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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 1, 2003

Cross-strait tensions build as one-China principle fades

HONOLULU -- The "one-China" principle that has been the mainstay of relations between the United States and China for 30 years is steadily fading. Curiously, a critical chapter in the fate of the principle is being played out now on the tiny mid-Pacific nation of Kiribati.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2003

South Iraq safe enough for SDF troops: Ishiba

Southern Iraq is in need of humanitarian assistance and is safe enough for Self-Defense Forces troops, Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba said Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2003

Nakasone still a believer in LDP, Japan

Although he is still smarting from his enforced retirement before last Sunday's election, former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone still backs the Liberal Democratic Party and the Junichiro Koizumi administration.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 9, 2003

Dancing through the storm in a D-cup

Much of the reporting about the Oct. 29 incident at Northwest University in Xian, China, in which three male Japanese exchange students danced in a university festival wearing brassieres and "fake genitals," gave the impression that the students' faux pas was a matter of cultural differences. What this...
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2003

LDP still spells state largess to rural voters

HONJO, Akita Pref. -- Gigantic pillars soar toward the sky in a mountainous area 7 km north of the city of Honjo in southern Akita Prefecture, symbolizing the power of Kanezo Muraoka.
COMMUNITY
Oct 18, 2003

Archaeologist turns west to save Siberian culture

Kazuo Morimoto made history in the early 1980s when he discovered a large Paleolithic site at Narita, north of Tokyo. Now his attention is balanced between digging up the past and preserving the future -- the future of a once-nomadic tribe in Siberia.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2003

Japan announces pledge of $1.5 billion to Iraq

Japan will provide Iraq with grants worth $1.5 billion in 2004 to support the country's reconstruction, the government announced Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Oct 12, 2003

Keeping score on first ladies

MOSCOW -- Throughout the past 60 years or so, the problem-ridden relations between the White House and the Kremlin have been burdened with one more factor: the rivalry of the first ladies.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Sep 26, 2003

Transport chief to have a go at Japan Highway's books

In an effort to clear the air over Japan Highway Public Corp.'s disputed balance sheet, transport minister Nobuteru Ishihara said the government will draft its own version of the public entity's financial standings and present it to the Diet.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2003

Takenaka, Kawaguchi retain posts as dust settles after Cabinet reshuffle

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi retained Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi after reshuffling his Cabinet on Monday, defying calls for their ouster from within the Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2003

Debt-collectors push professionalism, not pain

Despite popular perceptions, profanities and threats are not screamed down the phone and the receiver doesn't end up getting slammed down.
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2003

Nukes still won't help Japan

HIROSHIMA -- The walk from my hotel to the conference center took me past the Atomic Dome and through the Peace Park that commemorates the atomic bombing of Aug. 6, 1945. Friday morning, several fire trucks were parked in front of the Children's Peace Monument; someone had torched two display cases that...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2003

Too rich, too complex to be run by slaves

HONG KONG -- China's new premier, Wen Jiabao, on his first visit to Hong Kong in his new job gave a resounding speech, declaring that local people were in charge of their own destiny. The question now is whether he meant it and whether the leaders in Beijing are prepared to trust the maturity of Hong...
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2003

Koizumi backs Blair's decision to attack Iraq as 'courageous'

HAKONE, Kanagawa Pref. -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi agreed Saturday with his British counterpart, Tony Blair, that there were justifiable grounds to launch the war against Iraq.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2003

Cemetery for war dead has identity crisis

Summer for many Japanese is a time that conjures up bitter memories of the nation's Aug. 15, 1945, defeat in the war -- a conflict that claimed millions of lives and left a number of cities devastated.
JAPAN
Jul 18, 2003

Loose talk in chat room costs operator

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered the operator of an Internet chat room to pay a total of 4 million yen to a cosmetics firm and its head because content on one of its message boards defamed them.
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 2003

Opening of labor market delayed

Japan is running in the fast lane of information technology, yet it has been relatively slow in one vital area: employment of foreign IT engineers. Part of the reason seems to lie in the nation's deep-seated reluctance to open the labor market wider to foreigners.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 10, 2003

Know what you eat

Trying to understand the debate over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is a bit like trying to pick up mercury. It seems solid enough, but try to grasp it and it slips away. Critics of GMOs might draw another parallel as well. Considering how pervasive GMOs are and yet how little we know about them,...
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2003

Fast-moving dispatch bill needs some explanation

The House of Representatives passed a bill Friday that paves the way for elements of the Self-Defense Forces to go on a mission in Iraq.
COMMENTARY
Jul 4, 2003

Does irrelevancy await Japan?

HONOLULU -- Japan-U.S. relations are at a postwar high, "the best they have ever been," report policymakers on both sides of the Pacific and longtime observers of the relationship. Credit growing realism in Japan about security issues, unprecedented decisions in Tokyo and a remarkable personal relationship...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2003

Is Baghdad safe enough for SDF? Depends on which party you ask

The ruling bloc and the opposition parties are presenting completely conflicting reports on their respective fact-finding missions to Iraq, with the opposition arguing the Self-Defense Forces should not be dispatched to the area due to deteriorating security.
COMMENTARY
Jul 2, 2003

Pyongyang: keep the gloves on for now

LONDON -- There is no question that the anachronistic communist regime in North Korea threatens the peace in Northeast Asia. In the absence of good intelligence, however, it is difficult to estimate the extent of the threat. American intelligence on Iraq was faulty, and it is doubtful whether the CIA...
BUSINESS
Jul 1, 2003

Japan keeps pushing for Russia oil line

The nation's top energy agency official will visit Russia this month to urge Moscow to back a Japan-proposed oil route for a planned pipeline project, a senior government official said Monday.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo