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COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2005

Police have let trust escape

The Japanese police system was once regarded as one of the best in the world, but that is no longer true. In a spate of scandals, some officers are said to have created slush funds with public money while others have falsified internal reports to improve their performance records.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 27, 2005

Where there's magic, there's Buddha

THE DHARMA OF DRAGONS AND DAEMONS: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy, by David R. Loy and Linda Goodhew, foreword by Jane Hirshfield. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004, 155 pp., $14.95 (paper). David R. Loy and Linda Goodhew's "The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons" is subtitled "Buddhist Themes in Modern...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 27, 2005

New truths from broken conventions: travel writing outside Japan

MUSASHINO IN TUSCANY: Japanese Overseas Travel Literature, 1860-1912, by Susanna Fessler. Ann Arbor: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2004, 297 pp., + xii pp., 29 b/w illustrations, 2004, $65.00 (cloth). Japan has a long history of travel literature. From the 10th-century "Tosa...
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 2005

The British navy's pink carpet

'R um, sodomy and the lash" are the words Winston Churchill is popularly credited with using to sum up the traditions of Britain's Royal Navy. (A former assistant has said that Churchill never uttered the famous phrase but wished he had.) Either way, the idea that Her Majesty's naval forces have always...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 27, 2005

NHK's "Chikyu Fushigi Daishizen" sees green back in wasteland and more

There are few happy stories on the environmental front these days, but NHK will cover one of them on its nature program, "Chikyu Fushigi Daishizen (The Earth's Amazing Nature)" (NHK-G, Mon., 8 p.m.). Ashio Mountain in Gunma Prefecture has been bare for almost a century, the victim of sulfur-dioxide pollution...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Schools in saibanin front line

One morning late last month, Public Prosecutors Ryuji Hatano and Kunio Ooyama were immersed in an alleged robbery case in court. But the court was in a classroom.
BUSINESS
Feb 26, 2005

Mad cow panel prodded to reach decision on tests

Farm minister Yoshinobu Shimamura urged a government panel Friday to draw a conclusion quickly on whether to terminate the blanket testing for mad cow disease, in order to lift Japan's 14-month-old import ban on U.S. beef.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 26, 2005

Special Olympics bridges Japan, Arab nations

Madeleine Jalil Umewaka, of MJU public relations, was at Narita Airport early Wednesday morning. She was there to welcome the Special Olympics team of 12 athletes from her native Lebanon, and travel with them to Iida in Nagano Prefecture.
BUSINESS
Feb 25, 2005

Top three automakers hiked output in January

Japan's top three automakers -- Toyota, Nissan and Honda -- boosted global output in January due to strong sales in overseas and domestic markets, but Mazda and Mitsubishi Motors trimmed production, the companies said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2005

Mr. Thaksin can't relax

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held earlier this month. That win followed a completion of a full term in office, a historic accomplishment in its own right. Yet victory has not ended Mr. Thaksin's worries. Violence in the country's southern...
COMMENTARY
Feb 25, 2005

Spots on Russia's shiny orb

MOSCOW -- By normal standards Russia should be a happy and contented country. Moscow is awash with money, mostly flowing in from the giant energy sector and hugely boosted by the doubling in oil prices the past year. Shops and restaurants are booming. Cinemas and theaters are multiplying and play to...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Feb 25, 2005

Historic port city famous for fugu

Located at the western end of Honshu, Shimonoseki is one of those places that people tend to travel through rather than travel to. With Kyushu only 700 meters away across the Kanmon Strait, Shimonoseki is the main access point to that island, and as visa-run veterans are aware, the Korean port of Pusan...
SUMO
Feb 24, 2005

Futagoyama waging battle against cancer

Sumo stablemaster Futagoyama is waging a battle with mouth cancer, his son and former grand champion Takanohana revealed Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2005

Finding Japan's place in the world

The Japan-United States security alliance took a critical step last weekend. The two governments released a joint declaration that made explicit what has long been left unsaid in their thinking about regional security. The new statement provides a foundation for the continued vitality and relevance of...
BUSINESS
Feb 23, 2005

