Word: masako
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...back 2,000 years or more, but today it may have been saved by a brand-new baby boy. At 8:27 this morning, Tokyo time, Japan's Princess Kiko - the wife of Prince Akishino, Emperor Akihito's second son - gave birth to her first boy. Because Crown Princess Masako has borne only a single daughter, and because Japanese law allows only males to ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne, Kiko's 7.5 lb. baby will almost certainly be the future Emperor of Japan. For the Japanese royal family and its core conservative supporters, the infant prince is cause for both...
...problem began with Princess Masako. An accomplished Harvard-educated diplomat, fluent in four languages, Masako married Crown Prince Naruhito in 1993 and was expected to bring a welcome dose of feminism to the stuffy Japanese imperial family. Instead, Masako was swallowed whole by the all-powerful Imperial Household Agency (IHA), the palace insiders that guard - and, according to some observers, dominate - the lives of the royal family. Unlike the British royals, for instance, the Japanese imperial family's schedule is completely controlled by the IHA. They aren't allowed to have opinions, passports or even last names. Stifled...
...PRINCESS KIKO, 39, daughter-in-law of Japanese Emperor Akihito; her third child, news of which has quieted a heated national debate over a succession law as the public awaits word of the baby's gender; in Tokyo. With no male heirs in sight--both Kiko and Crown Princess Masako have so far given birth only to girls--many Japanese have been clamoring to revise the law to allow an empress and subsequently her children to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne, an event Japan has not witnessed in more than two centuries and officially banned...
...warding off a looming succession crisis in the imperial family. By law and eons of tradition, the Japanese throne can pass only to males with emperors on the father's side. But no boys have been born into the family since 1965. Crown Prince Naruhito, 45, and his wife Masako, 42, have had only one daughter, 4-year-old Aiko. Naruhito's brother, Prince Akishino, 40, and his wife, Kiko, 39, have two daughters. So Koizumi's panel suggested that succession should pass to the Emperor's firstborn, regardless of gender. Assuming that Naruhito succeeds his father, Emperor Akihito, Aiko...
...Naruhito's comments were unprecedented in severity and directness, and they set off a flurry of speculation about who was making Masako so miserable. (Which was only fueled by a later announcement by the Imperial Household Agency that the unhappy princess had been diagnosed with an "adjustment disorder.") The favorite target of the press was the agency, the secretive bureaucracy that micromanages the Japanese royals, which is allegedly concerned that the 41-year-old Masako has given birth only to a daughter, Princess Aiko, who cannot succeed to the throne. The agency has gone so far as to request Emperor...