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JAPAN
May 3, 2006

Japan Post defies efforts to slim down swollen ranks

Japan Post Corp. drafted a privatization plan Tuesday that calls for hiring more employees, directly contradicting one of the main reasons for its privatization.
JAPAN
May 2, 2006

Coca-Cola recalling 570,000 bottles

The Coca-Cola group of companies in Japan said Monday they are recalling a total of 570,000 bottles of six types of soft drinks because they contain iron powder.
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 30, 2006

On the road to . . .

"Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, . . . Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages . . . ''
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2006

Responsible decision on relief

Kubota Corp., a major machinery maker, has established its own relief system for sufferers of asbestos-linked diseases who were not employees. This system, which offers "relief money" ranging from 25 million yen to 46 million yen each, covers residents around the company's asbestos-contaminated factory...
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2006

Koizumi issues official Minamata apology

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday issued the first formal apology by a prime minister for the state's failure to deal properly with Minamata disease, one of the worst pollution-caused maladies and one that erupted during the nation's speedy economic growth of the 1950s.
COMMENTARY
Apr 28, 2006

Oasis of stability in Britain

LONDON -- The British are currently in one of those moods of self-congratulation and self-esteem that seizes them from time to time.
COMMENTARY
Apr 27, 2006

Has Japan changed for better?

LONDON -- Some people complain that Japanese society has deteriorated with the ending of the lifetime employment system and the replacement of seniority-based promotion systems with ones based on performance.
SUMO
Apr 26, 2006

Mini tourneys to be held on summer tour

The Japan Sumo Association will hold mini exhibition tournaments featuring sumo wrestlers from the top-tier makuuchi division during a five-day training tour of Taiwan scheduled for this summer, association officials said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 26, 2006

A voice of reason countering Big Oil's clout

The United States government may be hemorrhaging money in Iraq, but the financial condition of America's oil companies and their top management couldn't be rosier.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2006

Tokyo court backs reporter on refusing to name source

The Tokyo District Court on Monday accepted in principle a Kyodo News reporter's refusal to reveal a news source in connection with a 1997 report on the taxation of a Japanese subsidiary of a U.S. health food company.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Apr 25, 2006

Toshie Kobayashi

Toshie Kobayashi, 76, has been working six days a week, since she was 14 years old. As a highly skilled typesetter, she made a good living until the 1980s, when digital systems replaced her and analog typesetting machines. At 54, she registered with a cleaning service, and ever since then she has been...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2006

Why not pay more for Fairtrade food?

PRINCETON, New Jersey -- Marks & Spencer, a supermarket and clothing chain with 400 stores throughout Britain, recently announced that it is converting its entire range of coffee and tea, totaling 38 lines, to Fairtrade, a marketing symbol of "ethical production." The chain already sells only Fairtrade...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 23, 2006

... all mixed up ...

Doesn't she realize that I can't understand much of anything she says? Bobbing my head, trying to rest on torturously bent knees with a smile iced onto my face, I wonder why she is so desperate to get in all of those words. They don't really sound like words, but they are.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2006

96 Diet members visit Yasukuni Shrine

Ninety-six Diet members from various parties jointly paid a visit Friday to Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, where 14 Class-A war criminals are honored as well as more than 2 million Japanese war dead, as the shrine launched this year's three-day spring rites.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 21, 2006

Turning point at Chernobyl

MOSCOW -- The nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl 20 years ago this month, even more than my launch of perestroika, was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later. Indeed, the Chernobyl catastrophe was an historic turning point: there was the era before the disaster, and there...
CULTURE / Music
Apr 21, 2006

Pretty Girls Make Graves "Elan Vital"

Overflowing with fast-paced, addictive post-hardcore anthems, Pretty Girls Make Graves' debut, 2002's "Good Health," had indie rock hipsters frothing at the mouth. The Seattle act followed with 2003's equally impressive "The New Romance." A line-up change saw the band losing a guitarist and adding a...
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2006

Ministry confirms 25th mad cow

A health ministry panel confirmed Wednesday that a dairy cow raised in western Japan has tested positive for mad cow disease, making it the nation's 25th case of BSE, ministry officials said.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2006

Time to consider pumping money into infrastructure

BOSTON -- Any good international investment banker knows that the end of April is a bad time to come peddling his services, for that is when the world's finance ministers return home from the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, chastened that risks to the global economy could spill over...
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2006

'War dead' vet living in Ukraine

A former Imperial Japanese Army soldier has been found living in Ukraine, officials at the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Monday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Apr 15, 2006

When rankings go rank

One symptom of a society addicted to quick information is the popularity of lists.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2006

Statistics show worrying increase in underweight newborns

Pediatricians are alarmed at new statistics that show newborn infants are smaller on average than babies born 20 years ago.
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2006

Wage gap getting wider

Income disparities have widened among people in their 20s in Japan and will likely get wider despite Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's denial of such a trend, according to an annual government report now under compilation.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 13, 2006

Taiwan's KMT sees stability in status quo

HONOLULU -- Chairman Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan's Nationalist Party, better known as the Kuomintang (KMT) did a marathon swing through the United States in March to deliver several pertinent messages:

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years