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COMMENTARY
Apr 24, 2005

A provincial pitch for votes

LONDON -- Britain is now in the grip of a general election campaign with voting due May 5. As with political campaigns generally in the modern world, this one is heavily oriented toward domestic issues and disputes. Globalization and the worldwide information revolution seem to have had the opposite...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 24, 2005

Time for some Showa trivia and Heisei melodrama

GEISHA -- HARLOT -- STRANGLER -- STAR: A Woman, Sex & Morality in Modern Japan, by William Johnston. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004, 245 pp., $29.50, (cloth). ISOLATION, by Christopher Belton. New York: Leisure Fiction, 2003, $6.99, 372 pp., (paper). To be honest, I've never really understood...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 23, 2005

Academic freedom for all

WASHINGTON -- Academic freedom is close to the hearts of many. Being able to teach what "needs" to be taught, to speak out and to pursue thoughts to wherever they may lead are some of the most crucial components of academia. In light of this accepted axiom it is surprising to learn about opposition to...
BUSINESS
Apr 22, 2005

Production recovering, IT inventories subsiding: Fukui

Bank of Japan Gov. Toshihiko Fukui said Thursday he remains confident the economy is on a recovery track, although the information technology sector continues to be bogged down by inventories.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 21, 2005

Kyushu's latest aftershock a setback

Officials expressed concern Wednesday that a magnitude 5.8 earthquake that hit northern Kyushu that morning could hamper the area's efforts to repair damage caused by a more powerful quake just a month ago.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 21, 2005

Time to honor the planet, every day

'If the environment is a fad, then it's going to be our last fad," warned Denis Hayes at the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, having given up his own graduate studies at Harvard only months before to organize this historic event.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 20, 2005

Put a lid on rising Sino-Japanese tensions

WASHINGTON -- Relations between Japan and China, the two great powers of Northeast Asia, have in recent months sunk to their worst levels at least since Tiananmen Square in 1989. This past weekend's anti-Japanese riots in China were unprecedented in the modern era, but they were only the latest in a...
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2005

Ono scrubs press tour of Samawah, discounts concern

Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori Ono sought Tuesday to downplay concerns over security in the southern Iraq city of Samawah, after the agency said the previous day that it had canceled a tour for Japanese reporters to cover the Self-Defense Forces' activities there slated for later this month....
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2005

American to salvage Japanese sub full of gold, opium sunk in Atlantic in '44

The I-52 is the stuff of shipwreck legend. Possibly the most advanced submarine in the world at the time, Japan's I-52 was sunk in the Atlantic on June 23, 1944, while en route to a rendezvous with a German U-boat. The rendezvous remains a mystery.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2005

Nakagawa raps China for allowing anti-Japan attacks

Trade minister Shoichi Nakagawa criticized the Chinese government Sunday for failing to prevent vandalism of Japanese property in China by some of the participants in anti-Japan rallies the last three weekends.
BUSINESS
Apr 15, 2005

Hewlett-Packard president may take ailing Daiei's helm

Daiei Inc. is expected to name Yasuyuki Higuchi, 47, current president of Hewlett-Packard Japan Ltd., as its new president, company sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Apr 15, 2005

China tells Japan to proceed with caution

China on Thursday warned that Japan would have to take "full responsibility" for any consequences if it proceeds with exploration for oil and gas in a contested area of the East China Sea.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2005

Kin sue to have woman recognized as abductee

The family of a Chiba Prefecture woman who has been missing for more than 30 years filed a lawsuit against the state Wednesday, demanding that she be officially recognized as having been abducted to North Korea.
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2005

Troubling events in China

The recent wave of anti-Japanese demonstrations in China raises questions about Beijing's will to stabilize the situation. At the beginning of this month, demonstrators went on a rampage in Sichuan and Shenzhen in southern China, smashing windows of a Japanese supermarket and committing other acts of...
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2005

Ownership of broadcasters may become difficult for foreigners

The Liberal Democratic Party approved a proposal Tuesday to stiffen a law limiting foreign ownership of Japanese TV and radio broadcasters, party officials said.
EDITORIALS
Apr 12, 2005

Progress in Baghdad

After what seemed like interminable delay, Iraqi politicians have agreed on the country's top leaders. The posts have been filled by representatives from all of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups, creating as inclusive a national leadership as possible. The agreement hints that deals have also been...
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2005

Hostile rallies put companies on edge

Japanese firms doing business with China are taking precautionary measures following a raft of violent anti-Japanese rallies there over the weekend.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2005

Japan paid $3 million in '99 Kyrgyz hostage crisis

The Japanese government paid the Kyrgyz government a $3 million ransom for the release of four Japanese hostages in southern Kyrgyzstan in 1999, but it appears the money never reached the hostage takers, Japanese government sources said Saturday.
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2005

Tokyo's terms for joining China gas project rejected

Japan could accept China's offer to jointly conduct oil and gas exploration in the East China Sea, but only if Beijing provides details of its ongoing gas projects in the disputed waters and halts its operations there, the industry minister said Friday.
BUSINESS
Apr 9, 2005

Credit Suisse Trust gets partial suspension

The Financial Services Agency has ordered Credit Suisse Trust and Banking Co. to suspend part of its operations for one month for making several thousand improper business transactions.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Singapore turns to Japan's matchmakers as birthrate sags

Japan might assist in Singapore's efforts to set up matchmaking services, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2005

Asylum-seeker sues state for damages

A Myanmarese asylum-seeker who recently received a special residence permit filed a damages suit against the government Friday, demanding 11 million yen for being detained despite his status as a refugee, his lawyers said.
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2005

Cardinal hopes next pope is like John Paul

Roman Catholic Cardinal Seiichi Shirayanagi, one of two Japanese eligible to vote for a new pope, hopes Pope John Paul II's replacement will offer more of the same.
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2005

BOJ maintains monetary policy; member objects

The Bank of Japan said Wednesday its policy-setting panel decided to leave its ultraloose monetary policy unchanged.
BUSINESS
Apr 7, 2005

LCD TVs said on top; Matsushita wary

Liquid-crystal display televisions outdid plasma TVs in Japan's large flat-screen TV market in February for the first time, a market survey agency announced Wednesday.
JAPAN
Apr 6, 2005

Screening preceded by state bid to unify thought

The Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry on Tuesday released the results of its screening of textbooks for use in junior high schools from next April.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Apr 5, 2005

Burned out, wills and tax advice

Fire! Last week our house had a fire We had just moved into a rental house and paid all the key money, real estate fees etc. and nine days later our neighbor's house had a major fire, which spread to ours. The neighbor's house is completely burned, and one person died. My family all escaped unhurt,...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 5, 2005

A dicey hypocritical streak

LONDON -- I am glad that March is over. The problem with the month is that it begins with the release of the U.S. State Department's annual reports on human rights violations worldwide (except in the United States, of course). Just as you come to terms with that, in the middle of the month, the six-week...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes