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JAPAN
Dec 6, 2004

Machimura counsels caution on North Korean sanctions

Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura said Sunday the government remains cautious about imposing economic sanctions on North Korea because the impoverished communist country could use it as an excuse to pull out of bilateral talks.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2004

New runway at Kansai airport nears government approval

The government will give the go-ahead to construct a second runaway at Kansai International Airport, to be operational in 2007, government sources said Sunday.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Dec 3, 2004

Tigers sending wrong message with Tsujimoto signing

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."
COMMENTARY
Dec 2, 2004

Risks to secular government

MANILA -- In the Cold War era, the global confrontation was basically ideological. Two radically different socio-political blueprints were pitted against each other: democracy and capitalism on one side, one-party-rule and communism on the other. The opponents, then, were two superpowers and their allies...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Arms export shift turns low key

The government will not stipulate the planned lifting of its self-imposed ban on arms exports when in the next week or so it adopts a new basic defense policy, according to politicians who attended the ruling coalition's security panel meeting Tuesday.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2004

Japan and Philippines sign basic agreement on FTA

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo signed a basic accord for a free-trade agreement Monday but left tough talks on stickier issues for the months ahead.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 28, 2004

'Golden Jubilee Day' at the races

R acing fans will be treated to a must-see today at Tokyo Racecourse. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Japan Racing Association, two of the biggest Grade I events of the year -- the Japan Cup Dirt and the Japan Cup -- both international invitationals, follow each other in a one-two, top-level...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2004

Political funds law revision on hold as graft trial proceeds

Lawmakers Wednesday postponed revising the Political Funds Control Law, having failed to agree on how to curb the money politics problem despite a recent donation concealment involving the largest faction of the Liberal Democratic Party.
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2004

New Kokudo chief vows to clean up Seibu group

The new president of Kokudo Corp. vowed Monday to break with the ironhanded ways of the company's former patriarch and clean up scandal-ridden subsidiary Seibu Railway.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 22, 2004

Kids of 'illegals' deserve their dream

SANTA MARIA, Calif. -- A student of mine was upset because children of illegal immigrants qualified for lower resident fees to attend college in California.
COMMENTARY
Nov 22, 2004

Liberals should stand proud

LONDON -- U.S. President George W. Bush's favorite accusation in the election campaign is reported to have been that Sen. John Kerry was a "liberal." The president seems to have used the label as a term of abuse meaning a "leftwing" radical and a supporter of the appeasement of terrorists.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 21, 2004

Emperor gets it right, but his staffers get it wrong

The Imperial Household Agency was miffed last weekend when the Asahi Shimbun "scooped" the rest of the media in reporting that Princess Nori was engaged to Yoshiki Kuroda, an employee of the Tokyo metropolitan government. The original plan was to make the official announcement on Nov. 9, but the Emperor...
EDITORIALS
Nov 21, 2004

Japan's burger king

I f money sets off conflicting emotions, food is right behind it. Challenge anyone in the developed world to a word-association game, and chances are good that two of the top ideas linked to eating will be pleasure and guilt. We love to eat, yet see thinness as a virtue and fat as a moral failing. That...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2004

Koizumi faces heavy APEC weekend

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi left Friday for a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile, where he will have to juggle a wide range of diplomatic issues that span the Pacific.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2004

Ajinomoto settles aspartame suit for 150 million yen

Seasoning maker Ajinomoto Co. and a former employee reached a court-mediated settlement worth 150 million yen Friday to settle a dispute over patent transfers dealing with the production method for the artificial sweetener aspartame, the company said.
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Nov 18, 2004

Hey Mr. Trainman

A new best seller has appeared, bringing an old-fashioned love story into the digital age. "Densha Otoko (Trainman)," whose author writes under the pseudonym Nakano Hitori, is the saga of the romance of a 22-year-old otaku, the "Trainman," with "Miss Hermes," an attractive young woman he saves from the...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 17, 2004

Mound relief almost backfired for MLB pitchers

The visiting Major League Baseball All-Stars left Japan Nov. 14 with a 5-3 series victory over their All-Japan opponents but, ironically, a change in the pitching mounds designed to help the big leaguers for the final three games of the tour almost resulted in disaster for the visitors. Let me explain....
COMMENTARY
Nov 14, 2004

Asia won't go back to being an also-ran

HONOLULU -- I am often asked why our think tank is located in Hawaii. Apart from the sun, sand, sea and surf, there is a very good reason: The world looks very different from Honolulu. We're parked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tokyo is a lot closer than Washington, D.C. When we look out over the...
COMMENTARY
Nov 7, 2004

Silence the loose cannons

HONOLULU -- The U.S. presidential election is finally over! Now the hard part begins. I'm not talking about getting North Korea back to the negotiating table; that will come soon enough. Now that Pyongyang knows it has no choice but to deal with the Bush administration, it will find a way to resume the...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2004

Japan now has to get serious about greenhouse gases

When Russian President Vladimir Putin put the finishing touches on his country's ratification of the Kyoto Protocol on Friday, reducing greenhouse gas emissions also moved one notch higher on Japan's policy agenda.
EDITORIALS
Nov 5, 2004

A nation that remains divided

A lthough the final results, as in the 2000 election, will be delayed, U.S. President George W. Bush has won a second term in office. Democratic Sen. John Kerry could have dragged out the fight with legal challenges and demands for a recount, but he decided that the president's lead margin was too large...
BUSINESS
Nov 5, 2004

Toshiba, TCL jointly agree to make appliances in China

Toshiba Corp. and TCL International Holdings Ltd. of China signed a contract Thursday to jointly manufacture and market household appliances in China, Toshiba officials said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Nov 2, 2004

Who do you think will win the U.S. elections, and will it make a difference?

Ibraham Quraishi Conceptual artist, 33 If Bush wins, the basic policy in the Middle East will continue to be a non-policy and useless rhetoric. If Kerry wins, there just might be an impetus to find a multinational solution to the Iraq problem.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2004

Linking Islam to terror spawns hatred

MADRAS, India -- Sadly, since Sept. 11, 2001, much of the world, in particular the United States, has equated Islam with violence and death.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 31, 2004

Papa's parenting barriers begin to fall

As well as the ever-present danger of cars speeding around narrow roads and the hassle of lugging strollers up and down staircases, parents in Japan with babies in tow have long had to struggle with public restrooms the size of telephone booths.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight