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BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2005

Envoy fears regional Cold War

East Asian economies must cooperate on energy issues as quickly as possible if they want to keep regional peace and protect the environment, the Philippine ambassador to Japan said Wednesday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Apr 7, 2005

Finding fun in moral dilemmas

Steven Kent is taking some time off to pursue other projects. Stepping into the breach is experienced game reviewer Ryan Payton.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 3, 2005

The rebirth of a salesman

For Atsushi Yamada, conductor of the New York City Opera, his presentation of Giacomo Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly" to be staged in Tokyo and Nagoya in May will be something of a triumphant return.
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2005

Beijing gives unrehearsed boost to Chen

HONOLULU -- "Unhelpful." That's how Washington described China's new antisecession law, which authorizes the use of "nonpeaceful means" if the opportunity for peaceful reunification with Taiwan becomes "completely exhausted." I beg to differ. As it turns out, the law has proven to be very helpful --...
COMMENTARY
Apr 2, 2005

Tokyo talks of a challenge, not a threat

Tension between China and Taiwan are heating up again, but Japanese government officials seem not as hot and bothered about it as one might expect. Perhaps they have taken a measure of China and decided that Japan will do just fine and is very capable of holding up its own end of Asia.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2005

Mom of temp-staff 'karoshi' victim wins damages

Nikon Corp. and temporary staff agency Atesuto were ordered to pay 24.8 million yen in compensation to a woman whose 23-year-old son committed suicide after being overworked.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2005

Forum wants Mount Fuji on heritage site list

A group of political, business and academic figures, including former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, has launched a forum to push for the listing of Mount Fuji as a World Heritage site by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 30, 2005

Ai-chan set for Chinese club

Japanese table tennis player Ai Fukuhara flew off to China's Shenyang Province on Tuesday as she prepares to formally sign with Chinese club Liaoning.
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2005

Quicker domestic farm reform

Japanese agriculture is beleaguered. Farmland keeps shrinking as aging farmers retire. Collective farming is all but stalled as prospective partners stay on the sidelines. The domestic market faces strong pressure for liberalization. For all this, structural reform is making little headway. No wonder...
COMMENTARY
Mar 27, 2005

Who decides life and death?

WASHINGTON -- Last week the U.S. Congress voted to try to save, at least temporarily, the life of Terri Schiavo, who otherwise would slowly starve to death at the hospice in the state of Florida in which she is confined.
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2005

Alliance lets Japan, Britain influence America to change

NAGOYA/LONDON -- The UK-Japan 21st Century Group, set up two decades ago by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, has been mulling over the foreign-policy dilemmas of the two countries at their annual get-together.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 26, 2005

Makiko Tachibana

Each year in January, the first-year students at Bunka Gakuin High School present a weeklong exhibition of their original picture books in English. "My students themselves plan, write and draw the picture books. Their English is simple, but their stories are full of imagination and fantasy. Trying to...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 24, 2005

Power answers blowing in the wind

There is no doubt our dependence on fossil fuels will end. We will wean ourselves off oil and coal because they pose unacceptable environmental and security risks, or we will be forced to stop using them as reserves dwindle and climate change intensifies.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2005

Spat over disputed isles slowing FTA talks: Machimura

Negotiations on a free-trade agreement between Japan and South Korea, already behind schedule, have been further stalled by the territorial dispute over a set of islets in the Sea of Japan, Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 22, 2005

The U.N.'s 'underachievers'

Carol Bellamy, the outgoing head of the U.N. Children's Fund (UNICEF), has bemoaned the lack of women in top U.N. posts. The organization that preaches gender equality to national governments needs some "affirmative action" to put women in senior positions, she said, adding that other organizations such...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 20, 2005

Expectations in the Sundarbans

THE HUNGRY TIDE, by Amitav Ghosh. HarperCollins, 2004, 403 pp., £10.99 (paper). Piyali Roy, the daughter of Bengali immigrants to the United States, is spotted standing on a railway platform. She is dressed in the clothes "of a teenage boy." The man who distinguishes her from the crowd, as a stranger...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2005

The deep end of Indian state democracy

PATNA, India -- In the early 1990s, a British travel writer described Patna, capital of the northwestern Indian state of Bihar, as the capital of hell on earth. There is indeed something rotten in the state of Bihar and things have only gotten worse. People live in a Hobbesian world, where life is nasty,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Mar 11, 2005

Wines of Washington State

Every state in America now lays claim to indigenous winemaking attempts -- from Alaskans experimenting with Salmonberry wine to alcoholic beverage conglomerates setting their sights on fallow potato patches in Idaho in a quest for inexpensive, "undiscovered" potential vineyards. The results of these...
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2005

Military threat is counterproductive

The agenda for the current National People's Congress of China reportedly includes an antisecession bill for preventing the independence of Taiwan. The Chinese leadership wants to have the bill enacted by the end of the session on March 14. The contents of the draft legislation have not been made public,...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 4, 2005

Waking up to China's threat

NEW YORK -- On Feb. 19, Japan and the United States issued a joint statement that maintaining peace and security in the Taiwan Strait is a common strategic objective. This was nothing extraordinary except for the fact that Japan, for the first time, joined the U.S. in voicing public concern about China's...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2005

Struggling aviation startups using wrong strategy, expert says

Despite the emergence of budget airlines that pose a threat to major carriers around the globe, Japanese startup carriers are still struggling to take off, with some already in rehabilitation.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 28, 2005

Beware of financial conglomerates in FSA's Wild Kingdom

Every year, the media trot out a list of Japan's most popular phrases. Last year's "phrase of the year" award went to "I feel ultra-fine!" -- the quote by swimmer Kosuke Kitajima who brought home multiple gold from the Athens Olympics.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 27, 2005

Preparing for justice that's seen to be done

Criminal hearings are open to the public, but the average person taking a seat in the public gallery would have a hard time understanding what goes on. The procedures are not only unclear, but they are also thickly clothed in legal jargon. What's more, many trials take months, or sometimes even years,...
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...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 23, 2005

Miro's best critic shows with stars of Surrealism

"Drifting Objects of Dreams: The Collection of Shuzo Takiguchi" is an exhibition which features the diversity of this famous Japanese artist and a host of collaborators. Though it started in the West, the Surrealist movement was expansive and noone, not even its founder-cum-leader Andre Breton, had a...
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2005

Curtain raised on a new act

LONDON -- The whirlwind tour of Europe and the Middle East by Condoleeza Rice, the new U.S. secretary of state, has contributed to a better atmosphere in relations between Europe and America.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2005

The right thing is not permanent tax cuts

WASHINGTON -- Since his re-election, President George W. Bush has emphasized the need for U.S. fiscal responsibility. He has pledged to halve the enormous federal budget deficit in his second term. He has vowed to put social security on a sound, long-term footing. And he has just submitted a 2006 budget...

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Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat