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JAPAN
Dec 11, 2004

Hotline flooded with calls over tainted blood fears

A health ministry hotline has been flooded with calls from people nationwide worried about whether they have hepatitis C, after the government announced Thursday that it has a list of nearly 7,000 medical institutions that handled the tainted blood coagulant fibrinogen before 1994.
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2004

Limited-term foreign professors seen cornering workload but not benefits

OSAKA -- A nationwide survey of foreign professors in Japan reveals that those who do the most work are younger, less experienced teachers either on limited term or part-time contracts, rather than tenured professors.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Directives target domestic abuse -- but lack specifics

The government has issued directives that call on ministries, local governments, police and civic groups to better coordinate efforts to protect and support victims of domestic violence, but they spell out no concrete preventive measures.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2004

Suspected hepatitis E cases tied to restaurant's pork

One of six people suspected of contracting hepatitis E after eating pork intestines at a barbecue restaurant in Kitami, Hokkaido, has died, health ministry and Hokkaido government officials said Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 7, 2004

The fattening of the planet

I t's not just Americans and Japanese sumo wrestlers who are fat nowadays. As a witty commentator put it recently in The Hindu newspaper, the world is round, and so are a growing number of its inhabitants. From New York to New Delhi, nutritionists are sounding the alarm about the rising tide of obesity,...
JAPAN
Oct 24, 2004

Tentative accord reached on U.S. beef

Japan and the United States on Saturday agreed in principle to resume U.S. beef imports as early as next spring, although a final accord on specific conditions for lifting the ban was left to further negotiations.
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2004

Balancing work with other ways of life

LONDON -- Alan Milburn, the British secretary of state for health, resigned last year to "spend more time with his family." This excuse has often been used to cover some misdemeanor or a falling out with colleagues, but in this case it seems to have been genuine.
EDITORIALS
Oct 9, 2004

Give us a real surprise

Japan's main banks appear to be getting a grip on disposing of nonperforming loans, which was the big issue 3 1/2 years ago when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took power. Corporate earnings have improved a lot, and the economy is seeing its most robust growth since the collapse of the bubble. At one...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 24, 2004

Pension system a riddle wrapped in an enigma

Help, police! For foreigners staying in Japan for more than three and less than 25 years, there is only one word for the Japanese pension system -- ROBBERY! -- Bhupesh
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2004

Africa's oil boom benefiting all too few

NEW YORK -- Since the mid-1990s, several countries in sub-Saharan Africa -- Nigeria, Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea -- have experienced strong revenue growth from the petroleum industry. In most cases, this new wealth is not being directed toward the countries' economic development or toward improved...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 21, 2004

Barbara Kuhn

The Association of Foreign Wives of Japanese has over 600 members in Japan and abroad. The women, who come from more than 50 countries, find that AFWJ offers friendship, support and help in adapting to Japanese society.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2004

Pill now legal for five years but still finds few takers

Five years ago, Japanese women's rights advocates won their battle to legalize the birth control pill. Now they are waging an even tougher fight -- getting women to use it.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Aug 13, 2004

Chemical lies in wine

It is received wisdom that the sulfite additives in American red wines cause many drinkers to have headaches, and that the health concerns over these 21st-century chemicals are so great that wines tainted by them are required to carry an explicit "Contains Sulfites" warning.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2004

Alleged Unit 731 victims' bones still mystery

Fifteen years have passed since human bones were dug up at a construction site in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, linked to the infamous wartime Unit 731, and they remain a mystery that authorities still appear reluctant to resolve.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2004

Alleged Unit 731 victims' bones still mystery

Fifteen years have passed since human bones were dug up at a construction site in Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, linked to the infamous wartime Unit 731, and they remain a mystery that authorities still appear reluctant to resolve.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2004

New social insurance head appointed

Kiyoshi Murase, deputy president of Sompo Japan Insurance Inc., was appointed commissioner of the Social Insurance Agency on Tuesday, becoming the first appointee from a private firm to head the body affiliated with the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2004

A little hit of sunshine

Forget that old squabble about which is smarter, dogs or cats. They're both smart. Look at them, lying there in the only patches of sunshine in the house, lazily hogging the beams as the sun shifts. It's almost as if they were addicted. "Well, of course we are," they would say if they could talk. Lying...
EDITORIALS
Jul 15, 2004

AIDS can be beaten

AIDS has become the worst pandemic in human history, eclipsing even the Black Death of the 14th century. Unlike the plague, AIDS often kills the descendants of victims who have passed on. There is no excuse for the failure to tackle this scourge; there is ample evidence of effective ways to respond to...
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2004

Jenkins sounded out on Japan checkup

The government has sounded out Charles Robert Jenkins, the American husband of repatriated abductee Hitomi Soga, on the possibility of his coming to Japan for a medical checkup, government sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2004

Bureaucrat appointed to serve princess

Takashi Yoshino, a midranking bureaucrat at the health ministry, will on Monday become the fifth chamberlain to Princess Aiko, the 2-year-old daughter of Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, the Imperial Household Agency said.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2004

Herbal remedy approval system may change

The government is considering revising approval standards for nonprescription herbal medicines sold at drugstores for the first time in 30 years, officials said Monday.
JAPAN
May 21, 2004

Dental group bribery probe widens

Tokyo prosecutors have questioned two senior health ministry officials in connection with a bribery probe involving the Japan Dental Association, sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
May 21, 2004

Dental group bribery probe widens

Tokyo prosecutors have questioned two senior health ministry officials in connection with a bribery probe involving the Japan Dental Association, sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2004

Boat crew survivors focus of Bikini nuke test study

The city of Sukumo, Kochi Prefecture, will conduct health studies next month on crews from Kochi fishing boats hit by fallout from the 1954 U.S. hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the Central Pacific.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2004

State, mining firm ordered to pay sickened workers

The Supreme Court ended a 19-year legal battle Tuesday by endorsing a lower court decision ordering the state and a mining company to compensate former coal miners in Fukuoka Prefecture who contracted pneumoconiosis by inhaling mine dust.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2004

90,000 cancer cases laid to smoking

Smoking causes an estimated 80,000 Japanese men and 8,000 Japanese women each year to develop cancer, according to a health ministry report, indicating the huge impact of smoking on public health.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2004

Dental lobby chief, six others held over bribery allegation

Prosecutors have arrested Sadao Usuda, chairman of the Japan Dental Association, and Takeshi Shimomura, a member of a government advisory body, in connection with bribes the former allegedly paid to the latter for lobbying efforts aimed at boosting dental-service fees.
BUSINESS
Apr 15, 2004

New Jersey official urges speedier drug approval

The Health, Welfare and Labor Ministry's recent moves to speed up the drug approval process next year already have pulses racing across the Pacific.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past