Word: kawaguchi
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...Nishi-Kawaguchi is a hardscrabble, working-class town on the outskirts of Tokyo. There are literally dozens of seen-better-days, commuter-line towns just like it dotting the sprawling megalopolis. Massage parlors, hostess clubs and soaplands line the streets around the dinky train station, and the odd reveler or two is still wandering around well into the morning, trying to shake off last night's indulgences or perhaps just waiting to resume them. It's the kind of place where disappointment is the default emotion and where Japan's much-hyped economic revival hasn't quite kicked in. "This...
...wasn't alone. In a sweep that jolted the nation, police last week raided about 10 locations (including two homes in Nishi-Kawaguchi) and arrested five foreign men suspected to have been in contact with Lionel Dumont, a 33-year-old Frenchman believed to have ties to al-Qaeda. Dumont was arrested in Germany in December and extradited to France last month for crimes he was convicted of committing there in the 1990s while a member of a radical Islamist group known as the Roubaix gang. For now, four of the men-two from Bangladesh, one from Mali and another...
...approximately 70,000 Muslims living in Japan, the widening probe is worrying for a different reason. At the Medina masjid one town over from Nishi-Kawaguchi, mosque chairman Raees Siddiqui, a 53-year-old Pakistani, is happy to chat about a possible backlash against Muslims due to the arrests, but he only has a few minutes: the 30-year resident of Japan, who runs a million-dollar used-car export business, says he has to be at the police station soon. No, he's not wanted for anything, or even questioning, he replies, simultaneously offended and amused at the suggestion...
...rapidly aging population, a major influx of foreign labor may well be the only way the nation can stay economically competitive. Yet many Japanese believe the immigration barriers aren't stringent enough, especially in the wake of the arrests. Tsuneo Taya is a tofu-shop owner in Nishi-Kawaguchi who often saw one of the recently detained men on the street, usually well-dressed and talking on his cell phone. He says the arrests have made him think twice about the delicate balance between immigration and security. "You don't want to discriminate," he says. "You don't want...
...Demilitarized Zone, and Washington wants to court-martial him. (His relatives in the U.S. maintain that he was abducted and then brainwashed by North Korea.) If Jenkins leaves North Korea, however, the Japanese would prefer that he stay in Japan for the sake of his family. Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi recently conferred with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on the Jenkins case; Koizumi also talked to President George W. Bush on the telephone last week about his planned trip to North Korea...