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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2004

A new dawn for Myanmar?

Many Myanmar watchers might have been surprised when they got news of the pending release of nearly 4,000 prisoners who had been inappropriately jailed by the notorious Military Intelligence (MI) wing of former Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt's regime.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 28, 2004

A clever yarn crafted from a hoax

MY LIFE AS A FAKE, by Peter Carey. Faber & Faber, 2004, 276 pp., £6.99 (paper). One of the most stunning acts of literary criticism in modern times was perpetrated in an Australian magazine called Angry Penguins during World War II. It consisted of a small body of faux experimental poetry, purporting...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 28, 2004

So many deities for still many troubled lives

EIGHT MILLION GODS AND DEMONS, by Hiroko Sherwin. Plume Books, 2003, 320 pp., $14 (paper). When "The Name of the Rose" transformed Umberto Eco from obscure Italian academic to international best-selling author, a common complaint among readers of his dark novel was that only after wading through the...
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

10 women hurt while jostling for glimpse of 'Yon-sama'

Ten fans of popular South Korean actor Bae Yong Joon, who has rocketed to fame in Japan for his leading role in the hit South Korean TV drama "Winter Sonata," were injured Friday while jostling at the Tokyo hotel where he was staying, police said.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Koizumi an official at Yasukuni

The Thursday court ruling on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001 visit to Yasukuni Shrine indicates he may longer be able to continue to be ambiguous about the nature of his contentious visits, many scholars agree.
EDITORIALS
Nov 27, 2004

A revealing melee in Chile

It seemed like a sideshow at the time, but the incident in Santiago last weekend in which U.S. President George W. Bush intervened to "rescue" one of his Secret Service agents from a scuffle with Chilean police has been mushrooming all week. In retrospect, that melee -- and a dispute last Sunday involving...
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Yahoo targets Net content dangers

Yahoo Japan Corp., Japan's largest Internet portal site operator, plans to offer a service that lets parents restrict their children's access to Web sites with harmful content by using filtering technology from a company it recently acquired, company sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Government strong-arms Itami airport

OSAKA -- The battle over the future of the Kansai region's airports heated up this month as the central government pressured Osaka's Itami airport to shift domestic flights to Kansai International Airport and threatened to take away Itami's official status as an international airport.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Dollar temporarily sinks to bottom 102 yen range

The dollar briefly sank to the lower 102 yen level Friday in Tokyo, hitting its lowest rates in four years and 10 months here as players accelerated selling of the currency on a report that China has trimmed its holdings of U.S. bonds.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Nov 27, 2004

Yumiko Tanaka

Twenty-five years ago, Yumiko Tanaka opened in Japan her Institute for Bharatanatyam. On Monday she and her students will dance in a silver jubilee evening performance at Musashino Geino Hall, Mitaka. Two of her students will dance in Nakano Geino Hall on Dec. 19. "Bharatanatyam is the great cultural...
BUSINESS
Nov 27, 2004

Major life insurers post declines in new contracts

Japan's major life insurers continued to post declines in individual life insurance and annuity contracts for the six months to Sept. 30, reflecting consumer reluctance to increase spending amid persistent deflation, according to their earnings reports released as of Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Recent disasters upgraded to serious

The government will designate the Niigata quakes and Typhoon Tokage as serious disasters as of next Wednesday, thus enabling affected municipalities to receive more subsidies for reconstruction work than in ordinary disasters, government officials said Friday.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2004

Kuwaiti minister lauds SDF mission

Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah on Thursday praised Japan for sending the Self-Defense Forces on a humanitarian mission to Iraq.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Nov 26, 2004

Blaming Detroit fans for riot outrageous

What a disgrace.
COMMUNITY
Nov 26, 2004

Chichibu lights up

Chichibu Yomatsuri Night Festival, one of Japan's three biggest festivals featuring festival floats, will run Dec. 1-6 in the city of Chichibu, Saitama Prefecture. Each float weighs between 12 and 20 tons and is pulled by several hundred people. The festival highlight is on Dec. 3, when six floats will...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Nov 26, 2004

Into Nagoya and onto Inuyama

As a destination, Nagoya is not the biggest tourist magnet, yet there is reason enough for dawdling here instead of just whisking through on the Shinkansen.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Nov 25, 2004

Commissioner Stern stands firm in bid to restore image

NEW YORK -- Unlike David Stern, who's clever enough to sift through and digest the countless number of confrontations, machinations, nuances and interrogations relevant to the scariest NBA scene he confesses to have ever witnessed and impart a ground-breaking decision within 36 hours, my investigation...
EDITORIALS
Nov 24, 2004

Yasukuni's shadow darkens summit

Sunday's meeting between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao -- the first in more than a year -- proved once again that history remains the biggest thorn in the side of Japan-China relations. Unless historical disputes are resolved from a broad perspective, mistrust between...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 24, 2004

A view through the looking-glass

The stories of her terrible childhood and of haunting hallucinations have created the widely accepted view that Yayoi Kusama's art emerges from unimaginable suffering. It is difficult to find anything said about Kusama that does not dwell on her mental illness and she herself does little to dispel this...
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2004

Suspended term for royal nuptial scam

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a 43-year-old man on Monday to a suspended 18-month prison term for his role in a fake Imperial wedding reception in which some 6.87 million yen in cash and a valuable painting were collected from guests.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Nov 23, 2004

Class action

What would you do if you were sacked for "clicking your pen too much in class," or for "talking to yourself during your break" . . . or how about for "only eating the topping on your rice during lunch?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 23, 2004

Do Japanese unions have much power?

Colette McGarry Teacher, 40 I think it's important that they're there to voice the opinions of the teachers who have difficulty in their jobs, but I wish they had more influence.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2004

DNA tests may not work in abductee case

Experts are still examining the purported remains of abductee Megumi Yokota, but DNA tests may not work because of their poor condition, according to government sources.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2004

Kids of 'illegals' deserve their dream

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- A student of mine was upset because children of illegal immigrants qualified for lower resident fees to attend college in California.

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