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COMMENTARY
Feb 2, 2000

Is the U.S. on the right track?

As we enter the Year of the Dragon, U.S. bilateral relations with key states in Northeast Asia generally appear on track. Ties with America's two key allies, Japan and Korea, remain steady, as the Trilateral Cooperation and Oversight Group process has helped to keep all three in sync when dealing with...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 1, 2000

Life is more than the great 'I'

At the beginning of the new millennium, I would like to ponder what the world will be like hundreds, if not thousands, of years from now. With the world getting smaller in time and space, it should not be very difficult to think long-term about its future -- to say nothing of the future of our own country....
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2000

Panel recommends making new constitution by 2008

A new Constitution should be introduced in 2008, the head of the Upper House's constitutional research panel reiterated Tuesday. Masakuni Murakami, a senior member of the Liberal Democratic Party, told the Upper House plenary session that he aims to wrap up discussions by the panel by 2005 have the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 1, 2000

Japan's real conglomerate

RUINS OF IDENTITY: Ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands, by Mark J. Hudson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999, 324 pp., with maps, graphs and line drawings, unpriced. Just as we attempt to create who we individually are by various assumptions and appropriations, so too do nations presume an...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 1, 2000

Because of memory, because of hope

BRIDGE ACROSS BROKEN TIME: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory, by Vera Schwarcz. New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1998, 232 pp. (cloth). Staff writer Rarely does a book challenge a reader -- or a reviewer -- as this one does. "Bridge Across Broken Time" is equal parts academic study, meditation...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 1, 2000

Rams outlast Titans in Super Bowl thriller

ATLANTA -- The St. Louis Rams outlasted the Tennessee Titans in the greatest finish in Super Bowl history Sunday, hanging on, literally, for a 23-16 victory before a crowd of 72,625 at the Georgia Dome.
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2000

Emperors of the rag trade

"Haute couture" -- high fashion -- has long been good for a laugh. One of the best therapies for gloom in Tokyo is to stroll along the southeastern end of Omotesando, in Aoyama, where the fashion boutiques cluster. The prison-block architecture (rain-streaked cement tastefully accessorized with rust)...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 30, 2000

Rihito Kimura

To answer the question what is bioethics, professor Rihito Kimura wrote a book and more than a hundred articles. "It is a huge subject," he said. "Many people think its focus is on medical issues, but it is much wider than that. It has ethical, legal and social implications too, in an environmental context....
BUSINESS
Jan 28, 2000

Finance meeting ends rates speculation

Last week's Group of Seven meeting of financial leaders in Tokyo provided Japan with an opportunity to clear up doubts about its monetary policy options.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2000

Restructuring, but with a human touch

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The most popular "buzzwords" in this time of change must surely be "globalization" and "restructuring." Allow me to indulge in one more reference to the latter with some remarks that may be quickly criticized as an example of "old-school, bureaucratic" thinking.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 27, 2000

Wineries to complement your travel plans

In the dead of winter, what's a wine lover to do? I'm almost tempted to say "Bring back the hot, spicy wine," the body-warming concoction quaffed at stalls in town center squares all over Europe toward year's end. It's a splendid custom, but actually what I had in mind is winery visits in California....
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2000

Think before giving nonbankers licenses, JBA chief urges

The relationship banks will have with nonfinanciers trying to enter the industry should be clarified before authorities decide to grant them banking licenses, Katsuyuki Sugita, chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association, said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 24, 2000

Saddam Hussein unrepentant

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, a move that launched the Persian Gulf War. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lost the war, but he seems to be winning the peace. He has successfully blocked international efforts to enforce compliance of the treaty he signed and the United...
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2000

Homage to a mass murderer

I was shocked to see a photograph in The Japan Times last month of former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka laying a wreath at the statue of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. They looked rather sheepish. They should, in fact, have looked...
COMMUNITY
Jan 23, 2000

U.S. lawyer set to solve your immigration woes

Being a quietly spoken, modest-sounding soul, immigration lawyer Mark Ivener, of the California-based law practice Ivener & Holt, may not like the following revelation. But the fact is he gives a good part of his professional time for free by giving immigration lectures and seminars.
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2000

Tough times require radical measures

This year's spring wage-bargaining season has barely started and a sense of confrontation is already in the air. The Japanese Trade Union Confederation (Rengo) has called for a 2 percent increase in the "regular pay hike" plus at least a 1 percent increase in basic pay. The Japan Federation of Employers'...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2000

Southeast Asia: creature of Japan?

