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Feb 8, 2002

Isuzu to disband GigaCats

Six-time national basketball champions Isuzu GigaCats will disband at the end of the current league season in March as part of the parent company's restructuring plans, Isuzu Motors Ltd. officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN / WORKING IT OUT
Feb 8, 2002

Calls mount for work-sharing as jobless ranks soar

KOBE -- Hatsue Okada, a 33-year-old nurse, works between 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. three days a week at a day-care center for elderly people in Kakogawa, Hyogo Prefecture.
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2002

Let the Games begin

The 2002 Winter Olympics begin today. More than 2,000 athletes from 80 countries have descended on Salt Lake City, Utah, for the XIX Winter Games. This year's Olympiad takes place in the shadow of the Sept. 11 terror bombings. The games are a vital reminder that competition among nations may be inevitable,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 7, 2002

Canberra sticks to its policy on illegal immigrants despite growing protests

SYDNEY -- Just as Australian Prime Minister John Howard was addressing world economic leaders in New York on the profits to be made from investing here, Afghan asylum seekers held in detention camps in the Australian desert were trying to die in hunger strikes.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2002

Look out for suicidal signals amid these hard times: doctor

Psychological stress is building among Japanese businessmen due to the crisis of lifetime employment, which has deep roots in the nation's way of living.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2002

Sept. 11 didn't change everything: e-symposium

The second e-symposium on conflict prevention got under way Wednesday with a number of presenters stressing that although the events of Sept. 11 had far-reaching consequences, a number of issues remain virtually unchanged.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 7, 2002

Hypersexual farming

Humans have practiced selective breeding for thousands of years to develop plants, animals and fungi better suited for human use than they are in their natural states. No genetic engineering is required, yet the genes of selected strains are different, "improved." Even people opposed to genetic modification...
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2002

Chinese boy arrested over stabbing death of prostitute

OSAKA -- Osaka police have arrested a 19-year-old Chinese boy and obtained an arrest warrant for another Chinese on suspicion of robbery and murder in connection with the death of a 35-year-old prostitute inside a hotel here in December.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 6, 2002

Impressionist master of time and space

If the world seems like a dark place at the beginning of the present century, an exhibition of work completed at the beginning of the last may help put things back in a more optimistic perspective. "Monet -- Later Works: Homage to Katia Granoff," is on show at the Iwate Museum of Art till Feb. 11 and...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2002

Hingis captures fourth Toray Pan Pacific title

Top-seeded Martina Hingis became the first player to win four singles titles at the Pan Pacific Open after defeating third-seed Monica Seles 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-3. Hingis, who had advanced to the finals six-straight years, first won the tournament in 1997. "I'm honored and flattered to have won four times,"...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 4, 2002

Suntory downs Steelers 28-17 to clinch Japan rugby crown

Suntory was crowned national rugby champion of Japan after winning the Japan Championship at Chichibunomiya on Sunday. In a pulsating game that had the sold-out of 25,000 on their feet, the Suntory Sungoliath defeated Kobe Steel 28-17 in a game that was truly worthy of a final.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 4, 2002

English-language deficit handicaps Japan

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In 1984 I was invited to give a public lecture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I began by apologizing for the fact that I would not be able to deliver my lecture in Dutch. I went on to remark that had I been alive at the time of Erasmus, I would have given my lecture in Latin....
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2002

Koizumi, Bush set to confirm goals during U.S. leader's February visit

Confirming Japan-U.S. cooperation in the fight against terrorism and discussing how to revive Japan's economy will be key issues during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit here later this month, Japan's ambassador to the United States has said in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2002

Mount Fuji slowly getting warmer

Climate change is causing Japan's mountains to warm faster on average than those in other countries, with the summit of Mount Fuji projected to be slightly warmer within half a century, according to the calculations of one expert.
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

