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EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2003

Slogans without sanctuary

After nearly two years in office, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is increasingly beleaguered in his bid to retool Japan's dysfunctional economic systems. He is sticking to his banner slogans -- "Structural reform without sanctuaries" and "No reform, no growth," but the gap between words and deeds continues...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 2, 2003

How the 'modern' code was cracked

The headless body of a woman in her 50s was laid on a straw mat inside a hut at Kotsukahara in Edo's Senju area. Born in Kyoto and nicknamed "Aochababa," sketchy court records indicate the woman had been convicted of killing her adopted children. She had been executed by beheading that very morning,...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2003

Yokota trip to N. Korea nixed; U.S. visit planned

A group of the families of Japanese nationals abducted to North Korea said Sunday the group's representative, Shigeru Yokota, will not visit Pyongyang for the time being, but group members are planning to visit the United States to raise awareness of the abductions issue.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 17, 2003

Izayoi: Fine fowl deeds in Azabu-Juban

The idea of upmarket yakitori -- presenting premium-quality charcoal-broiled chicken in suave settings, often with fine wine and other foreign influences -- is taken for granted in Tokyo these days. But nowhere else in the city is this venerable concept -- the skewering and grilling of fowl -- translated...
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2003

From business to politics

A fter a nine-year break, Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation) this year is resuming its role in mediating political donations from affiliated companies. The aim, of course, is to increase its influence on politics. In other words, Nippon Keidanren is seeking to sway politics with the policy...
COMMENTARY
Jan 8, 2003

International role critical to Indo-Pakistani peace

ISLAMABAD -- "If Indian troops moved a single step across the international border, or Line of Control, they should not expect a conventional war from Pakistan." These remarks by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf were a chilling reminder of the threat to peace posed by volatile Indo-Pakistani...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 8, 2003

Ladytron: "Light & Magic"

'They only want you when you're 17. When you're 21 you're no fun." This song, "Seventeen," the first single from their new album "Light & Magic," sums up what Ladytron are all about. Their lyrics can be cruel and direct ("Seventeen" is an indictment of the Lolita values of modeling agencies), but they...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 5, 2003

You saw it! The gongs and goofs of 2002

Media Personalities of the Year: Koichi Tanaka and Tama-chan
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 1, 2003

So you thought '02 was good? Well, there's Mori to come

It looks, at first glance, like a refreshing case of "out with the old, and in with the new": In late 2002 the Tokyo art community bade a teary goodbye to its Mecca, when the falling-down old Sagacho building, home for years to some of Japan's most progressive gallery spaces, finally closed its doors...
COMMUNITY
Dec 29, 2002

Winter's ancient symbol of vigor and life

In the contemporary Western world, Christmas starts with Christmas Eve on Dec. 24. and ends with Boxing Day on Dec. 26. In times now long past, though -- and on calendars now long since consigned to history -- the date of Christmas and celebrations of the birth of Christ have varied from Dec. 25 to Jan....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 17, 2002

Putting in a bad word for Japanese

The other night, the wife and I were watching NHK's evening news when the announcer began a segment on the topic of "domestic violence." The term he used was exactly that. Well okay, not exactly: what I heard was domesuchikku baiorensu.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Capturing today's relevant aspirations

On Oct. 8 I wrote about the second report by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, published Sept. 23, on reforming the U.N. An important innovation in this report (Chapter Two entitled "Doing What Matters") is that it actually tackles the substantive agenda of the organization's work program....
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Countdown to catastrophe

On Nov. 26, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted a note to Kichisaburo Nomura, Japan's ambassador in Washington, and special envoy Saburo Kurusu. Whether that note was an ultimatum that made it virtually certain Japan would wage war -- or whether it represented the latest U.S. effort...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Dec 10, 2002

Last-minute mailing over Christmas

Greetings Oh Lord, it's nearly Christmas again, and those of us (and I include myself here) who still have packets and cards to be mailed abroad need to get our skates on.
COMMENTARY
Dec 1, 2002

Strange public works allergy

Sunday saw the opening of the long-delayed Morioka-Hachinohe extension of the Tohoku Shinkansen (Northeast Japan bullet-train line). Local people will be happy. But don't expect great outbursts of joy elsewhere. Japan is into one of its periodic antipublic works moods.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 25, 2002

Gilded Age of excess returns to America

NEW YORK -- During a recent talk in this city on his lifelong subject, the Iwakura Embassy, businessman-scholar Saburo Izumi reminded those gathered that the Japanese group visited the United States during the Gilded Age. This appellation comes, of course, from American writer Mark Twain (and C.D. Warner)...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Nov 24, 2002

Old world brews for a new century

Belgians makes the finest, most complex beers in the world. There can be little argument about that. They've been perfecting the craft -- many would call it an art -- for centuries. But just because these brews have a tradition dating back to the era of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, that doesn't mean they...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 17, 2002

Threads bared: Tokyo's Spring/Summer collections

Think Zen: the spirit of darkness; the essence of white. This was one of the main themes from Tokyo's fashion designers, who have just presented their Spring/Summer 2003 collections.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 16, 2002

Executives of top banks say everything is fine

Seeking to reassure markets of their financial stability, top executives of the nation's four biggest banking groups insisted Friday they do not require another injection of public funds.
EDITORIALS
Nov 16, 2002

A shadow over the U.S. economy

Prospects for the U.S. economy look increasingly uncertain, and not only for cyclical reasons. Although third-quarter GDP increased at an annual rate of over 3 percent, posting four straight quarters of expansion, there are signs that consumers are beginning to tighten their purse strings. In October,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 13, 2002

The media and a jury system

A government panel on judicial reform is working on a bill that would create a Japanese version of the jury system. The idea is to allow selected citizens to work together with professional judges in deciding major criminal cases. The worry is that the bill might impose undue restrictions on media contact...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 10, 2002

Coming of age in Heartbreak Hotel, New Jersey

WAYLAID, by Ed Lin. Kaya Press: New York, 2002, 169 pp., $12.95 (paper) This terrific first novel by Chinese-American writer Ed Lin revolves around a 12-year-old coming of age in New Jersey in the 1970s, burdened by his virginity and motivated mainly by the desire to lose it.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2002

Press clubs stymie free trade in information: EU

When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi made his historic visit to North Korea on Sept. 17, the only foreign journalists allowed to accompany him were a select few from the United States and South Korea.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2002

Abductee support groups push to find other 'missing' Japanese

OSAKA -- North Korea may feel that the abduction issue has been resolved and that Japan should now proceed with normalization talks, but for relatives of the Japanese abductees and their supporters, the five survivors and the eight reported dead by Pyongyang represent just the tip of the iceberg.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2002

A six-party process to clear up the Korean air

T he crisis over North Korea's attempted acquisition by stealth of a nuclear capability through enriched uranium processing provides a golden opportunity for institutionalizing a process of concerted multilateral diplomacy.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 28, 2002

Critically ill Japan can't depend on assistance from G7 doctors

Japan's economic woes and North Korean issues, including the abductions of Japanese nationals and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, will be the two main topics in the extraordinary Diet session that opened on Oct. 18.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL
Oct 24, 2002

Aliens add to autumn show

Autumn in Japan is a colorful season, and not only because of the famed koyo foliage of its trees. In gardens, fields and roadsides, too, flowers burst forth as if to celebrate the return of sensible weather after the long, sweaty rigors of summer. However, some of the best-known blooms of this fall...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan