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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Nov 6, 2003

Where there's muck -- there's crystals of money

I just got back from Vancouver, Canada, where I was staying with my dear old friend Fred Koch and his wife Akiko. I first met Fred back in the early 1970s when I worked for the Environmental Protection Service in Canada, and when Fred, then a keen young engineer, was hired by EPS to do some contract...
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Nov 6, 2003

'Grotesque' cuts too close to the bone

Do the suffocating pressures of Japanese society produce monsters? Does trying to live by men's rules drive women crazy? These are two of the questions posed by Natsuo Kirino in her powerful new novel, "Grotesque."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Nov 5, 2003

The goldfish have finally had enough

Long a darling of the Japanese photography scene, Mika Ninagawa's latest exhibition, "Liquid Dreams," brings a riot of color to the Parco Museum in Shibuya. Ninagawa has always been fond of bright and bold hues. What is most surprising about her new work is her choice of subject matter. Although she...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 4, 2003

Reds crush Antlers, run away with Nabisco Cup

The Urawa Reds completely outclassed the more experienced and more fancied Kashima Antlers 4-0 at the National Stadium on Monday to lift the Nabisco Cup and their first-ever title.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2003

Is media scrabbling for scoops or scraps?

Since late July, when a special law allowing the dispatch of the Self-Defense Forces to Iraq was enacted, the Japanese media has engaged in a fierce battle to report when, where and how many personnel will be sent to the war-ravaged country.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2003

Agency ahead of government on dispatch

The Defense Agency has decided to procure about 540 berets for use by the Ground Self-Defense Force in Iraq, even though the government has yet to make an official decision to send troops to the war-torn country, according to agency officials.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 2, 2003

The Machiavellian good

MACHIAVELLI'S CHILDREN: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, by Richard J. Samuels. New York: Cornell University Press, 2003, 456 pp., $39.95 (cloth). This is an intriguing comparison between Japan and Italy, two nations that seem so different, but in fact share a great deal. Both nations came...
COMMENTARY
Nov 1, 2003

Break the chain of violence

LONDON -- There are new incidents almost every day in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Both sides retaliate and innocent bystanders, including children, are killed. No remorse is shown. Mercy and forgiveness seem never to be considered.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 1, 2003

Following the bouncing ball, pachinko-style

After almost a quarter of a century in this land, I generally find the cliche "inscrutable Japanese" to be undeserved. For I can "scrute" them OK.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2003

Voters put Tanaka, Kato scandals behind

As Makiko Tanaka and Koichi Kato try to stage their political comebacks, voters in their districts appear to have dismissed the money scandals that forced them out of the Diet and instead believe they can change politics for the better.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 31, 2003

Multitusking with talented pachyderm painters

Talk about eccentric.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 31, 2003

Kobe-Shaq feud good theater, but really no big deal

A tempest in a teapot. That's the way I see it.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Oct 30, 2003

Hall of Famer West regrets Riley's decision to walk away from coaching

NEW YORK -- Don't look now (you're too late, anyway, the preseason is over), but the Grizzlies were the NBA's most improved Canadian outcast during the exhibition schedule, their sole setback to the champion Spurs.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2003

Appeal a given if Asahara gets death

After a 7 1/2-year trial, the chief lawyer defending doomsday cult guru Shoko Asahara, charged with masterminding the 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subway, is about to wrap up his case and await a verdict, which may come in February.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2003

For Princess Tenko, life, truth just one big sleight of hand

Tenko Hikita, Japan's most famous magician, is a master of illusion. Or, perhaps, a masterful illusion.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 29, 2003

An artist in a land of ice and snow

Jorg Schmeisser traveled to Antarctica on the icebreaker Aurora Australis in 1998. The result was a series of works -- etchings, drawings and paintings -- that became "Breaking the Ice," a major exhibition showing in Kyoto and scheduled for Tokyo and Yokohama, that explores the majesty and uncanny beauty...
MORE SPORTS
Oct 28, 2003

U.S. muscle proves too much for speedy Japan

GOSFORD, Australia --They say good things come in threes. Following Sunday's games that saw England and Ireland win two wonderfully competitive games, the United States and Japan produced a pearl of a match at a sold-out Central Coast Stadium on Monday evening.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 28, 2003

Skin care, leases and illegal tax

Skin problems NWW asks "where can I find an English-speaking dermatologist or specialist clinic in Tokyo area?"
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2003

Ignorance is no longer bliss for China

HONG KONG -- U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was understandably angry that her memoir, "Living History," was censored by the Beijing publisher who put out the Chinese edition. Her comments on the military crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989, on her experience at the 1995 United Nations conference...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 26, 2003

Hidden truths of the Hermit Kingdom

PYONGYANG: The Hidden History of the North Korean Capital, by Chris Springer, photos by Eckart Dege. Budapest: Entente Bt., 2003, 158 pp., $29.95 (paper). Although the capital of the new Hermit Kingdom is not a popular tourist destination, we now have this interesting detailed guide to the socialist...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 26, 2003

Fostering the will for a better way

MYSORE -- On the outskirts of historic Mysore -- city seat of maharajas until Indian independence in 1947 -- is a settlement called Kuduremala. A community of just 800 people, its name is testament to the former rulers of Mysore -- which occupies about a third of present-day Karnataka State -- who took...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 25, 2003

Recipe for a leaner, keener Pentagon

HONOLULU -- In a leaked memo that caused a stir in Washington and throughout the far-flung American military forces last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld asked: "Is the DoD [Department of Defense] changing fast enough to meet the new 21st Century security environment?"
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Oct 24, 2003

Where time flows slowly

Some places really do have the image thing sorted out. Mention of the name Kurashiki generally conjures up a warm picture of traditional Japan, a town where life trundles along at a gentler pace than elsewhere. What tends not to be conjured up is that Kurashiki is a city of 450,000 people living right...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2003

Koizumi fails to evict LDP elder

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi tried Thursday to persuade two octogenarian former prime ministers to retire from politics because of their age, effecting a quiet exit in the case of Kiichi Miyazawa but running up against a brick wall in the shape of Yasuhiro Nakasone.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat