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JAPAN
May 19, 2002

Japan rethinks plan for permanent U.N. Security Council seat

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Japan has been forced to review its diplomatic strategy for gaining a long-coveted permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.
ENVIRONMENT
May 19, 2002

What the label doesn't say

Scandals about deception in product labeling have been in the news of late, with both the expiry dates and the origins of dairy and meat products called into question. While not as big a news item, the labeling standards for whale meat take deception to further, murkier depths -- and to dangerous ones....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 19, 2002

A lost textile art gains ascendancy

THE WORLD OF ROZOME: Wax-Resist Textiles of Japan, by Betsy Sterling Benjamin. Kodansha International, 2002, 224 pp., $49.95 (paper) If the art of "rozome" (wax-resist dyeing) were a moon in the sky, it would be full and glowing brightly. Having waned in importance as a textile-patterning process at...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 19, 2002

Swingin' from Paris to Austin

Since authenticity is an important consideration for the Hot Club of Cowtown, the Austin, Texas, trio who play a mix of Western swing and hot jazz, it's easy to locate them on the musical map. Western swing was mostly invented and popularized by the legendary Bob Wills in the '30s and '40s in Texas,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
May 19, 2002

Where the adventure begins

Wine complements all sorts of moods. At times, it is convivial. We share a bottle around the table, and our group of friends become merrier, the conversation seasoned with laughter. Yet wine can also nourish quiet contemplation. Sip a glass alone or with one other person (a beloved, perhaps), and then...
JAPAN / Media
May 19, 2002

'Sakura' -- or 'E.T. Comes to Japan'

One of the staples of Japanese daytime television for more than four decades has been the NHK Renzoku Terebii Shosetsu (serialized television novel), broadcast six days per week, Monday through Saturday, from 8:15 to 8:30 a.m. Begun in 1961, each "novel" runs for 26 or 52 weeks.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 19, 2002

Credit companies target the debt-ridden poor

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A bored young man answers his telephone and his face lights up. "Diving?!" he says. "I'll be there." In the next scene we see his friends on a pier, happily putting on scuba gear. Then, from the end of another pier, the young man comes running, with only a snorkel....
ENVIRONMENT
May 19, 2002

How deep does our knowledge go?

The group of animals we call cetaceans represent but two-thirds of the orders of "whales" that have ever existed.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2002

Koizumi overplays his hand in Shenyang

BEIJING -- There is a sharp contrast between Japan and China on how they have handled the incident of North Korean asylum-seekers in Japan's Shenyang consulate general. While Beijing has taken a low-key approach, Tokyo has blown the whole matter into crisis proportion, creating a nationwide sensation...
SOCCER / World cup / COHOSTING
May 16, 2002

World Cup pie gets bigger

The head of soccer's world governing body FIFA is never likely to be called a shrinking violet. In the world of sport, perhaps only the head of the International Olympic Committee has a more powerful voice. When he talks, everyone listens.
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2002

Travel advisories for the next generation

WASHINGTON -- How does America's global role affect the lives of individuals? Currently, momentous international policy decisions are being taken; they encompass war, peace, freedom and the projection of power. It is important to step back and develop a vision of the long-term outcome of those policies...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
May 16, 2002

Lifelines

Hello there! My name's Ken Joseph Jr.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
May 15, 2002

Is yen any safer than roller-coaster dollar?

Restless trading is continuing on the currency market, keeping the dollar on its recent roller-coaster ride.
JAPAN
May 15, 2002

Tourists heading abroad fall 9%

The number of Japanese tourists traveling abroad dropped a record 9 percent in 2001 from the previous year to 16.22 million, while tourists visiting Japan rose a marginal 0.3 percent to a record 4.77 million, the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry said in a report Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
May 15, 2002

Still treading the boards after 1,100 years

To commemorate the 1,100th anniversary of the death of Sugawara no Michizane, the celebrated Heian-Period scholar-politician, the National Theater is presenting "Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (Sugawara Certifies a Disowned Disciple to Perpetuate His Line of Calligraphy)." One of three bunraku masterpieces...
BUSINESS
May 14, 2002

