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Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 5, 2006

'Gimme Wings' raises singer-songwriter's profile

Sixteen years ago, Benjamin Franklin wrote a song entitled "Feel Like a Bird." The lead song and the title of his first album, released June 17, is "Gimme Wings." "I guess that suggests I haven't got very far," he jokes. In fact he's come quite a distance, but with still a way to go.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2006

Gap in real estate prices between big, small cities continues to widen

The gap in land prices between large and small cities continues to widen even though the average price in select areas has moved higher for the first time in 14 years.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 4, 2006

Films for kids

The 14th Kodomotachino Kinder Film Festival takes place Aug. 4-6 and Aug. 8-13 at Hino City on the outskirts of western Tokyo and at Aoyama's Round Theater, aiming to introduce high-quality films to children.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / WALKING THE WARDS
Aug 4, 2006

Shibuya's got glamour, and more

Anyone with more than a week in Tokyo has spent some time with Shibuya's mascot, Hachiko, waiting and watching thousands of individuals merge on cue into a tsunami of mass determination and consumerism, a scramble of humanity.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2006

Nippon Paper to try blocking Oji's takeover of Hokuetsu

Nippon Paper Group Inc., the holding firm of Japan's No. 2 pulp and paper company, said Thursday it will buy Hokuetsu Paper Mills Ltd. shares to get an equity stake of less than 10 percent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 4, 2006

72-hour party people

Japan's foremost music festival, Fuji Rock, might be over for another year, but for those who couldn't make the trek to Naeba Ski Resort last weekend, or the 130,000 who did but couldn't catch everything, our reporting team -- Daniel Robson, Simon Bartz, Philip Brasor, Mark Thompson, David Hickey, Richard...
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 3, 2006

Discuss Yasukuni after LDP poll: lobby

The Japan War-Bereaved Families Association, the most powerful lobby for relatives of Japan's war dead, will forgo discussion of politically sensitive issues related to Yasukuni Shrine until after the Sept. 20 Liberal Democratic Party presidential election, an executive of the group said Wednesday. ...
COMMENTARY
Aug 3, 2006

Blair is wrong on Lebanon

LONDON -- Opinion polls show that a large majority of Britons believe that the British government should have sided with the U.N. secretary general and other countries in demanding an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon. There is also increasing disquiet in Britain at the way Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly...
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2006

Hokuetsu mulls defense against Oji takeover bid

Hokuetsu Paper Mills Ltd., the nation's sixth-largest paper maker, said Wednesday it has asked an independent panel whether it should take measures to thwart a hostile takeover bid launched by Oji Paper Co. the same day.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 3, 2006

Transience in art and life

One reason the Sistine Chapel in Rome is so venerated is that it represents one of the occasions when art did not lose out to religion when the two came together. Though religious constraints sometimes force artists to rise to the occasion -- as with Islamic art in which rich Arabesque patterns replace...
MORE SPORTS
Aug 2, 2006

Suzuki to miss judo worlds

Athens Olympics over-100 kg gold medalist Keiji Suzuki will sit out the World Cup team championships in Paris on Sept. 16-17 due to a left shoulder injury, the All Japan Judo Federation said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2006

Paper hits North's missiles, China buildup

nuclear (arms) issue, are a destabilizing factor for the entire international community," the report reads. "The range of North Korean missiles is expected to be extended (farther), including possible derivatives of Taepodong-2 missiles," the paper, released Tuesday, says in reference to Pyongyang's...
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2006

Tobacco tax revenues rose 26% in June

Tobacco tax revenue rose 26.4 percent in June from the same month a year ago to 82.33 billion yen on higher demand for imported brands ahead of the July 1 tobacco tax increase, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2006

Obituary: Kazuko Tsurumi

Sociologist Kazuko Tsurumi died Monday, her family said. She was 88.
SOCCER / J. League
Jul 31, 2006

Grampus Eight victory has Norwegian flavor

CHIBA -- Norwegian striker Frode Johnsen marked his Nagoya Grampus Eight debut with two goals in a 3-2 victory away to JEF United Chiba on Sunday evening.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 31, 2006

A time for every age group

Many pundits agree that the most important challenge Japan faces is how to deal with the problem of falling birthrates and an aging population. Among direct, specific proposals for solving the problem are measures to increase birthrates and reform the pension and medical-care systems.
EDITORIALS
Jul 31, 2006

Sympathy for a racehorse

The world's compassion is notoriously quirky. Just consider where it has been directed over the past couple of months, a period as replete with tragedy and disaster as any in recent memory. Another lethal tsunami struck Indonesia. The sectarian slaughter in Iraq worsened, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2006

EU membership sharpens Central, East Europe's competitive edge

See related story Is bigger better for European Union?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 30, 2006

Strip down and soak up some Japanese culture

GETTING WET: Adventures in the Japanese Bath, by Eric Talmadge. Tokyo: Kodansha, 255 pp., 2,400 yen (cloth). In the last few years we have seen books about cod, salt and potatoes, and the authors of these tomes appear to have employed a roughly similar method. Settle on a topic, learn everything -- and...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 30, 2006

TBS rejoins the fighting family in "Triple Kitchen" and more

One of the enduring conflicts in Japanese TV dramas is the one that exists between a bride and her mother-in-law. This theme hit its peak 13 years ago in the series "Double Kitchen," which followed the daily boxing match between Kiriko and her husband's mother, who, as played by Yoko Nogiwa, was the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2006

'Koizumi's children' no longer

"Koizumi's children" are making their ways out of the nest and into the factionalized world of the Liberal Democratic Party.
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2006

Carcinogen benzene in DHC drinks

Cancer-causing benzene has been found in amounts in excess of an international standard in a soft drink sold by cosmetics retailer DHC Corp., the health ministry said Friday.

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell