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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 17, 2005

How gei can one get? 'Pretend gay' is as far as it gets

"Talent," or tarento, is the cushiest job in Japan -- maybe in the whole world. Though you are expected to have some kind of skill (gei), once you achieve a level of regularity as a TV variety show guest, the work is self-perpetuating, though it's by no means guaranteed forever. And rarely do successful...
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2005

Medicine group goes after sleeping sickness in Africa

A group supplying drugs to the poor in developing nations signed an agreement Friday in Tokyo with the Kitasato Institute to conduct a joint project to develop a cure for sleeping sickness, currently spreading across Africa.
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2005

Kanda allegedly key bid-rigger in scam

Sozo Kanda, the former board member of Japan Highway Public Corp. arrested Tuesday by the Tokyo High Prosecutor's Office, allegedly played a central role in what has become the nation's biggest public works bid-rigging scandal.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 13, 2005

You've never seen anything so ancient Chinese like this in Tokyo

Tokyo's Mori Art Museum is currently hosting one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Chinese artifacts that has ever been held in Japan. "China: Crossroads of Culture" is an incredible amalgam of treasures and art objects from the entire first millennium of Chinese history, beginning with pieces...
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2005

Bid-rigging smacks of 'amakudari' to core

As the No. 2 at the Japan Highway Public Corp., the unidentified bureaucrat wielded enormous power over Japan's major road-builders.
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2005

Mitsubishi Heavy offers to purchase U.S. power plant titan Westinghouse

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. has offered to buy major U.S. nuclear power plant builder Westinghouse Electric Co. in a multibillion yen deal, company officials said Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Jul 9, 2005

Humanitarian paints hope for students of Vietnam

Fred Harris looks around the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Yurakucho, central Tokyo, and observes with his usual keen but fond eye, "This was the first club I joined when I came here in 1964." (He was also in Japan while serving as a U.S. soldier during the Korean War.)
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jul 9, 2005

Five signs of the coming Golden Age of trance

In the fast and chaotic protoculture growing around psychedelic trance in Japan, it is often difficult at best and futile at worst to try to get a genuine fix on the direction in which we are headed.
EDITORIALS
Jul 8, 2005

A year of autonomy for Iraq

It has been one year since Iraqis reclaimed control over their country in the aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion. It has been a long year, marked more by disappointment than hope. Political squabbles among Iraq's political leaders as well as an ongoing -- some would say escalating -- insurgency have...
BUSINESS
Jul 7, 2005

Regional economies seen on positive tack

Several regional economies improved in the last three months, but high oil prices and slower growth in China raised worries in some regions, the Bank of Japan's branch managers reported Wednesday during a quarterly meeting at the central bank.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 6, 2005

No swansong yet for a modern diva

Ballet is a fickle master. It demands years of selfless dedication from its young and beautiful devotees, only to discard them the moment they pass their prime. Ballerinas rarely remain centerstage beyond their early 30s, so when Royal Ballet star Darcey Bussell became pregnant with her first child,...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2005

Eastern Europe in the Far East

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia For generations of expatri ates in the days before jet travel, the first stop on the journey back to Europe from Japan was Vladivostok, Russia's easternmost city and the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2005

Fundamentalism seen hurting AIDS effort

KOBE -- Religious fundamentalism that rejects condom use and scientific treatment of people with HIV/AIDS is threatening to reverse a quarter century of progress in battling the disease, participants at an international conference warned Sunday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 29, 2005

A painter of his time?

When Alfred H. Barr (the founder of the Museum of Modern Art, New York) was sketching out the shape of modern art in the 20th century -- its movements, influences and directions -- he drew a kind of family tree showing how all the different "isms" connected to one another in an evolutionary way.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2005

Alleged bid-riggers got huge Japan Highway deals

Forty-seven companies allegedly involved in rigging bids for government construction projects also won contracts worth a combined 443.7 billion yen over the past five years for steel bridge orders placed by Japan Highway Public Corp., according to internal Japan Highway documents.
EDITORIALS
Jun 26, 2005

A taxing matter

The nation's income tax revenue, which stood at about 27 trillion yen in 1991, is expected to dwindle to slightly more than 14 trillion, yen according to a fiscal 2005 budget estimate. The drop is due to a series of tax-reduction schemes put into place over the past decade to revive the sagging economy....
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 26, 2005

Call them illegal, but they're also heroic

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- "Being that you are an alleged expert in language, you should know the difference between legal and illegal," the reader stated in his e-mail, as he reacted angrily to one of my articles on immigration.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 25, 2005

Agents continue making huge sums for doing very little work

LONDON -- The following story is, I promise, absolutely true, but you will understand why I have not used the names of the player, agent, club or manager concerned.
COMMENTARY
Jun 25, 2005

Helping Africa to help itself

Systemic risks are factors that threaten not only individual countries themselves but also the whole global system. Africa is the scene of numerous systemic risks that must be overcome for the sake of both Africa's own development, and global security and prosperity. Infectious diseases like AIDS, disputes...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 23, 2005

Osaka 'curfew' plan rife with problems

OSAKA — It's a Saturday evening in early 2006, and four Osaka-area 15-year-old friends, Kenji, Taro, Yoko and Yuka, show up at a theater to see the latest movie. The time is 6:45 p.m., 15 minutes before the movie starts.
COMMENTARY
Jun 22, 2005

Private aid opportunities

NIAS ISLAND, Indonesia -- The flotsam of disaster was everywhere: trash, bricks, splintered wood, household effects, clothes, debris. Buildings by the ocean were mostly leveled. Across the road several structures survived, barely: Only their side walls, perpendicular to the water, still stood. Plastic...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 19, 2005

Life and times of a Heian-Period crime sleuth

Scrolling back in history THE DRAGON SCROLL, by I.J. Parker. New York: Penguin, 2005, 432 pp., $13.00 (paper). Now beginning a new series with Penguin, Parker has just released "The Dragon Scroll." While the third full-length novel to be published, it is the first, chronologically, in her series and...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jun 18, 2005

'Testament': Poems that speak of life's dark side

I meet two men in one: Tomonori Saito, who works for a shipping company in Tokyo's Shinagawa district, and Saion, the nom de plume of a young Japanese poet.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2005

Muslim-American author takes aim at stereotypes

Concerned about the negative images of Muslims being generated by the actions of terrorist extremists in recent years, Muslim-American author Asma Gull Hasan said average Muslims, including those in Japan, need to speak up so people gain a fair understanding of Islam.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 17, 2005

Tribes: An African heart beats in Kagurazaka

Not so long ago, Kagurazaka was one of this city's most traditional neighborhoods, its alleys still echoing from the days when it was an important geisha district. Though some of its old character survives, these days it has much more of an international nature -- especially when it comes to dining out....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 15, 2005

The art that rocks the boat of war in Iraq

If you don't like U.S. President George W. Bush -- particularly if you don't support his war in Iraq -- then there is a new gallery exhibition in Tokyo that you will relish.

Longform

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