Mitsubishi Pharma profits up 229%

Mitsubishi Pharma Corp. said Monday that its group net profit soared 229.4 percent to 8.99 billion yen in fiscal 2001 due to cost-cutting and the U.S. government's authorization of a resumption of shipments from a U.S. plant.
BUSINESS
May 14, 2002

Koizumi vows to keep pursuing privatization in second year

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has told a British financial newspaper that his top priorities for his second year in office are to privatize the postal services and public organizations, including Japan Highway Public Corp., and to accelerate the disposal of banks' bad loans.
Japan Times
JAPAN / WHALE WATCHING
May 14, 2002

Japan seen polishing its harpoons

Japan's official in charge of whaling issues is optimistic that the prowhaling contingent will continue to make inroads at the International Whaling Commission talks in progress in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture.
COMMENTARY / World
May 13, 2002

Prime minister or nationalist puppet?

CAMBRIDGE, England -- The ink was barely dry on my April 21 Japan Times article "Koizumi trade pitch misses," which stated Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was thinking of going to pray at Yasukuni Shrine, when the news came that he had gone. We were told that he had felt the need "to mourn those who...
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2002

Voter alienation feeds Le Pen's success

NEW YORK -- On May 5, I voted for a rightwinger. It was my first time, and with any luck it will be my last. I really didn't have much choice. Born in the United States of a French parent, I enjoy dual nationality -- a status that Jean-Marie Le Pen had promised to eliminate had his National Front seized...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 12, 2002

Chewing the cud with cheap shots at soccer

Here's a confession for you -- a self-insight I discovered just the other night:
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
May 12, 2002

Brewing it naturally isn't so easy

In recent years, there has been increased interest in organic sake. To legally specify something as organic or organically produced is difficult, at least in countries that have begun enforcing the standards that are needed to ensure safety and quality, as well as the protection of the environment.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
May 12, 2002

The smallest jazz club in the world -- or close

At the Hot House jazz club in Takadanobaba, you not only rub elbows with great jazz musicians and intense fans, you also rub shoulders, knees, ankles and hips. To get to the toilet, someone has to stand up (me as it turned out); to get in the door, the pianist has to move his bench; and to get a drink...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 12, 2002

Poetry that's music to the ears of millions

POEMS OF THE GOAT, by Chuya Nakahara, translated by Ry Beville. American Book Company, Richmond, VA, 2002, 77 pp., $15/2500 yen (paper) Why do some writers get translated and others -- better, more deserving -- remain obscure? This is a question that Ry Beville, a young Virginia native, asked himself...
COMMUNITY
May 12, 2002

The King of Sports .... in the land of emperors

Some 15 years ago, I found racing -- or perhaps you could say that it found me. Free tickets to the international Japan Cup took me to Tokyo Race Course and marked the beginning of a continuing affair with the horses.
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2002

Indian state frenzy borders on genocide

NEW DELHI -- The continuing communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat has not only left hundreds dead, but has also led to embarrassing condemnation by world leaders. New Delhi finds itself in an utterly shameful spot, a situation brought on by its own inept handling of the Hindu-Muslim...
COMMENTARY
May 11, 2002

Koizumi's pain, media's gain

Japan's gossipy media kingmakers have finally gone too far. Not content with creating Japan's system of revolving-door prime ministers, they now want to dump a creature of their own creation, Junichiro Koizumi, only a year after he took office. They want Tokyo governor, Shintaro Ishihara, as his successor....
JAPAN
May 11, 2002

Survivor of Nanjing Massacre wins lawsuit over book

The Tokyo District Court on Friday ordered the authors and publisher of the 1997 book "Nanjing-gyakusatsu e no Daigimon" ("Big questions on the Nanjing Massacre") to pay a total of 1.5 million yen in damages to a Chinese woman whom the book claims is a false witness of the massacre.
JAPAN
May 11, 2002

Media bodies terrified by privacy legislation

Newspaper editors, publishers, broadcasters and freelance journalists across the country are vehemently protesting that two bills now in the Diet would gravely undermine freedom of the press.
JAPAN
May 11, 2002

Personal information bill endangers privacy, press: LDP politician

A government-sponsored bill to protect personal information, which critics fear would threaten freedom of the press, is more likely aimed at protecting bureaucrats rather than individual members of the public, according to a Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker who has openly criticized the legislation....

Longform

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