyongyang on Sept. 17, a top government spokesman said Wednesday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Sep 5, 2002

On the trail of semi and shochu

I don't drink sake any more. It's just about the only alcoholic drink that gives me hangovers. Horrible ones. However, shochu I love, and where better to drink it than at a yatai in Fukuoka?
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 5, 2002

Divorce issues, cheap traveling and getting ADSL

Divorce issues Dear Lifelines, My wife and I have been separated for three years. I do not see any hope for our marriage and feel we need to get a divorce. I have two children. What should I do? -- Tony in Chiba
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 5, 2002

Soon we could all be Spiderman

Picture the scene: Athens, 350 B.C., and Aristotle is reclining in his chair in Plato's Academy. Leaning back to scratch his unruly beard, Aristotle notices a large pink-spotted gecko on the marble ceiling above him. The gecko scampers away faster than 1 meter per second, leaving Aristotle wondering...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Sep 5, 2002

Blinx gives Xbox style

Nintendo is all about platform games. Since Mario, Luigi, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong specialize in platform adventures, GameCube owners have plenty of this ever-popular genre.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 4, 2002

No fear of flying

"There's no such thing as improvisation," the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia once said. "There's only composition. Only you do it quickly; you're composing on the spot."
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2002

Designed to dazzle: a lacquerware celebration

The quintessential Japanese aesthetic is that of wabi sabi, a beauty associated with things that are simple, rustic, unpolished or even plain rundown. It is perhaps surprising, then, that this aesthetic is so little in evidence at an extensive exhibition at the Tokyo National Museum of one of Japan's...
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2002

Asian stereotypes die hard in U.S. national psyche

LOS ANGELES -- One of the best reading experiences in the United States this summer is the thriller "Absolute Rage," certainly a rage among applauding reviewers from Publishers Weekly to the Los Angeles Times. The 14th in a series of crime thrillers, it tells a well-informed tale about America's brutal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 4, 2002

Everlasting beauty left by everyday lives

Two thousand years from now, what will archaeologists unearth from the ruins of our civilization? Cars? Rice cookers? For sure, examples of "technology" so outdated as to provoke incredulity. The U.S. government believes that future humans -- or perhaps extraterrestrial excavators -- will uncover still-toxic...
BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2002

Zero-interest account plan poised to solve nothing

Banks don't want it. Most depositors don't need it. Many politicians oppose it. A compromise plan financial regulators are preparing is supposed to appease critics, help save the nation's weakest banks, and protect one of the key reform pledges of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. It may accomplish none...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 2, 2002

Historic Tsumago: a time capsule of Edo living

Build a good tourist trap, and the world will beat a path to your door. This seems to have been the thinking in the small town of Tsumago in southwestern Nagano Prefecture. Facing rural decay in the late '60s, the townspeople decided to do something about it. They reached for their one real asset the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / WEEKEND WISDOM
Sep 1, 2002

'Dialect broadcaster' leads revival of Okinawan tongue

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- Fumiko Ikari used to spend hours listening to Japanese radio, mimicking broadcasters' inflections and trying to purge all traces of the Okinawa dialect from her speech.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2002

Iraqi painter exhibiting in Tokyo

An Iraqi painter will hold an exhibition in Tokyo in September to help Japanese gain a different view of the Middle East, the organizers of the art show said Saturday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Sep 1, 2002

How much do you really need to know?

The choice of yeast in sake brewing exerts marvelous leverage on the aroma and style of the final product. And, while creativity and diversity lead to better sake over time, things can indeed get out of hand. Today, there are so many different yeasts -- and ways of combining them -- that it almost ceases...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 1, 2002

Tokyo's blueprints of th past - and the future

Tokyo is an ugly city. Sure, it may not suffer from the smog of Mexico City, be blighted by Johannesburg-style shantytowns or possess Houston's plate-glass vacuity. Nonetheless, the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, World War II bombing and subsequent construction booms have combined to obliterate the...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 1, 2002

Hitting English language-learning overdrive

The Japanese media is in the middle of another of its sporadic English-language learning frenzies, which, this time, seems to have been sparked by an Education Ministry decision to promote English conversation lessons in public elementary schools.
EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2002

Failure is not an option

Aside from its size, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg is a touchstone that indicates how serious the international community is about reconciling its needs with the world's limited resources. It is billed as the largest United Nations gathering in history.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 31, 2002

Falun Gong seeks peace and freedom to practice

Shinly Shaw is slender with short hair, and Chinese. This is how she described herself so I could pick her out in the crowd. Luckily we found one another in Tokyo Station, but only the second time around.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2002

'Confessed' killer awaits appeal ruling

It has been nearly five years since Manalili Villanueva Rosal was taken into custody on suspicion of murdering her lover in Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture.
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2002

Ikuta appointed chief of new postal firm

Posts minister Toranosuke Katayama on Friday appointed Masaharu Ikuta, chairman of Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., as the first head of a new public corporation to be established in April to run the nation's postal services.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 31, 2002

Fear and loathing in XXL Las Vegas

The combination of classic American kitsch and the Japanese love for it makes Las Vegas a mandatory stop on any Japanese person's tour of the U.S. This is how I find myself in Las Vegas now with two Japanese home stay students.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Aug 30, 2002

Harbor seal

* Japanese name: Zenigata-azarashi * Scientific name: Phoca vitulina stejnegeri * Description: Harbor seals are pinnipeds -- mammals adapted to life in the ocean. Their limbs are modified into flippers, each with five digits. The fore flippers are used for grooming, scratching and fighting; the hind...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 29, 2002

Japan and U.K. forge new green links

NAGANO -- Last weekend in Johannesburg, 65,000 people were limbering up for the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2002

Persian-language court interpreter lives life on a tightrope

Keiko Kawashima's job as a Persian-language court interpreter sometimes requires her to respond to calls in the middle of the night.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 28, 2002

Spoon: "Kill the Moonlight"

Since forming in the early '90s, the Austin, Texas, band Spoon has continually sharpened its sound to such a fine edge that its new album, "Kill the Moonlight," could conceivably be performed live with only singer-songwriter Britt Daniels on vocals, drummer Jim Eno on tambourine and a tape of the simple...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 28, 2002

Ninagawa gives his best -- all over again

People always comment on Shakespeare's incredible productivity, but director Yukio Ninagawa surely deserves to be right up there with him -- at least in terms of hard work.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 28, 2002

Amadou and Mariam: "Amadou and Mariam"

This album smokes. Amadou and Mariam play a rollicking, good-natured blend of bluesy R&B and Malian dance band music. Amadou sings and plays a seamless rhythm guitar and the occasional crackling lead, while Mariam sings in a voice of sweet fragility.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?