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JAPAN
Dec 21, 2005

79.69 trillion yen budget submitted to Cabinet

The Finance Ministry gave the Cabinet a 79.69 trillion yen fiscal 2006 draft budget Tuesday that will allow it to keep new government bond issuance below 30 trillion yen for the first time in five years.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2005

Abused girl a captive almost in plain sight

Amid the string of child murders across Japan in recent weeks, the bizarre story of an 18-year-old girl in Fukuoka Prefecture, allegedly confined almost all her life and beaten by her mother, has all but gone unnoticed.
JAPAN
Dec 18, 2005

Population may have already started falling

2005 may be the year in which Japan's population began to decline, according to preliminary government data.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2005

Kao lets Kanebo live on

The state-backed Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan on Friday formally selected a consortium led by household product giant Kao Corp. as buyers of scandal-hit Kanebo Ltd. and Kanebo Cosmetics Inc.
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2005

Advocate for the elderly

Next year Japan will take another step forward toward strengthening the protection of the weaker members of society. The Diet has passed a law to prevent cruel treatment of the aged and to assist those taking care of them. Preparations are being made for implementing the law in April. Enactment of the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Dec 16, 2005

Another jewel in the Cartier crown

Venerated as the royalty of jewelers and the jewelers of royalty, Cartier is by far the largest brand of its kind in the world. With its illustrious history and client list including countless kings, queens and princes, it is little wonder that the brand's double C logo and distinctive red packaging...
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2005

Yakult to sell Thorpe's sports drink

Yakult Honsha Co. said Thursday it has agreed with Australia's Thorpedo Foods, a joint venture between So Natural Foods and Olympic gold medalist swimmer Ian Thorpe, to sell the venture's sports drink in Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 16, 2005

A few more before we go

It's always the same story: So many restaurants, so much great food, so little time. The Food File never has enough columns in a year to feature all of the excellent places we've enjoyed over the past 12 months. So, quickly, before we get sidetracked on pouring the mulled wine and carving the turkey,...
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2005

LDP again eyes raising tax on cigarettes in 2006

The Liberal Democratic Party reopened discussions Wednesday on raising the tax on cigarettes after Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki told executives of the LDP's tax panel the government needs the extra revenue to start putting its finances in order next year.
EDITORIALS
Dec 14, 2005

Small government vs. welfare

The government is striving to downsize itself. With debts owed by the central and local governments amounting to 800 trillion yen, it stands to reason that, where possible, much of the work presently being carried out by government should be delegated to the private sector. But to uniformly pursue "small...
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2005

DPJ's Goto to resign from Diet

In another political blow to the nation's largest opposition party, veteran lawmaker Masanori Goto of the Democratic Party of Japan said Monday he will resign after two key aides admitted earlier in the day to illegally paying campaign workers in the Sept. 11 general election.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2005

Panel to combat epidemics induced by global warming

The Environment Ministry will set up a special advisory panel to look into diseases that may become epidemics in the near future as temperatures rise in Japan due to global warming, according to ministry officials.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 13, 2005

Japan-China feud clouds EAS launch

SINGAPORE -- The East Asia Summit gets under way in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday under Malaysia's chairmanship. The EAS will be held concurrentl with the summits of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the ASEAN-Plus-Three (Japan, China, South Korea) grouping.
Features
Dec 11, 2005

The 'undigested other': Koreans in Japan

Few parents would voluntarily send a son to live in North Korea; Kongsun Yang sent all three of his. In the early 1970s, Yang waved goodbye to his young Osaka-born boys, who later married and started families in Pyongyang. Poor and unhappy, the sons survive today only thanks to support from their parents...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 11, 2005

If you want to build a home for the future then do it outside of Japan

Shortly after the quake-proofing scandal broke, Shukan Bunshun referred to the "hairstyle" of architect Hidetsugu Aneha as being just as much a "fabrication" (gizo) as the structural calculations he drew up for all those doomed condominiums. The joke was a telling one. Publicly exposing wig-wearers is...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 11, 2005

Nihon TV's late-night series "NNN Document 05" focuses on asbestos and more

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the births of both the Liberal Democratic Party and rock 'n' roll. Though NHK might be expected to analyze the former, it has decided to celebrate the latter. On Dec. 12, 13 and 14 at 11 p.m., the BS-2 channel will present a three-part look at "The Birth of Rock:...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2005

Host-nation support pact pared

Japan and the United States agreed Friday to extend a bilateral special accord on host-nation support for U.S. forces in Japan for two years and not the usual five due to the ongoing U.S. military realignment talks between the two nations.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2005

Aneha agrees to testify next week

Architect Hidetsugu Aneha will appear before a Diet committee next week to give sworn testimony about his role in the growing quake-resistance data falsification scandal, the secretariat of the House of Representatives said.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2005

Diet will ask Aneha to testify next week

, Moriyoshi Kimura, president of Kimura Construction, and Akira Shinozuka, the Tokyo branch manager of the now-bankrupt contractor. The land ministry tried Thursday to formally notify Aneha that he was stripped of his first-class architect license Wednesday, but he was not at his home in Ichikawa, Chiba...
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2005

Sanyo hopes Goldman buys debt-riddled financial arm

Sanyo Electric Co. is in talks with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and other firms over the sale of part of its 52 percent stake in Sanyo Electric Credit Co., sources said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 9, 2005

Beef-safety report being misused: panelist

The key messages in Thursday's report by the Food Safety Commission's prion committee have been misinterpreted by the media and the government, and the panel itself was used to serve political ends, the panel's deputy chairman declared Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 8, 2005

Inside the belly of the beast

Jennifer Abbott's entire career as a filmmaker and editor has been involved with challenging people's perceptions. Her first documentary, "A Cow at My Table," was on the horrors of factory farming, and Abbott met her co-director Mark Achbar while working as an editor on his documentary on lesbian marriages...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2005

Residents can sue railway: top court

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that residents near Odakyu Electric Railway Co. elevated train tracks in Tokyo qualify as plaintiffs in a lawsuit demanding the revocation of permits for the section.
EDITORIALS
Dec 7, 2005

Step up the war on AIDS

The 2005 report by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is a shocking reminder that the number of HIV/AIDS cases worldwide has hit an all-time high, exceeding 40 million people for the first time.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Dec 7, 2005

Creative destruction augurs well for woodland well-being

Coming into Tokyo earlier this year, a mountain lad like me might have thought the city was hosting a great convention of bank robbers. It seemed that half the population were masked and looking grim indeed. The problem, it seemed, was an allergy to the pollen from sugi (cryptomeria, or Japanese cedar)....

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