Of nationhood and identity

Writer Ian Buruma was born in the Netherlands in 1951. He attended university in Japan and has spent a large part of his adult life in Asia. His nonfiction works include "The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan," "Behind the Mask," "A Japanese Mirror" and "Voltaire's Coconuts." Buruma...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 3, 2002

A little bit of Martha in every rabbit hutch

Considering the state of the Japanese economy, the current popularity of penny-pinching advice in the media is hardly surprising. There seems to be a fundamental paradox at work here, in that advertisers prefer programs and articles which encourage the spending of money, while the advice given out these...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 3, 2002

Sue Sumii looks back on a life well spent

MY LIFE: Living, Loving and Fighting, by Sue Sumii; interviews by Masuda Reiko, translated by the Ashi Translation Society, with an introduction by Livia Monnet. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 108 pp., $29.95 (paper) Sue Sumii (1902-97) is remembered for the multipart...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Feb 3, 2002

Are you ready to roll with the change on 'setsubun no hi'?

Today is arguably one of the strangest holidays to be observed in Japan: setsubun no hi, the turning of the seasons. Parents around the country strap on plastic ogre-masks and hop around the house while their young children pelt them with dried beans, yelling, "Demons out, good luck in." Beans are scattered...
COMMUNITY
Feb 3, 2002

The long journey from rice to ambrosia

Sake is brewed -- and not distilled -- from rice. The alcohol content is initially about 20 percent, but this is usually watered down to about 16 percent, which is just a tad more than most wine. But sake is closer to beer than wine, at least in terms of how it is made.
COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2002

Afghanistan faces danger of donor fatigue

ISLAMABAD -- International pledges worth more than $3 billion from donors at the Tokyo conference called last month to discuss the reconstruction of Afghanistan are unprecedented. Never before has Afghanistan been the beneficiary of such a substantial largesse.
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 2002

Fewer and fewer voices

A controversy is raging in Canada now that should both disturb and please editorial writers everywhere. This needs some explaining.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 2, 2002

Five ways to ensure classroom collapse

All the talk in Japan about classroom collapse, where teachers have lost control and students wander in and out, brings back memories of my junior high in the United States. There was no such thing as classroom collapse in those days. Instead, it was called normal.
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 31, 2002

Learning their ways makes sharks much safer

During the blistering heat of last summer, which was accompanied by unusually warm waters to the east of the Philippines and the Nansei Islands, a juvenile hammerhead shark wandered into the Sea of Japan. After being sighted off Shimane Prefecture it was hunted ruthlessly -- but apparently never caught....
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2002

Crisis fears grow as crunch time for banks nears

A recent nationwide flurry of collapsing credit unions and "shinkin" credit associations was accompanied by a total lack of panic.
COMMENTARY
Jan 30, 2002

Japanese-British links after 100 years

LONDON -- The Anglo-Japanese Alliance was signed on Jan. 30, 1902. It was a significant and unique step for both countries. Britain had not previously concluded alliances of this nature in an area so distant from its shores; it was Japan's first alliance with a European power and confirmed its status...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jan 30, 2002

On the outside, but looking in

The Agora Theater is tucked away near Komaba Todaimae Station, just five minutes from the hurly-burly of Shibuya. It was here that I saw "Boken Oh (Kings of the Road)" performed by Seinen Dan, a youth theater-group led by Oriza Hirata, 39, who wrote and directed the play.
BUSINESS
Jan 30, 2002

Midsize brokers log group net losses

Seven out of the nation's eight midsize brokers, affected by the slumping stock market, logged group net losses in the first three quarters of fiscal 2001.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 29, 2002

Kyoto signs Zelic

Kyoto Purple Sanga has acquired former Australia defender Ned Zelic from TSV 1860 Munich, the J. League Division One club announced Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 29, 2002

Encouraging households to spend more

After much hesitation, Junichiro Koizumi's government has finally agreed to work on a second supplementary budget. More than ever, Japan's intrepid prime minister appears to be caught in the crossfire between the necessity to rationalize public spending and the obligation to shore up a flagging economy....

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