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COMMENTARY
May 13, 2005

China cracks rights window

HONG KONG -- Last month, China issued a white paper that purported to show progress it had made on the human-rights front in 2004. It was immediately dismissed by human-rights organizations as little more than propaganda. While this may well be true, there are signs of significant progress on human rights....
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 29, 2005

NBA labor talks getting bogged down

NEW YORK -- For the first time since dialogue began in earnest a year ago to re-negotiate the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement I'm getting negative feedback.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 10, 2005

Drop-dead gorgeous

Eiko Koike is a leggy, lushly upholstered Japanese celebrity, famous for her doe eyes and D-cup breasts.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2005

Ex-Defense Agency engineer suspected of leaking sub info

Police have questioned a former senior Defense Agency engineering officer and searched his home on suspicion he gave copies of confidential submarine documents to an acquaintance who may have leaked the information to China, according to informed sources.
COMMENTARY
Nov 1, 2004

Withdrawal is the only honorable way out

WASHINGTON -- Iraq has become the central issue in America's presidential campaign, but neither candidate has a solution for a conflict that has cost more than 1,100 American lives. Unfortunately, the killing will continue until the United States and its allies withdraw their forces, leaving Iraq to...
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2004

Thousands airlifted in Niigata

OJIYA, Niigata Pref. -- Thousands of stranded people were airlifted Monday from their mountainous communities in the earthquake-hit Chuetsu region of Niigata Prefecture, as the death toll from Saturday's powerful quakes reached 25.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 13, 2004

Illuminating the lives of ancient rulers

"Treasures, of Ancient China" a major exhibition now at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park, features a wealth of visual information and artifacts. In a process that took two years to complete, the four curators selected an amazing array of items from 50 museums in China, including both recent archaeological...
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2004

Almost all wrong on Iraq

Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. While he certainly harbored ambitions to get them, the Iraqi programs to build them had decayed to become mere wisps of what they once were. That is the conclusion of the final report, released last week, of the chief U.S. weapons hunter, Mr. Charles...
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2004

The Tiananmen Square massacre myth

China's recent ceremonies to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping have given the Tiananmen massacre myth yet another lease of life. Most media commentators, the BBC especially, have rehashed the standard condemnation of Deng as a hardliner who instigated a massacre of...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 9, 2004

Heartening news for some from an Ice Age gene mutation

In Terry Gilliam's 1985 film "Brazil," a tiny printing error in a bureaucratic document leads to the mistaken arrest and detention of an innocent man. A single letter is changed in a file and the set of instructions are automatically followed by the authorities.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2004

Most breweries report strong first half

Three of Japan's four largest breweries have reported strong earnings for the first six months of 2004 despite a continued fall in beer sales.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / JAZZNICITY
Jun 6, 2004

A voice like none other

Though many postmodern jazz musicians are tireless experimentalists, they often end up producing interesting concepts more than good music. Pianist, composer and band leader Hiroshi Minami, however, is that rare jazz musician who sets up intriguing musical challenges that feel natural. He plays an engaging...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 22, 2004

Queen of Orlane turns 70 (but who'd know it)

In 1960, Reiko B. Lyster answered a "help wanted" classified ad placed in this paper by Max Factor. She had no particular interest in working for a cosmetics company, but (having helped Marlon Brando on a film set just the year previously) the job as a translator appealed.
EDITORIALS
May 5, 2004

Political show for re-election?

The U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks last week interviewed U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The three-hour, closed-door meeting, held at the White House, proceeded without a hitch, according to both sides. It is disappointing, though, that,...
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2004

College gang-rape trio get up to 32 months

Three members of a now-defunct social club made up of students from elite universities received prison terms of up to 32 months Thursday for gang-raping a coed last April, allegedly along with 10 other male accomplices.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2004

NKK may have paid off mob to quell incinerator outcry

Steelmaker NKK Corp., now known as JFE Engineering Corp., is suspected of using some 500 million yen in undeclared income to quell opposition to its construction of two waste incinerators.
EDITORIALS
Mar 31, 2004

Pay transparency for secretaries

The Diet's system of public secretaries -- which allows each legislator to hire three aides at taxpayers' expense -- has proven to be deeply flawed, as shown by a recent spate of pay scandals in which a number of legislators were accused of misusing their secretaries' salaries. Now, belatedly, the ruling...
COMMENTARY
Mar 23, 2004

A decade of empty slogans

For all the shouting from the rooftops, political reform in Japan has made little headway. The latest reminder is the arrest of Kanju Sato, a former Lower House veteran of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, on charges of embezzling the salary of a state-paid secretary.
COMMENTARY
Feb 12, 2004

China creeps toward a culture of openness

HONG KONG -- Last month, in a small but significant move toward greater openness and transparency, China for the first time made available to the public a portion of materials from its diplomatic archives for the period between the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and 1955.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2004

Harajuku Segway stunt draws Tokyo cops' ire

Tokyo police turned over to prosecutors Friday their case against a businessman who asked an employee to ride a U.S.-made Segway scooter on a public street, allegedly in violation of the Road Traffic Law.
COMMENTARY
Feb 7, 2004

Flu brings out worst in Asia

HONG KONG -- Amid the spread of bird flu, developing Asian nations face a challenge they are failing to meet, because a degree of modernity is required that they are unable to attain. On the one hand, Asia pursues the skyscrapers, the summit conferences, the high-tech industries seen as symbols of modernity....
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 27, 2004

Saving on bills and lookingfor work

Saving energy K.K. writes: "I seem to recall Jean Pearce saying she put plastic sheets on her windows to keep rooms warm, but once they're there I guess you can't open the windows easily. Do you know anything about this subject? Also, where could I buy such sheets?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 27, 2004

Rural life's slow death

Matsunoyama town has almost everything its residents could want: spellbinding scenery, gorgeous terraced rice paddies cloaking the hillsides, splendid new roads and magnificent public facilities.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 13, 2004

Forensic science fiction

We periodically hear from nationalists about Japan's distinctiveness -- how "Japaneseness" is a matter of "race" and "blood," not citizenship or culture. This is usually disregarded as mere unscientific sentiment from fringe elements.
COMMENTARY
Dec 28, 2003

Making U.S. voters happier, not safer

WASHINGTON -- "The capture of Saddam Hussein has not made America safer," declared Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, and denunciations have rained down upon him. But Dean obviously was correct: "The capture of Saddam does not end" the coalition's difficulties in Iraq.
BUSINESS
Dec 17, 2003

Ministry panel calls for only limited drug reform

A health ministry study panel called on the government Tuesday to give the green light to the sale of about 350 kinds of over-the-counter drugs at convenience stores and other retailers as part of deregulation efforts, but cold and pain medications will not be among them.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan