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JAPAN
Feb 28, 2003

Palace moat net yields six bluegill, 30 native fish

The Environment Ministry began Thursday netting nonnative fish in the Ushigafuchi moat at the Imperial Palace to protect the native species there.
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2003

Sanitary infant environment suspected for high allergy incidence

Some 86 percent of people born in the 1970s have allergies against things such as mites and cedar pollen, researchers at the National Center for Child Health and Development in Tokyo estimated Monday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Feb 25, 2003

Businesses gear up to launch IP phone services

Roused into action by Softbank Corp.'s foray into Internet Protocol telephony last April, major telecommunications carriers and Internet service providers soon plan to launch their own commercial end-to-end IP phone services via broadband lines.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 24, 2003

Like real reforms, banking crisis this spring unlikely to materialize

Each spring in recent years, people have started talking about a financial crisis in Japan as the month of March draws near. In about five weeks, most Japanese firms will be closing their books for fiscal 2002, and I would like to discuss this year's situation from several perspectives.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 23, 2003

Making home your own

That wall must go. The same thought nagged Mariko Maruoka every evening while she cooked dinner for her family. The dividing wall that ran between kitchen and dining area served no useful purpose.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2003

Tokyo buses to reduce emissions

All diesel-engine buses owned by major bus operators in Tokyo will be equipped with devices to cut diesel emissions by the end of June, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2003

Group to plant 1,000 cherry trees in Beijing

A nonprofit organization is planning to plant 1,000 flowering cherry-tree seedlings in Beijing this summer as part of cultural exchanges and a gesture of bilateral friendship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2003

A new home for world-class art

With the opening of "The Romantic Tradition in British Painting, 1800-1950," The Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art seems set to take its place as an art institution of international standing.
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2003

Kyowa Hakko sets up U.S. unit

Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., a Japanese biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, announced Monday the creation of a new unit in the United States to develop and market monoclonal antibodies and other biological technologies and businesses.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 17, 2003

"Holes," "Love That Dog"

"Holes," Louis Sachar, Bloomsbury; 2000; 233 pp. It's hard to say why life is so downright unfair to some children. Take Stanley Yelnats: He gets bullied at school and is ignored by his teachers. And then one day, he gets hit on the head by a pair of sneakers that seems to fall out of the sky. He doesn't...
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 17, 2003

FTC's 'procedures' trample human rights

Article 11 of the Constitution says, "The people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights. These fundamental human rights guaranteed by this Constitution shall be conferred upon the people of this and future generations as eternal and inviolable rights." The principle...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 16, 2003

Democracy in Myanmar going nowhere

Myanmar has no formal greeting words. A surprise? But we have variations that are more practical to our lives, depending on the time and circumstances. If you meet someone along the way, the most common words are: Where do you come from? Where are you going? Or, how are your father's, mother's or your...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 16, 2003

When you need a hand ...

Married with two children, 46-year-old Kumiko Mashima thinks her life is just about perfect. She met her loving husband through an omiai -- a formal introduction arranged by a go-between with a view to marriage -- and they both adore their daughters. But before she found her way into her husband's arms,...
EDITORIALS
Feb 14, 2003

Japan's role in solving Iraq issue

How should Japan deal with the Iraq crisis? The question is gaining urgency as the United States gears up for a military campaign. Yet the government has so far given only vague answers, though the ambiguity is not difficult to understand. During a Diet debate on Wednesday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 13, 2003

Yokohama mayor targets bureaucracy, apathy

First in a series of articles focusing on young politicians with the potential to change Japan. These articles will appear every other Thursday. KANAKO TAKAHARA Staff writer Yokohama Mayor Hiroshi Nakada is hoping to use the city, which has a population of some 3.5 million people, as a platform from...
COMMENTARY
Feb 13, 2003

No shortage of reasons why South Koreans dislike the U.S.

WASHINGTON -- Opinion polls from around the world show increasing numbers of people believe that the United States is arrogant, unilateralist and indifferent to key concerns of other nations -- even friends and allies. There is a rising belief that the U.S. has become a source of international tension...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Feb 11, 2003

Finally, anti-tobacco lessons come to schools

Every time our family sits down in a restaurant in Japan, my 11-year-old sniffs the air with disgust. He waves a hand through the cigarette haze and glares at the smokers all around us. "What's the matter with these people?" he growled when we went out for a meal the other day. "Didn't anyone ever teach...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2003

Golf: a sport that mirrors the nation

Forget indicators such as unemployment levels and interest rates; there's no simpler way to chart Japan's economic well-being than by tracing the ebb and flow of the popularity of golf.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 8, 2003

The Canadian eco-angle for using fur in fashion

I first talk with Paula Lishman in Ontario, where she lives in the earth-integrated house that husband Bill built. Married 34 years, she describes him as "a true Renaissance man"; his Web site explains just why.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 6, 2003

Delving deeper into the snows

At the end of my column last week, there I was on the Antarctic Peninsula pondering the pink hue of "watermelon snow" and wondering where had I heard about colored snow before.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 2003

Kawaguchi pitches SDF role in U.N. peace efforts

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi has proposed allowing the Self-Defense Forces to join multinational forces when they are part of U.N.-sanctioned international activities working for peace.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 5, 2003

Artists in search of absolute painting

"We call together all young people and -- as young people who bear the future -- we want to acquire freedom for our hands and lives, against the well-established older forces. Everyone belongs to us who renders in an unfalsified way everything that compels him to be creative."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 5, 2003

The song remains the same . . . sorta

2001 marked the 10th anniversary of the release of "Nevermind," the album that broke alternative rock on non-college radio and MTV. Owing to disagreements among the interests that control the Nirvana legacy, the anticipated career-survey box set was never released. Instead, a single-disc greatest hits...
BUSINESS
Feb 5, 2003

Hitachi shoots into black

Hitachi Ltd. announced Tuesday that it posted a group net profit of 1.3 billion yen in the October-December quarter -- in stark contrast to a net loss of 115.8 billion yen a year earlier -- due to reduced costs and solid sales growth.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Feb 3, 2003

Beware of the risks of inflation targeting

America borrows to keep growing. China grows to keep standing still. And Japan stands still to keep from falling apart.

Longform

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