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JAPAN
Oct 2, 2005

Four expressway firms privatized

The four expressway public corporations were privatized Saturday, 4 1/2 years after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi launched his structural reform initiatives to transfer as many public operations to the private sector as possible.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 1, 2005

Lena Heslin

ISLES OF SCILLY, England -- The helicopter from Penzance in southwest England takes 20 minutes to fly its scenic route to St. Mary's, the main island of Scilly. Down below the rugged coastline of dramatic cliffs, smugglers' caves and secret coves, a green, open headland tapers to Land's End at the tip...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 27, 2005

Time well spent

Living in the world's second largest economy, it's often tempting to forget that there are people and organizations in Japan in dire need of help.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 23, 2005

War and peace in Hiroshima

Before coming to Japan, most people don't know more than about half-a-dozen place names in the country. But one name certainly familiar to all is that of the largest city at the western end of Honshu.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Sep 23, 2005

Still best buzz in shitamachi

Any address that begins 1-1-1 is, by my reckoning, pretty impressive. It means that the building located there was the first one on the first block developed in the first district of that area. Kamiya Bar, a legendary bar and restaurant, secured the 1-1-1 address in Asakusa when it opened 125 years ago....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Sep 22, 2005

Becoming Japanese to satisfy the American eye

The elegant and enigmatic new exhibition at the Mori Art Museum, "The End of Time," is a retrospective on four decades of work by Hiroshi Sugimoto. One of Japan's most internationally acclaimed artists, Sugimoto uses photography to condense events in celebrated time-exposure series such as "Seascapes"...
COMMENTARY
Sep 21, 2005

System's flaws help keep Koizumi on top

From the start of the recent Lower House election campaign it was predictable that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's theatrics -- his constant references to magic "kaikaku" (reform) and the alleged benefits from postal-service privatization -- would have its inevitable mesmerizing effect on Japan's...
LIFE / Style & Design
Sep 20, 2005

Fendi furs and furnishings, Humans by Mike Mills, dark Baccarat, Vera Wang perfumes . . .

F is for flamboyant Ostentatious interior offerings at the refitted salon of Fendi Omotesando
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 18, 2005

Valentine, Marines take lead in hurricane, typhoon relief

The Chiba Lotte Marines of Japan's Pacific League have embarked on a campaign to raise funds for hurricane and typhoon relief efforts in the New Orleans and Mississippi Gulf Coast areas in the U.S., and Kagoshima here in Japan.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2005

Tax bureau PCs vanish

The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau discovered Friday that two personal computers that may contain personal data on nearly 470,000 taxpayers may have been stolen.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 16, 2005

Keeping up with the Norah Joneses

She may only be 16 years old, but Massachusetts native Sonya Kitchell talks with the assurance of a musician twice her age. It's a couple of days after Kitchell played a live showcase to a largely music-industry crowd in a tiny Shibuya jazz bar, following the recent Japan-only release of her debut album,...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 11, 2005

CL may hold playoffs sooner than you think

The Central League has decided to consider instituting a playoff system beginning in 2007, but we may be seeing postseason play between two CL teams a lot sooner.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 4, 2005

For the love of Bollywood

BEHIND THE SCENES OF HINDI CINEMA. Edited by Johan Manschot and Marijke de Vos. With contributions by P.K. Nair, Deepa Gahlot, Gayatri Chatterjee et al. Foreword by Amitabh Bachchan, Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2005, 160 pp., profusely illustrated (cloth). The subtitle of this beautifully produced, lavishly...
BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2005

Tepco, Fuji Heavy plan electric auto, quick charge

Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., the maker of Subaru vehicles, said Friday they will jointly develop an environmentally friendly electric vehicle based on Fuji Heavy's Subaru R1e prototype EV.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 27, 2005

Hiroji Koide

When he was barely turned 30, Hiroji Koide became vice chairman of the International Exchange Committee of the Japan Chamber of Commerce. That marked the beginning of his active participation in public affairs, which still continues more than 46 years later. He is a jovial, outward-looking Nagano man,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 26, 2005

Visitors become statuesque in Kawagoe

Tokyo may be big, but it's not big on history. The city's most popular historical spot, Asakusa, is centered on Asakusa Kannon temple, and its main hall was built in 1958. Frank Lloyd Wright's sublime Imperial Hotel survived the onslaughts of the 1923 earthquake and 1945 fire bombing, but didn't survive...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 21, 2005

A new kind of film history

A NEW HISTORY OF JAPANESE FILM: A Century of Narrative Film, by Isolde Standish. New York/London: Continuum, 2005, 414 pp., 18 illustrations, $39.95 (cloth). Early in this account of Japanese film, the author says that prior histories have tended to follow one of two trajectories. One, which she calls...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 19, 2005

Tourists are now the big catch for reborn Otaru

To think of a big city in Hokkaido is invariably to think of the place that fondly plants a prominent white, red or black star on the labels of the beers it brews. But back in the early part of the last century, the spot in Hokkaido that was top dog in terms of population and economic clout was not Sapporo,...
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2005

Koizumi turns new residence into exclusive art museum

If the new Prime Minister's Official Residence was opened to the public, unknowing visitors would think they had stumbled into an art museum.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 14, 2005

In the face of Samurai spirit

BLOSSOMS IN THE WIND: Human Legacies of the Kamikaze, by M.G. Sheftall. NAL Caliber, 2005, 480 pp., $24.95 (cloth). For American sailors who served in the Pacific theater during the final two years of World War II, nothing was more terrifying than a kamikaze attack. Grainy black-and-white footage of...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 14, 2005

Serving the best slice of modern Japanese literature

THE COLUMBIA ANTHOLOGY OF MODERN JAPANESE LITERATURE, Volume I: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945, edited by J. Thomas Rimer and Van C. Gessel, with poetry selections by Amy Vladeck Heinrich and Leith Morton, introduction by J. Thomas Rimer. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005, 864 pp.,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Aug 12, 2005

A little more love is in store for you

It's not often that I get to write about a shop that really gets me excited, but Colour By Numbers pushes more than a few of my buttons. It debuted in Daikanyama two weeks ago, one year to the day after the opening of its Aoyama sister store Loveless, and carries a big selection of creations by Japan-based...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 6, 2005

Puneet Nanda

"The sari," said Puneet Nanda in Tokyo, "is a most elegant and amazing garment."
EDITORIALS
Aug 4, 2005

Saudi Arabia's challenge

The death of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd marks the end of an era for the desert kingdom. The king's life encompassed his country's transition from a collection of nomadic tribes who lived atop the world's greatest petroleum reserves to a modern society whose alliance with the West created intense internal...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 2, 2005

The end of silence: Korea's Hiroshima

When Shin Jin Tae's first daughter died, her mother was still breast-feeding her.
BUSINESS
Jul 16, 2005

Store lobby targets costs of recycling

The Japan Chain Stores Association asked the government Friday to revise the present system for recycling food containers and packages to address what it claims is an unfair burden placed on large retailers in the form of recycling costs.
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2005

Supreme Court sides with revisionist authors over library's trashing of texts

The Supreme Court on Thursday overruled a lower court decision that rejected a damages claim filed by the authors of a revisionist history textbook against a municipal library that had discarded a large number of other books they wrote.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.