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COMMENTARY
May 4, 2002

Signs the Cabinet may fall

As the limitations of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government reveal themselves, there are emerging signs of the possible downfall of his Cabinet. The crushing defeat of a Liberal Democratic Party candidate in the Upper House by-election in the Niigata constituency on April 28 was one event testifying...
JAPAN
May 4, 2002

Record numbers apply for bar exam

A record 45,622 people applied for the secondary national bar exam for this fiscal year, up 17.2 percent from a year earlier and exceeding 40,000 for the first time, the National Bar Examination Administration Commission said Thursday.
SOCCER / World cup
May 4, 2002

Hondurans give Japan squad wakeup call with 3-3 draw

KOBE -- If Japan manager Philippe Troussier needed to be reminded of his side's defensive frailties, then he should be grateful to Honduras, which pushed the home side to a 3-3 draw in the Kirin Cup at Kobe Wing Stadium on Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 4, 2002

'Nagashibina': a tradition just for girls

Tomorrow is Children's Day, the politically correct way to say "Boys' Day." This is not to say that girls don't have a special day. The Doll Festival was March 3, but is not a national holiday like Boys' Day is.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 4, 2002

Being a broad, living in Japan, pub crawling!

While most of the population sits back and takes a deep sigh over Golden Week, Caroline Pover will be working her socks off. True, next week she will be on the Izu Peninsula, within a stone's throw of a beach. But she'll be there also to work, not play.
JAPAN
May 4, 2002

Japan victim of own technology

OSAKA -- The Japan Coast Guard, which began its survey of the wreckage of a suspected North Korean spy vessel off Amami Oshima, Kagoshima Prefecture, this week, may discover that the sunken ship is more Japanese than foreign.
JAPAN
May 4, 2002

Group pays respects to slain reporter

KOBE -- Police officials, detectives and private citizens visited on Friday the Asahi Shimbun's Hanshin Bureau in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, to lay flowers and offer prayers for a reporter who was gunned down there 15 years ago by an unknown assailant.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
May 4, 2002

Shibuya museum links tobacco, salt past and present in curious harmony

To the uninitiated, the combination of tobacco and salt in a museum is a curious one.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 4, 2002

Marie and Kelly Gray

When the House of St. John USA brought out its fragrance White Camellia, St. John founder Marie Gray thought of it as a celebration of a relationship. The relationship, special and cherished, is between herself and her daughter Kelly. Marie said she could "think of no better way to celebrate something...
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2002

U.S. homeland still insecure

Half a year after the creation of the Office of Homeland Security, how well is the Bush administration doing in its efforts to improve protection of the United States against terrorist attacks? No major attacks have occurred since Sept. 11, giving a first impression that the effort is going well. But...
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2002

IMF is backing the wrong horse again

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Oh dear, oh dear! The International Monetary Fund supports the Hong Kong dollar's peg to the dollar. In Hong Kong recently, a senior representative of the IMF applauded Hong Kong's decision not to break its fixed link to the greenback, saying that the IMF believes that "the peg...
MORE SPORTS
May 3, 2002

Ogiwara to retire from international Nordic meets

Former world champion Kenji Ogiwara, who led the Japanese Nordic combined skiing team to a pair of Olympic gold medals, will retire from international competition, informed sources said Wednesday.
JAPAN / KANSAI BEAT
May 3, 2002

Pilot project to use Internet to link doctors, foreign patients, translators

KOBE -- For foreigners who cannot communicate in Japanese, having an interpreter is important when seeing a doctor.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

A cocoon of grandeur and propaganda

PYONGYANG -- Is change really in the air north of the Korean Peninsula's 38th parallel?
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

Vacated banks seeing new tenants

At an intersection in Tokyo's Nihonbashi financial district, a wholesale supermarket with a bright yellow sign and outdoor fruit bins draws the curious eyes of people passing by.
MORE SPORTS
May 3, 2002

Close, but no cigar

Ryan Kuwabara is a key member of Japan's national ice hockey team currently playing at the Pool A World Championships in Sweden. Kuwabara, a Japanese-Canadian who was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens and now stars for Japan Ice Hockey League champion Kokudo, has agreed once again to keep a journal chronicling...
BUSINESS
May 3, 2002

Donors working on IDA deal

With the clock ticking on the end-of-June deadline for a final agreement, the world's major industrialized countries appear to be nearing a compromise on fresh funding for the International Development Association.
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2002

Flawed bills need rewriting

Two pieces of legislation that could restrict the media's freedom of activities are being debated in the Diet. One bill lays out ground rules for protecting personal data. The other, designed to protect human rights, would create a human rights commission affiliated with the Justice Ministry.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

Kawasaki finds cultural assets among industrial blight

A year ago, a ward along Kawasaki's waterfront launched a campaign to rediscover the district's attraction and dispel its negative image as a pollution-plagued home to smokestack industries.
BUSINESS
May 3, 2002

Matsui Securities' profits up 20.7%

Matsui Securities Co., a leading online securities house, said Thursday it had defied the overall stock market slump in fiscal 2001, boosting its consolidated net profits by 20.7 percent to 1.87 billion yen.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 3, 2002

Just your average, run-of-the-mill salaryman sings the blues

So let me introduce myself. I'm your futsu (run-of-the-mill), heikin (average) salaryman, nothing special. What's wrong with that? I can remember a time when this particular jiko-shokai (self-introduction) at company functions and karaoke parties was perfectly acceptable -- even welcomed.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 3, 2002

Ailing Japan looks to World Cup to spark a spending spree

While the nation continues to struggle with weak consumer spending amid the protracted economic slump, the World Cup soccer finals, which Japan and South Korea will cohost from May 31 to the end of June, seem to be loosening the purse strings of some consumers.
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

Japanese children want to visit U.S. the most: survey

Japanese children named the United States as the country they most want to visit and said they are more interested in the U.S. and its people than any other foreign country, according to a recent survey.
JAPAN
May 3, 2002

NPA regrets inability to solve journalist's murder

The chief of the National Police Agency said he regrets police have been unable to make an arrest before the statute of limitations for the 1987 murder of an Asahi Shimbun reporter was to expire at midnight Thursday.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
May 3, 2002

Factors weigh on dollar but big fall unlikely

The dollar has come under fresh downward pressure against all other major currencies.

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’