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JAPAN
Dec 1, 2001

Net poses major changes for news media

Does the advent of the Internet society spell the end of the news media as we know it? Will a new breed of reporters, represented by anonymous authors in online chat rooms, oust professional journalists from the public arena?
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Nov 30, 2001

Kids get down to classroom clean-ups

A few weeks before my son started first grade, I asked my friend Nagako to help me read the list of school supplies I needed to buy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2001

Nation struggles with drug abuse

A suspended prison term handed down six years ago was not enough to stop the 34-year-old gas station worker from using amphetamines, which had already badly damaged his life.
COMMUNITY
Nov 18, 2001

Life on the yellow brick road

Minoru Maeda dreads going outside alone. For him, one wrong step could be fatal.
COMMENTARY
Nov 17, 2001

Free speech includes the right to be stupid

WASHINGTON -- America is a great country. What better evidence is there than the opportunity people have to say the stupidest, most witless things?
COMMUNITY
Nov 11, 2001

Japan's trepanning history is full of holes

In his 1967 study, "Prehistoric and Early History of Trepanation," Professor F.P. Lisowski of the University of Tasmania, Australia, cites the work of two anthropologists who suggested that trepanation might have been practiced in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Nov 4, 2001

Attacks now an excuse to barbecue pork

WASHINGTON -- Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel, it has been said, and never was it more obvious in the United States than in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Rescuers were still searching for bodies from the smoldering rubble when lobbyists descended upon Washington, D.C....
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 21, 2001

Yakult captures Japan Series opener 7-0

OSAKA -- Yakult pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii, playing in what may be his final season in Japan, completely silenced the big guns of the Buffaloes on Saturday night and Alex Ramirez delivered on offense as the Swallows jumped all over Kintetsu for a 7-0 victory in Game 1 of the Japan Series.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 11, 2001

What you can do to cut CO2 emissions

If readers of this column two weeks ago found the results of the 2001 "Environmental Doomsday Clock" questionnaire depressing, that's not surprising. For the seventh year in a row, respondents worldwide have set the clock at "extremely concerned."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 4, 2001

Diamonds are an athlete's best friend

The other day I had a phone call from an old friend, Joey Camilleri, who now works as a sportswriter with the Mediterranean Gazette. After letting me know how Sliema Wanderers and Xghajra Tornadoes were doing, Joey asked me the details behind a story that had come across his desk.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 3, 2001

Seagulls send Skylarks backward

Nachi Abe caught a 25-yard pass for the winning touchdown with 10 seconds remaining in the third quarter as the Recruit Club Seagulls (2-0) defeated the Onward Skylarks (1-1) 34-17 Monday at the Tokyo Dome in the X League's Central Division.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2001

Bosnia-Herzegovina envoy curtails Tokyo assignment

The Bosnia-Herzegovina ambassador is to leave Japan next week, cutting short his assignment following the death of his wife, he told The Japan Times on Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 23, 2001

The city within

There are three things that stir the heart of every true Tokyoite: sento (public baths), mazelike roji (alleys) and matsuri (festivals). Over the last couple of decades, all three have been gradually fading from the city scene, though there are still pockets in the megalopolis where they can be found...
BASEBALL / MLB
Sep 18, 2001

Buffs' Mizuguchi puts on a show for salarymen

OSAKA -- Eiji Mizuguchi stole the show from the big names at the Osaka Dome on Monday night, going 3-for-4, reaching base four times and driving in the decisive run for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in a 2-1 victory over the Seibu Lions.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 12, 2001

Imports Ramirez, Valdes respond to 'help wanted' calls from Japan

Foreign ballplayers in Japan don't much like it, but they are often referred to as "suketto" in Japanese. The term means helper and it more than implies the hired hands from North America are not necessarily being counted on to lead their team but rather to temporarily "help" the fan-favorite local stars...
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2001

Subsidy for new Tokyo-Narita railway to increase

The transport ministry said Friday it plans to drastically increase government subsidies for a new high-speed railway linking central Tokyo and Narita airport in its budgetary requests for the fiscal year starting next April.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2001