THE SPECTRE OF COMPARISONS: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, by Benedict Anderson. London: Verso, 1999, 374 pp., 13.00 British pounds (paper). The Japanese invented Southeast Asia. This is just one of the pieces of intellectual dynamite that Benedict Anderson tosses into the reader's lap...
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2000

Regional Special: Okinawa

Isle's airport between reef and a hard place> Staff writer ISHIGAKI ISLAND, Okinawa Pref. -- Passengers stare dreamily from the plane. Some crane their necks for a glimpse of the cobalt coastline and Ishigaki's famed coral reefs. But all are jerked back to reality when the plane touches down and suddenly...
EDITORIALS
Jan 17, 2000

Begin the Constitutional debate

The postwar Constitution of Japan, which was put into effect in 1947, will come up for formal and continuous debate for the first time in the ordinary Diet session that opens on Friday. It is unclear, however, whether the Constitutional Review Council -- which was created last year in both houses --...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2000

Information the key to Japan's revival

What would most strike a foreign visitor returning to Japan after a gap of several years? Most likely it would be the gloom surrounding the future of Japan, and at street level, finding how many people from a distance look Western -- because their hair is dyed brown, blond or every other color you can...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2000

Cut U.S. military presence

Japan faces intense pressure to settle uncertainties regarding the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps heliport now at the Futenma Air Station in Okinawa before July, when it hosts a Group of Eight summit. Unless the problems are settled by then, U.S. President Bill Clinton is likely to face a firestorm...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 16, 2000

The U.N. should have its day in court

A report in the Jan. 10 issue of The Age newspaper stated that the National Post newspaper of Canada had editorialized that U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan should resign. The National Post editorial call was made in the light of the alleged inaction of Annan when he was chief of U.N. peacekeeping forces...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Man and his dog conquer disabilities to continue aid crusade

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. -- "Love me, love my dog," say many pet owners. But for Satoshi Kabaya, it's the other way around.
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2000

An example for Chile and the world

Ironies abound in the British decision to let former Chilean strongman Augusto Pinochet go home for "compassionate" reasons. Compassion, of course, was notably scarce under Mr. Pinochet's iron-fisted rule. It is tempting to argue that the general deserves nothing less than the justice he meted out to...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2000

Peers rate Ishihara as not 'approachable'

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara revealed discomposure Friday when questioned about the low rating he received in a survey of 400 metropolitan government employees. "It doesn't show anything," the governor retorted in a regular news conference. Ishihara received an average score of 60 out of 100 in the...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000

Yakult paid off gangsters: sources

Until last year, Yakult Honsha Co. had paid a criminal gang 50 million yen every year for more than 20 years to keep it from disrupting general shareholders' meetings, sources said Thursday. The gang in question is affiliated with Sumiyoshi Kai, a major criminal syndicate, they said.According to the...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2000

Farm official offers to resign over co-op bribes

An official of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has tendered his resignation for receiving favors from a cooperative association in Kagawa Prefecture, ministry officials said. Tsuguo Joko, an assistant division head at the Agricultural Structure Improvement Bureau, offered to quit...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2000

End the dangerous illusions

In this final year of the 20th century, there are several key lessons we should learn from this turbulent period. First, as a Japanese I want to point out that Japan modernized with remarkable success in the first half of the century. Following its victory in the Russo-JapaneseWar (1904-05), the nation...
EDITORIALS
Jan 9, 2000

The chill in Shepherdstown

It might be the season, but there is a distinct chill in the air in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. That quiet town a few hours from Washington is the site for the newly resumed peace talks between Israel and Syria. Unfortunately, the bucolic setting has not yet worked its magic on the negotiators. The...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2000

'Super Osaka' bureaucracy floated

OSAKA -- Should the municipal boundaries of Osaka Prefecture be redrawn so that the city of Osaka is a ward of the prefecture? Or should the prefecture be scrapped entirely, leaving a "Super City Osaka"?

Longform

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