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EDITORIALS
Apr 27, 2005

Human rights transcend nationality

Japanese media have given prominent coverage to the nationality issue in the past two weeks. The Tokyo District Court ruled April 13 in favor of a lawsuit seeking confirmation of Japanese nationality for a boy born to a Filipino woman and a Japanese man who are not legally married. According to the ruling,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2005

Getting Yangon to show a little respect

CHANG MAI, Thailand -- There has been a lot of discussion recently about Myanmar's assumption of the presidency of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations next year. It is obvious that most members wish to prevent this anomaly from happening. Let's reflect on some of the more realistic,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 24, 2005

Canadian indie scene keeps it together

When the Canadian music collective known as Broken Social Scene arrives in Tokyo next month, they'll be bringing a few members of their family tree along. Found on the group's Web site, the "tree" is actually 40-plus band and artist names scrawled on a paper bag and connected by the squiggly white lines....
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2005

CCP smacks of hypocrisy

LONDON -- At the end of his visit to India last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao made a strong political attack on Japan. With respect to Japan's bid for a seat on an expanded U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Wen opined that "Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for history and wins...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Apr 21, 2005

Matters of survival in a 'shattered world'

One of the best things about writing a newspaper column is that I get a chance to meet people whose paths I might otherwise never cross. Last weekend, at the Odaiba waterfront launch of Earth Day Tokyo 2005, I had the rare pleasure of meeting and interviewing two environmentalists I have long admired,...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 21, 2005

Time to honor the planet, every day

'If the environment is a fad, then it's going to be our last fad," warned Denis Hayes at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, having given up his own graduate studies at Harvard only months before to organize this historic event.
EDITORIALS
Apr 21, 2005

Security for Afghanistan

Afghanistan's president, Mr. Hamid Karzai, has announced that he wants a formal long-term strategic relationship with the United States. That seems only natural: The U.S. led the invasion of Afghanistan that put Mr. Karzai in power. Others worry that such a relationship could result in a permanent U.S....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2005

Nakagawa livid over China's lack of remorse

Shoichi Nakagawa, minister of economy, trade and industry, blasted China on Tuesday for offering no apology or compensation for violence and damage caused by participants in recent anti-Japan protests, saying he doubts whether the country is truly governed by rule of law.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2005

Director hits moves to revise Constitution

If Japan revises the Constitution's war-renouncing Article 9 and officially designates its military as such, other parts of Asia will increase their arms buildups and war will become a possibility, according to American film director John Junkerman.
COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2005

Japan, China wasting time

Recent mass anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities have plunged Sino-Japanese relations to their lowest since diplomatic ties were normalized in 1972. Stones thrown by demonstrators damaged the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on April 9. Japanese-owned businesses in other cities were likewise attacked,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2005

Common-sense solutions floated to ease tensions

Ahead of Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura's trip to Beijing on Sunday to meet his counterpart, The Japan Times interviewed Sino-Japanese relations experts Tomoyuki Kojima and Zhu Jianrong to hear their views on how the two nations can defuse mounting anti-Japan activities in China, blamed in part...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 2005

Intellectual property disputes

Japan's efforts to bolster the legal system for protecting intellectual property (IP) rights reached a major milestone with the recent establishment of the Intellectual Property High Court. The new court, which is housed in the same building as the Tokyo High Court, will handle a broad range of disputes...
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2005

Nearly half think public safety crumbling: poll

Nearly half of the respondents to a survey on social consciousness think public safety is getting worse, the government said Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Singapore turns to Japan's matchmakers as birthrate sags

Japan might assist in Singapore's efforts to set up matchmaking services, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2005

Ministry debuts child-abuse checklist

The welfare ministry has created guidelines to help child consultants spot child abuse, officials said Wednesday.
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.
BUSINESS
Apr 6, 2005

Business leader raps environment tax

A senior Japanese business leader urged the government Tuesday to drop an idea to levy a new tax on fossil fuels like oil, warning it could adversely affect people's livelihood.
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.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 31, 2005

No exception for Pyongyang

HONOLULU -- No issue more clearly illustrates the chasm in public perceptions that has developed between the United States and South Korea than the issue of human rights in North Korea.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 31, 2005

Boning up on a Man much maligned

Quarry workers in the Neander Valley in Germany dug up more than limestone when, in 1856, they came across parts of an old skull and skeleton. By 1864, other similar specimens had been found and studied, and the archaic human was recognized as a new species: Homo neanderthalensis. (Neander Tal means...
EDITORIALS
Mar 29, 2005

Mr. Bush's troubling nominations

Two controversial nominations have raised questions about U.S. President George W. Bush's intentions in his second term. Mr. Bush had pledged to put a renewed emphasis on diplomacy and to rebuild damaged relations with friends and allied nations. Yet the naming of Mr. Paul Wolfowitz to head the World...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 27, 2005

Free tickets for Diamondbacks Day on April 17 at Tokyo Dome

The Pacific League Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters will continue their tradition of holding Arizona Diamondbacks Day at one of their home-away-from-home games at Tokyo Dome.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Mar 27, 2005

A fully not-boring Indian adventure

SHANTARAM, by Gregory David Roberts. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2004, 936 pp., $24.95 (cloth). The lives that some people lead can put fiction to shame. One such example would be Australian novelist Gregory David Roberts, a former heroin addict who held up banks with a toy pistol. Apprehended and...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 27, 2005

Testing Karzai's politics of inclusiveness

CANBERRA -- Whatever Washington's expectations, Afghan President Hamed Karzai is certainly instituting what he has called "Afghan-style democracy." His inclusion in the government of some individuals who in the past had been highly criticized as "warlords" might be prudent under present circumstances,...

Longform

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