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JAPAN
Dec 30, 2001

Retiring politician's war memories spur his fight for peace

As Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi rose to power this year with pledges of radical reform, one 77-year-old Diet veteran made a brief return to the political arena before deciding to abandon his life's work.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 29, 2001

Koizumi plays public relations game like a pro

This was the year of the Koizumi craze.
COMMENTARY
Dec 25, 2001

Conservatives out of touch

LONDON -- We British respect tradition, but institutions, including monarchies, need to adapt and modernize. Many of the more junior members of the British royal family, for instance, have no real role to play and should, like their cousins in Scandinavia, live ordinary unsubsidized lives.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2001

Collective might in service

NEW YORK -- "The Responsibility to Protect," the report by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, was presented to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York on Dec. 18. ICISS was set up by Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy and fully supported by his successor,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2001

War 'back home' divides Jordan's Chechen community

ZARQA, Jordan -- When the wounded Chechen fighters arrived in Jordan in 1994, everything changed for Younis Ashab.
COMMUNITY
Dec 16, 2001

Wright's modern masterpiece comes back to life

All too often in this country, modern buildings of architectural and historical value are bulldozed to make way for new commercial development. The "lucky" ones may be granted a stay of execution, if only to survive as unused and lifeless monuments.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 16, 2001

Young Japanese struggle to find their way

As another year comes to an end, the Japanese media continue to wonder at the new generation at school and at work. The term "shinjinrui" (new species) seems to have fallen out of use but the prevailing attitude is still one of bemusement and even dismay.
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2001

Pyongyang's lure as a U.S. terror target

SEOUL -- The success of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan has triggered debates about the next target in the worldwide war against terrorists and their helpers. At the epicenter of this debate, which is not confined to opinion pages of the press, stands Iraq, whose regime many Americans perceive...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 12, 2001

The world according to Bucky

Naming himself "Guinea Pig B," Buckminster Fuller vowed that his whole life would be an experiment "to see what an unknown individual . . . might be able to do effectively on behalf of all mankind."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2001

Death penalty: an ineffective shortcut

A state-sponsored killing cannot be condoned under any circumstances. It is as barbaric and brutal as the one that an individual or a group of people may have committed. It is in this context that some U.S. doctors' willingness to help execute those prisoners condemned to die by giving them a lethal...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 6, 2001

'Shrek,' 'Final Fantasy' raise bar for DVDs

When ogres and space monsters battled last summer, the ogres won handsomely. At least they did in box offices across the United States.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 26, 2001

Looking back on life in Stalinist Russia

NEW YORK -- My friend Lenore Parker threw a party for Mary M. Leder, who has just published her first book, at age 86. The book is an autobiography, "My Life in Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back" (Indiana University Press).
COMMENTARY
Nov 26, 2001

Japan set to jump the gun with SDF

Since the Diet enacted antiterrorism legislation enabling the Self-Defense Forces to provide logistic support to the U.S.-led war efforts in Afghanistan, there have been mounting calls in Japan for expansion of the SDF's activities abroad. These moves defy Japan's war-renouncing Constitution.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 22, 2001

Singing the praises of glorious mud flats

How's this for a writer with a bee in his shorts?: "Upon ratifying the Ramsar Convention, Japan agreed to 'promote the conservation of wetlands and waterfowl by establishing nature reserves in wetlands . . . and providing adequately for their wardening' [Article 4]. So far, Japan has made no effort to...
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2001

An ambiguous SDF dispatch plan

The Cabinet's approval last Friday of a basic Self-Defense Forces deployment plan, designed to provide noncombat support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, opened the way for the first "wartime" mobilization of SDF troops overseas. The government emphasizes that the plan is within the framework...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 21, 2001

2002 could be busy year in Japanese sports

You read last week where the National Football League is coming back to Japan next year, having scheduled an American Bowl exhibition game between the San Francisco 49ers and Washington Redskins in Osaka on Aug. 3. Let's hope this will be the first of several announcements of major international sports...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2001

Criticism of Pakistan is off the mark

The Nov. 10 article by Brahma Chellaney, "Pakistan's uncertain future," gives a bleak picture of Pakistan that I am afraid does not exist in reality. Allow me to rectify this false image so that The Japan Times readers have a clear and balanced view of my country, which is so much in the news these days....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2001

Does self-defense justify Afghan war?

SEOUL -- Even as the scope of combat operations in Afghanistan widens and their scale intensifies, the legal basis for waging war under international law grows ever more tenuous. According to U.S. President George W. Bush, the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an act of...
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Nov 15, 2001

Mad about movies

www.apple.com/trailers/ It was only three years ago, wasn't it? The trailer for "Star Wars: Episode I" hit the Net and before you knew it, everyone with a modem and a hard drive was downloading the thing via a 28 Kbps connection. And telling you how it only took them 12 hours to do it. Well, now "Episode...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 11, 2001

In praise of Japan's 'Greatest Generation'

Perhaps as a reaction against the excesses of an age of material prosperity and greed, America in recent years has seen a spate of books and movies extolling the so-called Greatest Generation, the quiet men who went off to fight in World War II. Similarly, Japan now has "Project X," a popular NHK-TV...
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2001

MSDF heads for Indian Ocean

Two Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers and a supply ship left Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, on Friday for a two-month intelligence-gathering mission in the Indian Ocean as part of Japan's noncombat support of the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2001

Osaka court rejects lawsuit by forcibly moved homeless

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit filed by 26 people demanding compensation for the city's clearing away in December 1998 of tents used by the homeless along the sidewalk in Nishinari Ward.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2001

Osaka court rejects lawsuit by forcibly moved homeless

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on Thursday rejected a lawsuit filed by 26 people demanding compensation for the city's clearing away in December 1998 of tents used by the homeless along the sidewalk in Nishinari Ward.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2001

Ministry eyes cutting down sea emissions

The Environment Ministry has decided to set a target for reducing nitrogen and phosphorus emissions into Tokyo Bay, Ise Bay and the Seto Inland Sea to avoid fouling the waters with too many nutrients, ministry officials said.
COMMENTARY
Nov 6, 2001

For an unfettered peace role

The Diet last Monday enacted an antiterrorism bill that would allow the Self-Defense Forces to give an unprecedented level of support to U.S.-led forces overseas, along with two related bills. The main bill, which provides for rear-area support, does not let the SDF take part in combat operations. It...
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2001

'Unconstitutional' shrine visit provokes barrage of lawsuits

OSAKA -- More than 900 people filed three separate lawsuits Thursday against Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, claiming his Aug. 13 visit to Yasukuni Shrine was unconstitutional.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2001

'Unconstitutional' shrine visit provokes barrage of lawsuits

OSAKA -- More than 900 people filed three separate lawsuits Thursday against Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, claiming his Aug. 13 visit to Yasukuni Shrine was unconstitutional.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2001

Single mothers left out in financial cold

Every morning, Yuko, a 33-year-old resident of Kanagawa Prefecture, gets up at 4 a.m., does the housework, prepares the evening meal, takes the three children to a nursery, and then goes to work.

Longform

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