U.S. mortgaging wealth before recession

NEW DELHI -- It's becoming increasingly clear that the U.S. economy, despite a sharp slowdown, is holding the world against a global recession. Americans are borrowing globally and using the money to consume the goods of the world. Alas! This can continue only as long as U.S. assets exceed liabilities....
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 31, 2001

Dammed by the state: Displaced Chinese fight for their rights

JIANGSU, China -- Last August, the great Chang river (formerly known as the Yangtze) washed a modern day Noah's Ark from the heart of southwest China to the mouth of the Yellow Sea. Crowded aboard the ferry were 800 peasant farmers, nursing children, animals and seedlings on their three-day voyage to...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2001

Exploitation of children takes terrible toll

Agnes Chan, ambassador of the Japan Committee for UNICEF, as well as a popular TV personality and pop singer, visited the Philippines from June 2 to 6 on a fact-finding mission for the UNICEF Japan group to see for herself the plight of children there, especially conditions surrounding the commercial...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2001

Nation better off if Kawashima remains

I am probably the only person in Japan who will say this at the moment, and I suppose that what I am going to say will fall on deaf ears. But I will say it anyway: Administrative Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Yutaka Kawashima should not be removed from his post. If he is, the sacking is sure to be...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 8, 2001

In the pink

When Yokohama hosts the final and three other games in the soccer World Cup next June, foreign visitors will be spared a full-frontal view of the city's sleazier side by the waterfront, where a campaign to lessen any shock to their systems has been under way since last year.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 7, 2001

John Delp

"Being different" is a key to his success, John Delp believes. When he founded his travel business, he made a significant policy decision "to concentrate on serving the foreign community." A third factor lay in his applying the company motto, "the executive touch," to the comfort and well-being of his...
LIFE / Travel
Jul 3, 2001

Sitting for 750 years in Fukui's mountains

Eiheiji, the "Temple of Eternal Peace," is one of the largest and most visited temples in Japan. Located 19 km northeast of Fukui, the elaborate complex of more than 70 buildings nestles on a hilltop amid a forest of towering cedar trees, many more than 750 years old.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 28, 2001

George W. stepping on toes to dance with special interests

U.S. President George W. Bush is not the beau of the ball among scientists these days. "On both missile defense and the greenhouse effect," Dr. Hugh Gusterson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tells the New York Times, there is "substantial [scientific] consensus against the White House."...
LIFE / Travel
Jun 26, 2001

The temples of the Nile

To float down the Nile, stopping at the temples, sleeping on my ship -- this was my desire and now I am in a stateroom on the Cheops I, a floating hotel rather than a mere boat, looking at the wharf at Aswan and reading Flaubert's journal of a similar voyage he made in 1849. I notice many of the same...
COMMUNITY
Jun 3, 2001

A new lease on life

Prosperous economies produce waste. Throw in rampant consumerism and a laissez-faire attitude toward the environment, and you've got the makings of a serious problem. Welcome to Japan. A host of treasures awaits you . . .
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 3, 2001

Wellington reaches out to Asia

The first country to give the vote to women, New Zealand presently has the distinction of having all three top public posts occupied by women: the governor general, the prime minister and the chief justice. This provides a clue as to why at times Wellington has played a role and exercised an influence...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jun 3, 2001

Lessons in crisis mismanagement

All my life I have been behind the times. I wore my bell-bottoms for years after the fashion had died, and in fact only abandoned them after they had shrunk up and become sort of bell-knickers.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 31, 2001

Drop your drawers and give me 20 (ml, that is)

Mark Heppelle is a 37-year-old Canadian currently living in Japan with his wife and two kids where he runs a small English school. But that's not his only source of income. Heppelle also has a rather unique sports-related job, the results of which can be seen almost daily on sports pages across the globe....
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2001

Arafat remains unbowed as his 'long march' continues

Veteran Middle East correspondent David Hirst was recently the first journalist to be granted an interview with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat since the intifada began.

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