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JAPAN
Mar 28, 2001

Hoya to ship glass to U.S. nuclear lab

Japanese glass maker Hoya Corp. plans to resume suspended shipments of glass slabs to the U.S. Energy Department's nuclear weapons research facility, believing the product will not lead to new nuclear development, the company said.
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2001

Residents fail to close disease institute

The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected a complaint filed by residents seeking a court order to halt the operation of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in their neighborhood.
JAPAN
Mar 27, 2001

War flick touting Japan's role in Indonesia's birth irks Jakarta

A new Japanese film depicting the role of Imperial Japanese Army soldiers in Indonesia's war for independence from the Netherlands highlights a stark difference in views between Indonesians and Japanese over the republic's 1945 birth.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 27, 2001

Excelling in a formerly alien medium

White rappers used to be a joke until a credible one -- Eminem -- came along. In a similar way, Japanese artists' early efforts to master Western oil painting ended up looking extremely ersatz, clumsy or derivative; their paintings mere experiments or study pieces rather than true works of art. The urge...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2001

East Pakistan's bloody death, 30 years on

HONG KONG -- Tonight marks the 30th anniversary of the beginning of one of the most traumatic Asian events in recent times: the blood-soaked birth of Bangladesh. Bangladeshi voices will be raised to remind the world of what was an enormous crime against humanity. But they may not tell the full story....
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Mori arrives in Russia for talks with Putin over isles

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Saturday started a two-day visit to Russia for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin over a territorial row that has prevented the two nations from signing a peace treaty.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Tokyo strives to preserve its dwindling greenery

Tokyo's final class this year on shiitake mushrooms took place earlier this month at Noyamakita Rokudoyama Park in the hills of Sayama, straddling the border between Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 25, 2001

Shisen Fukasawa

"Examples of the earliest beginnings of expressive writing go back as far as Egyptian hieroglyphic writings found on animal bones, Hindustan writings found in India, Sumerian inscriptions and Chinese characters found on tortoise shell. Of these, Chinese characters alone remain today in their original...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Covering Japan on foot, for abused women, kids

In late 1999, photojournalist Mary King and IT systems analyst Etsuko Shimabukuro began to get itchy feet. Back in 1996 they had completed a two-year trip that took them through three continents. This time they decided to stay closer to home.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Japanese doctor confirms Afghanistan statues destroyed

A Japanese doctor living in Pakistan said Saturday he has confirmed that the two world-famous Buddha statues in Bamyan have been destroyed by the country's Taliban authorities.
EDITORIALS
Mar 24, 2001

Direct elections are not the cure

The view that the prime minister should be elected by popular vote is gaining ground. Ironically, it is Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori himself -- one of the most unpopular prime ministers in memory -- that is contributing to this groundswell of opinion. It is not just ordinary citizens, academics and business...
CULTURE / Film
Mar 24, 2001

Ritchie's rogues return

"Snatch" is more than a movie: It's a bubbling, babbling comic strip on wheels. Not fitting into the usual British movie mold -- it's neither a Merchant-Ivory rendition of upper-crust angst, nor a working-class saga passed on by Ken Loach -- "Snatch" is in a genre by itself, showcasing a crack ensemble...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2001

Detours on Pakistan's road to democracy

ISLAMABAD -- Leaders of some of Pakistan's opposition parties took no time in boycotting a live broadcast on national television this week upon news of a crackdown on prodemocracy activists.
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2001

Yatsu urges temporary curb on China's vegetable imports

The government should temporarily curb soaring farm product imports from China before it concludes a survey of their impact on the domestic market, Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Yoshio Yatsu said Friday.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Mori-Putin summit expectations low

After failing to meet the end-of-2000 target for resolving a territorial dispute and signing a peace treaty, Japan and Russia will hold their first summit this year in Russia's Irkutsk on Sunday, during which Japan hopes to set a future direction for resolving the decades-old row.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Owing 980 billion yen, Tokyo Mutual fails

In the insurance industry's fifth failure in fiscal 2000, midtier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed for court protection from its creditors Friday after it was denied capital assistance from its main bank, Daiwa Bank.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 24, 2001

Tokuyama to defend belt in Seoul

OSAKA -- Champion Masamori Tokuyama will fight Cho In Joo of South Korea in Seoul for the World Boxing Council super-flyweight title, Hideo Kanazawa, head of the gym where the champion trains, said Friday. Kanazawa named the South Korean capital the venue for the May 20 fight a day after revealing that...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 24, 2001

Art without frontiers that speaks to the soul

It is so easy to fail in abstract art, and so difficult to succeed in calligraphy.Yet Toko Shinoda has the rare ability to fuse both forms of expression, in paintings that strike to the heart. Her work may be severe, intense and personal, but it is not inscrutable. Rather, it is poetic, and speaks of...
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Imports to be curbed via quarantine crackdown

In an effort to curtail surging vegetable imports to Japan, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry will effectively introduce curbs on the volume of products that are permitted to clear quarantine, ministry sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

2001 budget set to clear Diet Monday

The ruling and opposition parties agreed Thursday to vote Monday on the fiscal 2001 budget both at the House of Councilors Budget Committee and during the chamber's plenary session, making it certain the budget will pass the Diet before the April 1 start of the new fiscal year.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Hong Kong beckons Japan firms

Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa on Thursday urged more Japanese companies to use the city as a business base in China, with greater opportunity expected after China enters the World Trade Organization.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

Conference members seeking strong economic leadership

Although Japan knows it should carry out structural reforms and stimulate domestic demand to get out of its protracted economic slump, it is still waiting for someone to take the initiative and actually do something.
COMMENTARY
Mar 23, 2001

Challenges for Japan-U.S. ties

The joint statement issued in Washington Monday by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and U.S. President George W. Bush is the first political declaration issued by Japan and a Republican administration in the United States in eight years. It marked a starting point for redefining terms of the Japan-U.S. security...
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Don't keep all eggs in one falling yen basket

On hearing that deposit interest rates in Japan are near zero, an investor from Jakarta said in apparent disbelief "You must be joking."
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 23, 2001

Giants' Maru-chan talks softly and carries a big stick

No one would've blamed Domingo Martinez if he never returned to Japan after the 1998 baseball season. After hitting .283 and smacking 30 home runs for the Pacific League champion Seibu Lions that year, the designated hitter wasn't given a gold watch or even a thank-you note for his efforts. Instead he...

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.