JR East lets DoCoMo handsets serve as tickets

East Japan Railway Co. said Tuesday it will start a new service in January that allows NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s smart-card cell phone handsets to be used as train tickets.
EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2005

More challenges face EU charter

Spanish voters approved the European Union's new constitution by an overwhelming majority in Sunday's referendum -- the first time that a EU country had put the charter to a popular vote. This victory is no cause for complacency, however. The document, signed in October, will not take effect if it is...
COMMENTARY
Feb 21, 2005

Seoul's survival hangs on U.S. restraint

LOS ANGELES -- Hostage theory in international relations can explain why a lot of things do not happen. There's no better example than the North Korean crisis. The reason for continuing to talk to the North Koreans is not that we like them; it's that we care about the South Koreans.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 20, 2005

Gumshoes who pass in the night

THE RED EARTH OF ALABAMA, by Michiro Naito. Bloomington, Indiana: Authorhouse, 2005, 188 pp., $23.95 (cloth). KINKI LULLABY, by Issac Adamson. New York: Dark Alley, 2004, 358 pp., $13.95, (paper). Even in this age of political correctness, it's proving difficult for popular fiction to wean itself from...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Feb 20, 2005

"Hachiro: Haha no Uta, Chichi no Uta" on NHK and more

Hachiro Sato, who died in 1973, is one of Japan's most beloved writers of lyric poems and children's songs. His life, however, was far from gentle, as shown on the current nine-part NHK drama series, "Hachiro: Haha no Uta, Chichi no Uta (Hachiro: Songs for Mother, Songs for Father") (NHK-G, Mon., 9:15...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 20, 2005

Sugar frosted, the Thai way

VERY THAI: Everyday Popular Culture, by Philip Cornwel-Smith, photographs by John Goss, preface by Alex Kerr. Bangkok: River Books, 2005, 257 pp., color illustrated, 995 baht (cloth). All countries have something of their own, something the dictionary calls "a kind or sort, especially in regard to appearance...
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2005

FSA to discipline Meiji Yasuda

The Financial Services Agency plans to order Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. later this month to suspend part of its business activities for about two weeks over alleged illegal sales practices, FSA sources said Friday.
BUSINESS
Feb 19, 2005

MMC asking around for buyer of U.S. operations

Struggling Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. is quietly seeking a buyer for its U.S. operations, implying the company intends to leave the world's biggest car market, the Asian Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 19, 2005

Diaspora bridges China and ASEAN

SINGAPORE -- On Feb. 9, the start of the Year of the Rooster, ethnic Chinese communities across Southeast Asia took stock of their progress and their future in the shadow of China's peaceful development and its strengthened status within the region of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 17, 2005

Natural numbers games

As island nations go, I have always maintained that Japan sits on a motherlode of biodiversity; it is rich in so many senses of the word.
EDITORIALS
Feb 15, 2005

Keeping to the PKO principles

With the signing of a peace agreement in Sudan, ravaged by more than 20 years of civil war, the government is weighing plans to have the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) participate in U.N. peacekeeping operations (PKO). Japan has received an informal request for cooperation from U.N. Secretary General Kofi...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 15, 2005

Compromised NHK needs closer scrutiny

As someone who toiled for several years inside NHK during the early 1990s, it is bemusing to see the simplistic criticism of the quasi-official broadcaster by the Japanese media.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 15, 2005

When is it OK to stretch the truth?

C.C. Sheffield Actress/Model, 22 It's okay to lie sometimes, when the result is going to be better than if you told the truth. For example, if your friend asks if she looks fat and she is fat. Tell her she's not.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 13, 2005

A laggard plan to end African poverty

LONDON — Last weekend the finance ministers of the Group of Seven industrialized countries met in London. British Finance Minister Gordon Brown tried to bounce his colleagues into setting up the largest aid program the world has ever seen: an International Finance Facility (IFF). He called it a new...

Longform

Ayumi Matsuki, a priestess at Yoshiwara Shrine, shows off some "o-mamori" charms. She says visitors to the shrine have increased since the NHK drama “Unbound” began airing this month.
Tracing Tsutaya Juzaburo, Edo’s media maverick