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COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2001

Caution and patience are key to Japan-North Korea relations

There have been earthshaking developments on the Korean Peninsula in the past six months. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il began to play a central role in Pyongyang's international relations, a year after the country started making diplomatic overtures worldwide. North Korea relaxed tense relations with...
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2000

Bill foot-dragging belies pluralist goal

The postponement of debate on a bill that would grant limited suffrage to foreigners until next year at the earliest has prompted long-term foreign residents of Japan to question whether the nation is serious about embracing the foreign population.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Hase killer still at large, lawyer fears

KOBE -- The May 1997 murder of 11-year-old Jun Hase in Suma Ward here shocked Japan and made world headlines for the sensational nature of the crime.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2000

Education yesterday, today and tomorrow

My four children have attended Japanese schools from kindergarten up. Over the years there have been innumerable positive experiences connected with this. Yet one thing has always struck me as, at best, blatantly incongruous. Virtually every principal addressing pupils and parents at the commencement...
EDITORIALS
Nov 15, 2000

Ground the flying-tanker plans

With the government budget for fiscal 2001 now in preparation, a controversial question concerning defense procurement looms large: Do the Self-Defense Forces need in-flight refueling aircraft? The Defense Agency is requesting appropriations to purchase one such aircraft in the year beginning next April....
EDITORIALS
Nov 6, 2000

Neighbors, yet strangers

The latest round of normalization talks held in Beijing last week between Japan and North Korea failed to reach any specific agreement. Although no statement was issued, it seems clear that the two sides largely agreed to disagree, at least for the moment. The two nations remained divided over the pivotal...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 30, 2000

U.S. reporter misses the mark on Japan

"Given America's willingness to avert its eyes from the most troubling chapters of its history and to resist critical self-evaluation and discussion of the country's atrocities against native Americans and African Americans . . ."
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

How dead is dead enough?

The line between life and death has grown increasingly obscure in the United States, the world's most active organ-transplant community, as surgeons grapple with a delicate problem: Organs available for transplant may become less viable if pronouncement of a donor's death is delayed until death is beyond...
COMMENTARY
Oct 13, 2000

Communists to 'tolerate' SDF

The national convention of the Japan Communist Party is expected to approve a proposal in November to revise its charter in order to tolerate the mobilization of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in a military emergency. The policy turnaround to match the party's basic stance to reality was long overdue....
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 23, 2000

No German blueprint for the two Koreas

SEOUL -- The relationship between local autonomy and unification is becoming an increasingly hot topic in South Korea, as more and more local authorities aspire to an active role in the process of rapprochement with the North. It is clear that this nation is passing through a historic moment. Hardly...
EDITORIALS
Sep 14, 2000

What did Russia want?

The arrest last Friday of a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer on suspicion of spying for Russia raises the puzzling question: How is it that Moscow needed, or seemed to need, military secrets from Japan in the post-Cold War period, particularly at a time when relations between the two nations are improving?...
COMMENTARY
Aug 26, 2000

Is the Bank of Japan right?

LONDON -- The governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaru Hayami, and the majority of the BOJ's policy council have drawn criticism from the Japanese government and leaders of Japanese industry for the decision to end the BOJ's zero-interest-rate policy. These criticisms have been echoed in the British press....
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2000

Japan-Russia exchanges build vital trust

Last month I had an opportunity to visit Kunashiri and Etorofu Islands -- two of the four Russian-occupied islands claimed by Japan -- under a visa-free exchange program. It was my second trip to the Northern Territories, which consist of Kunashiri, Etorofu, Shikotan and Habomai Islands. On my first...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2000

A chance for Japan to define and refocus the globalization debate

The world is in an uneasy mood.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 18, 2000

The art and artistry of translation

WORDS, IDEAS, AND AMBIGUITIES: Four Perspectives on Translating from the Japanese, edited by Donald Richie. A Pacific Basin Institute Book, Imprint Publications, 2000, 88 pp., $19.95. This volume is a faithful account of an important and stimulating series of colloquia held at the International House...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jul 9, 2000

'Alien 5' now playing in your local neighborhood

A band of junior high-school students showed up at my door the other morning. "Can we interview you?" they asked.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2000

Korean summit remains a blank sheet

HONG KONG -- Perhaps it is in the nature of joint declarations that their merits tend to be exaggerated. The British did it with their joint declaration with China regarding Hong Kong, the Indians did it with their joint declaration with Pakistan at Lahore. Now the South Koreans, plus many foreigners...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jun 22, 2000

How 'bout them Dallas Cowgirls!

This was one assignment I didn't want to miss.
EDITORIALS
May 11, 2000

After the tour, the real work begins

During his nine-day whirlwind trip of seven major nations that ended last weekend, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori laid the groundwork for a G8 summit scheduled for July in Okinawa, a meeting that he will chair as head of the host government. His main purpose, of course, was to get acquainted with leaders...
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2000

Doing battle over Article 9

More than two months have passed since the Diet began debating the Constitution for the first time. It is too early to predict how the debate at the Constitutional Review Council will develop, but conservative hardliners both in and outside the ruling coalition are already talking up the need to rewrite...
EDITORIALS
Apr 1, 2000

Tokyo's new tax raises big questions

The tax debate sparked by Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has reached a milestone now that the metropolitan assembly has almost unanimously approved his plan to impose a new asset-based tax on large banks operating in the capital. The bank tax, which is good for five years and replaces the current business...
JAPAN
Mar 26, 2000

13-story project spells doom for Fuji view

There is, it seems, an unwritten law on Fujimizaka slope that every conversation must start with the following question: "Can you see it?"
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 16, 2000

Japan sparkles in draw

KOBE -- He couldn't bring back the goals that Japan's senior soccer team has struggled to score in the past few years, but in Wednesday night's 0-0 draw with China, manager Philippe Troussier did bring back some credibility to the much maligned "A" team; he also brought back some excitement; and he even...
COMMENTARY
Feb 11, 2000

Diet imbroglio over at last

The Diet returned to normal Feb. 9, two weeks after the opposition forces started boycotting all proceedings to protest against the ruling bloc's handling of a controversial bill to reduce Diet seats. The turmoil started when the three-party governing coalition passed the bill for cutting Lower House...
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2000

Opposition parties continue Diet boycott

The Lower House on Monday entered a two-day, question-and-answer session on policy speeches delivered Friday as the opposition camp continued its boycott in the face of last week's turmoil over a seat-reduction bill. It marked the first time in the past 33 years that a question-and-answer session on...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2000

Fashion segueing into sound

A special guest at a Ryuichi Sakamoto concert summons a host of international possibilities -- David Sylvian or Bowie, perhaps? Instead, the audience at Sakamoto's recent Christmas concert got designer Yohji Yamamoto clutching an acoustic guitar. Yamamoto's foray into music (he has recorded with rootsy...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 18, 1999

You're only as old as you tell

Here is a scenario that happens in the first hour of every single new English conversation class in Japan _ a sort of annual rite of spring.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 1999

Identity of 'Kimigayo' composer remains mystery

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 1999

New Komeito makes an about-face

A tripartite coalition among the Liberal Democratic Party, the Liberal Party and New Komeito has become a fait accompli. At a special party convention last weekend, New Komeito adopted a basic policy that prepared the second-largest opposition party for participation in the bipartisan ruling alliance...

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?