Questions re: Asian Character Sets

Dear Webmaster,  I have really enjoyed looking at your web site and am going to recommend it to the readers
of the publication I write for called the Global Communicator.

I have a question that I'd like to have answered ASAP since I am handing in an article tomorrow regarding
the challenges of localizing a web site into Asian languages (Chinese Japanese Korean).

I guess I'm somewhat fuzzy on UTF-8 vs shift_jis. Can either of these character sets be used
successfully for Japanese websites?  Or is shift_jis a "better" alternative?  Can UTF-8 handle 
be used for other languages like Chinese or Korean?  

Thanks for answering this ASAP.

For your information, I am attaching a copy of the Global Communicator.
 
Sincerely,


Myriam Telles
Aim for Success
mdtelles@ix.netcom.com