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EDITORIALS
Aug 17, 2005

An uneven economic recovery

It appears that Japan's economy has emerged from a "soft patch" and entered a new period of moderate growth. In April through June, the nation's gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 1.1 percent, the Cabinet Office announced last week. That marked the third consecutive quarter of positive...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2005

Innkeeper puts on her promotional face

Fumiko Motoya is one of the best-known faces of corporate Japan.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2005

Short of guests, hotels pitch kid tours

City hotels are selling packages that give children a behind-the-scenes look at the industry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 17, 2005

The Tokyo Python returns

Once upon a time in the 1980s, there was a theater company called Gekidan Kenko (Health Theater), whose zany, nonsensical and sometimes radical stagings became the stuff of cult legend. But then, in 1992, this quirky gem was dissolved by its quirky Japanese founder, self-styled Keralino Sandoroviich,...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2005

Abe, ministers, Diet members visit shrine

Amid heightened attention on Japan's wartime past, 47 Diet members visited contentious Yasukuni Shrine together Monday, the 60th anniversary of the nation's surrender.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2005

Tsukuba Express set to begin service on Aug. 24

The long-awaited Tsukuba Express line, which will cross through Saitama and Chiba prefectures to connect Tokyo's Akihabara district with Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, will begin operations Aug. 24 amid high -- and low -- expectations.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 16, 2005

What do you think of the issue of privatizing the post-office system?

Shinichi Onogi Salaryman, 37 I don't really care, because it will happen regardless of what I think. That's how politics work. Even though I vote, I'm still powerless. I don't support Koizumi because he does nothing.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2005

Nakagawa visits Yasukuni Shrine

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa visited Yasukuni Shrine on Sunday, the first Cabinet member to go to the shrine near the 60th anniversary Monday of the end of World War II.
JAPAN / 60 YEARS,AND ONWARD
Aug 14, 2005

War's end brought cash to Hokkaido

When the 77th Division of the 9th Army Corps landed in Hakodate, Hokkaido, on Oct. 4, 1945, it began a low-key U.S. presence in Japan's northernmost prefecture which continues to this day.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 60 YEARS,AND ONWARD
Aug 14, 2005

Islanders bemoan 60-year wait to return

FUKUI -- Shohei Yamamoto may not be a professional storyteller.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 14, 2005

He hops onto a shuttle, jumps off to a media shuffle

Last Tuesday's landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery in the deserts of California capped a tense two weeks in which the safety of the vehicle and the seven astronauts it contained was never 100 percent assured. The loss of foam insulation during liftoff was eerily reminiscent of the last shuttle mission...
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2005

MTFG-UFJ merger officially put off till Jan. 1

Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. and UFJ Holdings Inc. formally announced Friday the postponement of the planned integration of their core banking units until Jan. 1, three months after their original schedule.
BUSINESS
Aug 13, 2005

Cabinet approves 15% retaliatory levy on U.S. steel

The government said Friday it will slap a 15 percent retaliatory levy on U.S. ball bearing and other steel products from Sept. 1 to counter a U.S. antidumping law that violates global trade rules.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 13, 2005

Koka Fukushima

"One day I came across a solitary white dandelion growing on a high stone wall. That was my first encounter with plants, and amongst my earliest childhood recollections," said Koka Fukushima.
JAPAN
Aug 13, 2005

Suginami adopts contentious history text

The Suginami Ward board of education adopted a history textbook Friday that critics say distorts history and gives light treatment of Japan's wartime atrocities.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 12, 2005

Chelsea leads three-horse race in quest for Premiership title

LONDON -- According to Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon the 2005-06 Premiership title will be won by "a small bunch of one" with manager Jose Mourinho predicting the Blues will confirm their second successive English crown in the last fixture on May 7 at Newcastle. So that's this season then. Roll...
JAPAN
Aug 12, 2005

Contentious texts going to Machida private school

A private junior high school in the Tokyo suburb of Machida has chosen two social studies textbooks that have been denounced for distorting history and glossing over Japan's wartime atrocities.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2005

Oil spike dents current account surplus

Japan's current account surplus shrank 8.9 percent in the first half from a year earlier to 8.752 trillion yen, marking a first decline in four half-year periods, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2005

Itoham Aussie unit sells beef to China

Itoham Foods Inc. said Thursday its Sydney-based subsidiary began selling Australian beef in Beijing in July, in a bid to expand overseas sales.
COMMENTARY
Aug 12, 2005

Dreams drive the nightmare

WASHINGTON -- Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel is again pushing legislation to reintroduce a draft in America. He first did so in 2003 to slow the Bush administration's rush to war. Now he says conscription is necessary to provide the bodies necessary for Iraq's occupation.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2005

Okunoshima: poison gas past belies isle's bucolic serenity

OKUNOSHIMA, Hiroshima Pref. -- With its turquoise waters, quiet forest paths, palm trees and spectacular views of the mainland and other islands of the Inland Sea, Okunoshima Island has the feel of a resort somewhere in the Aegean Sea or the South Pacific.
Japan Times
JAPAN / 60 YEARS AND ONWARD
Aug 11, 2005

Memories of war alive at old military sites

YANAGIMOTO, Nara Pref. -- It's just quiet farmland now, nothing more than fields and a few houses. But if you listen closely as the wind rustles through the rice stalks, you might just be able to hear the ghostly sounds of World War II fighter planes taking off and landing at what was once one of the...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2005

Police launch traffic safety campaign

The National Police Agency said Wednesday it would try to achieve the world's best traffic safety by introducing comprehensive safety education and reviewing licensing requirements for elderly drivers.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2005

Redress eludes survivors of deadly Soviet gulags

Haruyoshi Inukai was 20 when he donned an Imperial Japanese Army uniform on a sunny day in April 1944 and boarded a ship for deployment to Manchuria.

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