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COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2003

Getting realistic on defense

LONDON -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government has taken some sensible steps toward a more realistic defense policy. In particular there has been some easing in dealing with emergency situations. Japanese Self-Defense Forces can also now be sent to Iraq to support peacekeeping there, but they...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 20, 2003

Stars for a day: kabuki initiates in the limelight

For a glimpse of the future of kabuki, make your way this month not to the Kabukiza (where contemporary drama superstar Hideki Noda is reigning supreme, see article below) but to the National Theater, Tokyo.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 17, 2003

Adding color to pre- and postwar mentalities

During the ceremony to mark the 58th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba blasted the United States for "worshipping nuclear weapons as God" -- a statement that, understandably, received a great deal of media attention. And while U.S. President George Bush, who is advocating...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2003

The spirit of corrupt regimes alive in Japan

It's no secret that Japan discourages asylum-seekers, though officials never admit to it openly. When asked what the government would do about the 10 North Korean refugees who entered the Japanese Embassy in Bangkok on July 31, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said that it would be better for them...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 6, 2003

O, what a tangled web we weave

Though nowhere near as all-encompassing as the Renaissance in Europe, the closed, feudal world of shogunal Japan did throw up a few periods of vigorous artistic expression in the more than two and a half control-freak centuries it lasted. One of these was about 200 years ago, from 1804-1830, during what...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 4, 2003

Seasonal thoughts on Japan's sweltering summer troubles

Summer is as much the silly season in Japan as well as elsewhere. Nothing much moves forward and the papers struggle to find suitable topics to comment on. So do economists. Here are some thoughts for the season.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 1, 2003

BayStars propel past Hanshin

Hitoshi Tamura and Tatsuhiko Kinjo belted two-run homers apiece and two other BayStars homered as Yokohama downed the Hanshin Tigers 9-6 at Koshien Stadium on Thursday.
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2003

China under more pressure to revalue the yuan

Japan and the United States are stepping up calls on China to revalue the yuan, charging that while growing economically, it is spreading deflation and trade deficits by exporting goods at an unfairly low exchange rate.
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2003

Koizumi denies postal plan report

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi denied Wednesday he plans to set up an official committee on privatizing Japan's postal services to boost studies that his private panel conducted in 2001 and 2002.
BUSINESS
Jul 28, 2003

Chinese currency system must face step-by-step liberalization

We recently hear a lot about the need for China to adjust the exchange rate of its currency, the yuan. In fact, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan, during the U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing July 16, said it is "increasingly evident" that China should allow its currency to trade freely...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 27, 2003

The art of redemption

YOSHIMASA AND THE SILVER PAVILION: The Creation of the Soul of Japan, by Donald Keene. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003, 10 illustrations, 224 pp., $29.95 (paper). In the appropriate volume of his monumental history of Japanese literature, Donald Keene only once mentions the eighth Ashikaga...
JAPAN
Jul 23, 2003

Don't build it unless they'll come

More than three-quarters of respondents to a recent survey believe the government should stop building expressways if the projects are not expected to turn a profit.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2003

Japan Highway on the road to ruin; 617.477 billion yen in debt: document

A set of secret documents allegedly compiled by Japan Highway Public Corp. suggest that the semigovernmental corporation is in a state of capital deficit.
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2003

Nov. 9 election nearly a certainty: Yamasaki aide

A Nov. 9 general election is a near certainty as Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to dissolve the House of Representatives to meet that schedule, a close aide to LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki said Thursday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2003

Man who held girl for nine years to serve 14, Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court on Thursday restored the original 14-year sentence imposed on a man who kidnapped and confined a girl in Niigata Prefecture for nearly a decade.
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,...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 8, 2003

Watching the detectives

There's something to be said about Japanese police attitudes towards foreigners.
EDITORIALS
Jul 6, 2003

The case of the missing WMD

Since the war in Iraq ended, supporters and critics alike have reached a near-consensus that the main reason given for the U.S.-led operation -- the threat posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction -- was baseless. U.S. President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair insist...
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2003

All right, have a drink then: JCP

Members of the Japanese Communist Party working at the party's headquarters in Tokyo may be able to drink alcohol outside their homes after all.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2003

U.S. wants officials present in military suspect questioning

The United States has demanded that Japan allow American officials to be present when U.S. servicemen suspected of committing crimes here are questioned by Japanese investigators prior to indictment.
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2003

Freeze salaries to arrested lawmakers

The average annual income of Japanese Diet members in 2002 dropped 6.2 percent from the year before to 26.93 million yen, the lowest level since 1993 when an income and asset reporting system for national legislators was introduced, according to data released Monday by the Diet. This drop is attributed...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 3, 2003

What a week that was

It was a week filled with surprises and excitement.
BUSINESS
Jul 2, 2003

FSA accused of strong-arm tactics

The Financial Services Agency exerted improper pressure early last year on Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Co. to consolidate with Asahi Mutual Life Insurance Co., a Democratic Party of Japan member said Tuesday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jun 28, 2003

Darius Hecq-Cauquil

Old-timers remember the late Masaru Ogawa, characterful senior editor of The Japan Times 40 years ago. Bilingual and bicultural from his birth and upbringing in the United States, he returned to Japan, married and brought up his family here.
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2003

Diet group takes uneasy steps toward abolishing death penalty

Among major industrial countries, only Japan and the United States retain capital punishment. In Japan, however, there is a growing abolition movement. The Diet Members' League for Abolition of the Death Penalty, a suprapartisan group headed by Shizuka Kamei of the governing Liberal Democratic Party,...
BUSINESS
Jun 18, 2003

Red tape hinders Singapore Airlines campaign

Attempts by the SARS-battered Singapore Airlines to offer travelers bargain deals have been stalled here by domestic regulations, despite high hopes for mutual promotion of tourism under a bilateral free trade agreement signed recently.
COMMENTARY
Jun 16, 2003

They impeach murderers, don't they?

NEW YORK -- U.S. President George W. Bush told us that Iraq and al-Qaeda were working together. They weren't. He repeatedly implied that Iraq had had something to do with 9/11. It hadn't. He claimed to have proof that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons of mass destruction....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 15, 2003

The albatross of nuclear power in Japan

According the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), the residents of the greater Tokyo metropolitan area are facing the crisis of a power shortage this summer because most of the company's nuclear reactors will remain shut down for inspections and repairs stemming from last year's discovery that the...

Longform

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