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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2001

Protecting the public from the threats of terror and depression

In his Sept. 30 New York Times article, "The Fear Economy," MIT economist Paul Krugman warned that the American public should be prepared for a possible deflationary spiral comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s and Japan's milder but chronic depression of the 1990s. A major depression could...
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2001

Proposed bills detail Constitution review steps

A group of lawmakers considering review of the Constitution proposed two related bills Friday for submission to the ordinary Diet session to convene in January.
JAPAN
Nov 17, 2001

Proposed bills detail Constitution review steps

A group of lawmakers considering review of the Constitution proposed two related bills Friday for submission to the ordinary Diet session to convene in January.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Nov 14, 2001

Where do we go from here?

Almost 20 minutes into my interview with Aidan and David, two members of the Montreal-based band Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Aidan said that he didn't think my questions were very good and that the interview was a waste of time. He expressed himself not angrily but with genuine frustration at my transparently...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 27, 2001

Immigrants' uphill battle to learn English

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- The Asian immigrant was described as speaking in "halting English" even after 20 years of living in the United States. The reporter of the Central California newspaper seemed to suggest that 20 years of living in the country should have resulted in a strong command of the language....
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2001

Yasukuni issue shows little has changed

August used to see Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the focus for Japan's wartime remembrances. But this year the focus has violently shifted to Yasukuni Shrine. Either way we see Japan's inability to come to terms with its militaristic past.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2001

Yasukuni visit 'will certainly be made,' says Yamasaki

Taku Yamasaki, secretary general of the governing Liberal Democratic Party, said Sunday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will definitely pay a visit to Yasukuni Shrine, where Class A war criminals are honored, despite strong opposition from neighboring Asian countries.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 5, 2001

'It's a complicated story,' pleads a battered press

The press has taken quite a beating over its coverage of the murders at Ikeda Elementary School. Even before the funerals, letters to the editor columns were filled with missives from enraged readers lam basting the media's lack of either common decency or common sense. Most complaints concerned interviews...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2001

Yasukuni furor sparks legal threat

Citizens' groups said Thursday they may sue Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi for violating the Constitution if he visits Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine on the Aug. 15 anniversary of Japan's World War II surrender.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 15, 2001

Dismantling stereotypes surrounding Japan's sacred entities

SHINTO IN HISTORY: Ways of the Kami, edited by John Breen and Mark Teeuwen. Richmond, Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1999, 368 pp., 45 British pounds (cloth); 15 pounds (paper). "Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami" is the first attempt in any Western language (and possibly even in Japanese) to offer...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 20, 2001

Combat rock

At the Tokyo office of Bad Music Co., Ltd. the walls are covered in skulls and crossbones of various designs and a man in black is sitting at a table smoking strong cigarettes.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 18, 2001

The price of the 'New World blitzkrieg'

LONDON -- "The survivors are scraps," says evolutionary biologist Dr. John Alroy about the large mammal species that remain in North America after the wave of extinctions that followed the arrival of the first humans less than 14,000 years ago. And there is no longer any question about why all the rest...
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2001

A windfall for Nepal's Maoists

KATMANDU -- The picturesque Himalayan nation of Nepal, wedged between India and China-occupied Tibet, was once an idyllic hideaway for Western trekkers and hippies. Although still a popular tourist destination, Nepal has been wracked in recent years by an expanding Maoist insurrection in the countryside....
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2001

A candle that won't go out

Forty years ago, a British lawyer named Peter Benenson read in his morning paper about two Portuguese students who had been arrested in a Lisbon cafe and sentenced to seven years in prison for having drunk a toast "to freedom," a code phrase for opposition to the government of then dictator Antonio de...
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2001

Korean wins state medical payout

OSAKA — The Osaka District Court ordered the Osaka Prefectural Government on Friday to pay a Korean survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima medical allowances that it had stopped paying after the man returned home from Japan.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
May 31, 2001

Baseball and junk food

www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/index.html "Professional baseball is played at the edge of biological time," the Exploratorium says, "just within a human's ability to react." The pages then go on to demonstrate, not explain, how the pros cope with earning a living on the edge. Games allow you to learn...
JAPAN
May 24, 2001

Koizumi must deliver before hoopla fades

Staff writers Reformist Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi seems to know too well that what counts is his image.
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

Kansai dialect survives on CD

OSAKA -- The distinctions are clear, a Kansai native might tell you. To express, for example, "she's not coming" ("kanojo konai" in standard Japanese), Osaka people would say "kanojo kehen," Kyoto people "kanojo kihen" and Kobe people "kanojo kohen."
BUSINESS
May 14, 2001

Koizumi's chance to change privileged corporate entities

Now that Mr. Junichiro Koizumi has been elected Prime Minister on his campaign to "Change Japan," one issue that should not be overlooked is how Japan approaches its government-run special corporate entities, or "SPEs."
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
May 4, 2001

Heresy of Koizumi key to his Cabinet's soaring popularity, Fukuda says

It is the heretical style of new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi that has sent his Cabinet's approval ratings soaring, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2001

South Korea weighs a constitutional revision

SEOUL -- In private, even his friends acknowledge that South Korean President Kim Dae Jung has passed the peak of his term. With the opposition increasingly less inclined to cooperate, it has become ever more difficult for the "government of the people" to enact domestic reforms.
JAPAN
Apr 30, 2001

Official Yasukuni visit requires coalition approval: Yamasaki

The No. 2 leader of the Liberal Democratic Party on Sunday said the agreement of the LDP and its two coalition partners is required before new Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can visit Yasukuni Shrine, which honors about 2.5 million Japanese who have died in wars since the mid-19th century.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 26, 2001

Vaccine theory of HIV debunked

A tempest that has been raging in the outwardly dignified world of academia is set to die down with the publication today of three papers in Nature and one in Science. The story -- about the origin of AIDS -- is one of intrigue, mystery and death. Mostly, however, it is about death.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2001

Mori wins 3 million yen in magazine libel suit

Outgoing Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, whose tenure can be described as one long run-in with the media, won 3 million yen in damages Tuesday in a libel suit against a monthly magazine.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Globalization does its work on Japan

GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN, edited by J.S. Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu. Trans Pacific Press, Melbourne, 2000. 295 pp., 3,250 yen (paper). The word "globalization" is used with increasing frequency these days. It is variously employed to describe the increasing degrees...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 19, 2001

Earthlings, meet your parent

The four planets closest to the sun are siblings of a sort. Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars have similar core properties and densities, suggesting that they probably formed from the same dust cloud in the early solar system, but they have very different surfaces and atmospheres. Mercury is hot, has low...

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