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JAPAN
Aug 21, 2002

Junior DPJ members fail in unity bid

Four junior Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers who have separately announced plans to stand as candidates in the party presidential election next month were unable Tuesday to select just one among them to run, DPJ officials said.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2002

Nippon Ham founder Okoso to step down as chairman

Nippon Meat Packers Inc. on Tuesday told the farm ministry that its founder, Yoshinori Okoso, will resign as chairman of the firm over a suspected beef-labeling scam, according to informed sources.
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2002

Employee-leasing agencies helping Chinese computer engineers to cash in

More Chinese computer engineers are coming to Japan via temporary-staff employment agencies, and some of them are finding a niche in the information technology industry, earning as much as 10 million yen a year.
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2002

Toyota releases new Voltz sport utility

Toyota Motor Corp. on Tuesday released a new 1.8-liter sport utility vehicle, the first auto jointly planned and designed with General Motors Corp.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2002

Beyond trance: Juno's sonic odyssey

The passing fancies and capricious changes in taste that mark electronic dance music make it very hard for most musicians to sustain a career. Buck the trends, and you'll never get noticed; settle into the style du jour, and you may as well put a "sell-by" date on your albums.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2002

Trance music: Taking it to the next level

When deep into the music at a trance party, most people dance a sort of mechanized primal stomp, working their arms like pistons and clomping their feet. Although these maneuvers may look awkward, they are a natural reaction to the music's rigidly 4/4 industrial-sounding beats, which, though sublime...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 21, 2002

Universal comedy without errors

Hold on to your seats: We're going back to the essence of theater -- entertainment. "The Kyogen of Errors," directed by and starring 36-year-old Mansai Nomura, is a fitting way to celebrate his five-year appointment as artistic director of the Setagaya Public Theater (SEPT), which was announced two weeks...
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2002

Nanaboshi execs held over shady bookkeeping

OSAKA -- Prosecutors on Tuesday arrested the president and two former executives of Nanaboshi Co., a plant maintenance firm that went under last year, for allegedly doctoring the company's books to make the business results look better.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2002

Light My Fire festival to heat things up

Relaxing in a conference room crowded with shelves of CDs and a couple dozen bottles of Belgian beer, Shohachiro Haga recently explained how he chose the four acts for the Light My Fire world music festival. A middle-aged man wearing an enviably broken-in polo shirt, Haga says, "We can find the roots...
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2002

Accidents claim 282 over Bon season

Water- and road-related accidents claimed 282 lives across Japan during the Bon summer holidays this year, the National Police Agency said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2002

NTT disconnects 'wangiri' caller

OSAKA -- NTT West Corp. on Tuesday suspended connection services to a company in Fukuoka that allegedly made "wangiri" phone calls in such massive numbers that it threatened to paralyze NTT's telephone networks, NTT West officials said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 21, 2002

Afghan heritage is back from the brink

Like many exhibitions, "Afghanistan: A Timeless History" tells a story. It's not the story of Afghan art, though; nor, despite its title, the story of Afghanistan itself -- a country whose millennia of strife are expressed in every artifact now on display at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts...
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 21, 2002

Major League tour in doubt

It appears that bad news is in the offing for Japanese and foreign fans of Major League Baseball.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 21, 2002

Revenge is a dish served to chill at Kabukiza

In the heat of summer, Japanese people turn to noryo (activities to enjoy the evening cool) -- and kabuki is among the enjoyments on offer. Noryo programs were started at the Kabukiza Theater in August 1990, and have been in the charge of Nakamura Kankuro, 47, ever since. For this year's program he has...
BUSINESS
Aug 21, 2002

Japan-China trade climbed in first half

Trade between Japan and China in the first half of 2002 totaled $45.12 billion, up 3.4 percent from a year earlier, the Japan External Trade Organization said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2002

Spirited Asian Youth Orchestra does it again

The Asian Youth Orchestra's performance at the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall on Aug. 8 was lively and spirited but not quite up to the standards of the seven previous performances I've seen.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2002

Jam-packed house rows traded for condos

The Harue district of Edogawa Ward, Tokyo, was once crammed with run-down houses on small plots separated only by narrow alleyways.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 21, 2002

The busiest bad guy around

Show Aikawa is the hardest-working man in Japanese movies, but one that Japanese cinemagoers have rarely, if ever, seen. Unless, that is, they happen to be fans of straight-to-video films. They would know Aikawa as the gangster glaring down from the boxes of dozens of action films with titles like "Shuraba...
EDITORIALS
Aug 20, 2002

Clearing up the haze

Since it first commanded world attention in 1997, "haze" -- an ugly smog created by fires -- has become a regular feature of the Southeast Asian environment. A new United Nations report identifies the grimy acid cocktail as a major health hazard for that region and the world. It is killing millions and...
SOCCER / World cup
Aug 20, 2002

Ono's Feyenoord makes winning start to season

AMSTERDAM -- Japan midfielder Shinji Ono got off to a winning start in his second season in the Dutch first division as Feyenoord beat NEC Nijmegen 2-0 on Sunday in the opening round of season.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 20, 2002

Japan's leading sire Sunday Silence dies

Japan's leading sire, breeding giant Sunday Silence, has lost a 14-week battle with illness and laminitis. According to the Shadai Stallion Station in Hayakita, Hokkaido, the 16-year-old American champion, whose progeny changed the face of Japanese racing, succumbed to heart failure at 11 a.m. Monday....
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 20, 2002

Lions' Cabrera catches up with Tuffy

Alex Cabrera and Kazuo Matsui each homered twice Monday as the front-running Seibu Lions overpowered the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks 10-5 in a 14-hit attack in the Pacific League.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2002

DNA scholars hope to stock Siberia 'park' with mammoths

"Jurassic Park" was a work of fiction. Pleistocene Park is in the process of becoming fact.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2002

More flexible school holidays to be considered

The government will consider introducing flexible school holidays so families with children can take more relaxed and less-crowded summer and other vacations, government officials said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 20, 2002

Forum breaks new ground

The recent meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, the Asia Pacific's premier track for security dialogue, has been applauded as a watershed for the institution -- and rightly so. The group's pledge to fight international terrorism breathed new life into the forum. But the real significance of this...

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’