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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Fight poverty by closing education gaps

NEW YORK -- Among the issues highlighted by the 2002 "State of World Population: People, Poverty and Possibilities," released by the United Nations Population Fund on Dec. 3, is the impact of poverty on education and, consequently, health -- particularly that of women of reproductive age. According to...
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Dec 15, 2002

Defending champ Suntory rolls over Toyota

The 55th and final Company Clubs Rugby Football Championship reached the national stage on Saturday with the first round of games in the four groups of four.
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Covering their tracks on the way to war

To obfuscate the waging of war on several fronts simultaneously may seem an unlikely and incredible ambition. However, as more and more information surrounding Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the Pacific on Dec. 7, 1941, comes to light, it becomes ever more clear that its military rulers...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Chushingura Chushingura

Snow has been the backdrop to some of Tokyo's most colorful and epoch-making events.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 15, 2002

From jobs to robots it's all about chance

It's that time of year again, when hundreds of people can be seen lining up in front of the shopping arcades in Ginza and Shinjuku. No, we're not talking about Christmas. We're talking about the big Yearend Lottery.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Screen dreams of the good old samura days

With the stock market heading south and the political situation taking an uncanny resemblance to the last sclerotic days of the Soviet Union, no wonder Japanese moviegoers want to be anywhere but here and now. Even so, the number of new and recent Japanese films set in the past is extraordinary, given...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

On the trail of a killer in ancient Kyoto

RASHOMON GATE, by I.J. Parker. St. Martin's Minotaur: New York, 2002, 336 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Scholars who pen historical mystery fiction must tread a fine line between being faithful to the materials they research and creating stories and characters that will appeal to contemporary readers. It's by...
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2002

A very precise slice of pi

Sure, admitted mathematicians everywhere last week, what Tokyo University professor Yasumasa Kanada had just done would not be of much use in the real world, but they were awestruck, just the same. On Dec. 6, Mr. Kanada and his team at Todai's Information Technology Center announced that they had capped...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 15, 2002

Bookbites

MITFORD'S JAPAN: Memories & Recollections 1866-1906, edited and introduced by Hugh Cortazzi. Japan Library, 2002 (revised edition), 307 pp., paper ($33) "I jumped out of my palanquin more quickly than I ever in my life jumped out of anything, and rushed forward. There were pools of blood in the street,...
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 15, 2002

Matsuzaka takes pay cut

Seibu Lions pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka is all but happy after re-signing a contract for 25 billion yen less than last season. Matsuzaka agreed to a 115 million yen deal.
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Countdown to catastrophe

On Nov. 26, 1941, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull submitted a note to Kichisaburo Nomura, Japan's ambassador in Washington, and special envoy Saburo Kurusu. Whether that note was an ultimatum that made it virtually certain Japan would wage war -- or whether it represented the latest U.S. effort...
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Dec 15, 2002

Ann Lewis in driver's seat with new single

What happens to idols after their popularity has waned?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

Traveling in search of truth

IN SEARCH OF THE MAHABHARATA: Notes of Travels in India with Peter Brook, 1982-1985, by Jean-Claude Carriere. Translated from the French by Aruna Vasudev, with a forward by Jyoti Sabharwal. New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2001, 120 pp., with line drawings by Carriere, 198 rupees (cloth) Between 1982 and...
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Dec 15, 2002

What's Uwajima so bullish about?

Long before you step into the firszt gift shop peddling the usual range of touristic fripperies, you are in no doubt about how serious Uwajima is on the subject of bulls. In fact, the first thing you see as you get out of the station is a great bronze statue of a bull, standing implacably before the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Dec 15, 2002

Close encounter with a UFO navigator

By the time you read this, Raphael Sebbag will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of his arrival in Japan. He will not only be able to reflect on how much he's seen change in that time, but he will also be able to take responsibility for having engineered some of those changes as a DJ in Tokyo's club...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

On the margins of legend

Like many other legends, the tale of the 47 ronin has behind its bare historical facts several fascinating anecdotes. Here are some of the lesser-known aspects surrounding Japan's classic vendetta.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 15, 2002

To eat or not to eat -- here's some advice

One of the big best sellers of the season is "Taberu na, Kiken" (Don't Eat! Danger!), which was first published in October and is now in its third printing. Unlike most books that enjoy such good sales, it isn't getting much attention in the media.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2002

South Korean crisis brewing

WASHINGTON -- The makings of a crisis are evident on the Korean Peninsula. And it is not about North Korea's clandestine uranium-enrichment program or about the Dec. 19 presidential elections. Instead the crisis revolves around the U.S. armed forces, which are badly mishandling relations with South Korea....
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2002

Words must be matched with deeds

Japanese diplomacy in the post-Cold War era has been mostly passive, except in a few groundbreaking areas such as participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations. One reason for this, according to a report from a foreign policy advisory group, is that the domestic political situation has remained unstable...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2002

No surprise tourism suffers

LOS ANGELES -- The government plan to privatize Narita airport in 2004 is welcome news to international travelers who know what good travel service is. The plan, which also includes a halt to building new airports, upgrading existing airports and improving customer service, could go a long way toward...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 14, 2002

Surgery won't stop champ Inoue

Olympic and world champion Kosei Inoue, who underwent surgery to remove bone chips from his left ankle last month, will compete at next month's Kano Cup, the All Japan Judo Federation said Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Dec 14, 2002

Ducky tale of a high-flying family

To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The very rich are different from you and me."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2002

Play inspection card in Iraq, N. Korea

SEOUL -- The double crisis over weapons of mass destruction that now confronts the world in Iraq and North Korea respectively represents a golden opportunity to kill the proverbial "two birds with one stone."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 14, 2002

City of hope for Russian Muslims and Jews

KAZAN, Russia -- It was a time of turmoil in Russia's Tatar Autonomous Republic. In 1994, local officials were demanding independence for the historically Muslim region, and taxpayer dollars were rebuilding mosques that had been converted to warehouses during Soviet times.
SOCCER / World cup
Dec 14, 2002

Japan-S. Korea set

Japan will face South Korea in a friendly in April next year, the JFA said Thursday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 14, 2002

Carol Iwanaga

Carol Iwanaga, an American woman married to a Japanese man, says the Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese is a helpful organization. "I think it is good for any woman engaged or married, or who has been married to a Japanese man, in order to get a better feeling of community while she is living here,"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 14, 2002

When massage goes far beyond just feeling good

After an exhausting move from one house to another, followed by weather that defies description and not a single greeting card yet written, it is good to find myself in healing hands.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 14, 2002

A nation that's set up for looking down

Only in Japan is it possible to ride a crowded train to work, stop to buy your "o-bento" lunch at the convenience store, and arrive at work -- all without ever having eye contact with anyone. That is because people spend a lot of time looking at the ground in Japan.

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’