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JAPAN
Dec 9, 2004

NPA report lists the usual suspects: Islamic terrorists, Aum, Pyongyang

International terrorist organizations run by Islamic extremists are expected to continue carrying out attacks worldwide, and the possibility of Japan becoming a target cannot be ruled out, the National Police Agency reckoned in an annual report on security released this week.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Dec 9, 2004

"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," "ABC T-Rex"

"Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," Susanna Clarke, Bloomsbury; 2004; 782 pp.
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 2004

Closing the curtain on a hard life

Mr. Charles Jenkins on Tuesday arrived in Sado, Niigata Prefecture, together with his wife Ms. Hitomi Soga, a former abductee to North Korea, and their two daughters after serving a short sentence for desertion from the U.S. Army. Sado is Ms. Soga's hometown. Procedures for Mr. Jenkins' dishonorable...
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 2004

To keep the SDF in Iraq or not

The government is set to extend Japan's troop deployment in Iraq beyond Dec. 14 for another year, although Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has not adequately explained why an extension is necessary. Nor has the Diet debated the question in detail. A joint opposition bill aimed at ending the dispatch...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 8, 2004

Cheer and moaning in L.A.

How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog Rating: * * * (out of 5) Japanese title: Butai Yori, Sutekina Seikatsu Director: Michael Kalesniko Running time: 98 minutes Language: English Opens Dec. 11 [See Japan Times movie listings] Kenneth Branagh once said in a movie many years back: "There is...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 2004

'Sesame Street' making waves -- in Japanese

Rena Mizushiro sits in a cramped position with other puppeteers as she works her character, Teena, to sing in a scene about Elmo's birthday in "Sesame Street."
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.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2004

LDP, New Komeito chiefs head to Samawah to assess security

The secretaries general of the Liberal Democratic Party and its ruling coalition partner New Komeito left Sunday for Iraq to check the security situation in Samawah, where Self-Defense Forces troops are based for reconstruction work.
COMMENTARY
Dec 6, 2004

Japan's response to threats

LONDON -- The appearance of a Chinese nuclear-powered submarine in Japanese coastal waters Nov. 10 underlined a potential threat to Japanese security.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 5, 2004

Existentialist/essentialist

SHINTO: The Way Home, by Thomas P. Kasulis, preface by Henry Rosemont Jr. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 2004, 188 pp., $15.00 (paper). One day several years ago, the author of this new book on Shinto took an early stroll through the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine. After "feeling the connectedness...
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Chanel opens boutique in Ginza to long lines

Chanel launched a boutique Saturday on ritzy Chuo-dori in Tokyo's Ginza district, with 200 people lining up before the doors opened at 11 a.m.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 5, 2004

Way of the corporate giant robot

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM, by Yoshiyuki Tomino, translated by Frederik L. Schodt with an introduction by Mark Simmons. Stone Bridge Press, 2004, $14.95 (paper). Yoshiyuki "Kill 'em All" Tomino is the mega-prolific creator of the Mobile Suit Gundam phenomenon, known, perhaps a little patronizingly, as the "Star...
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Miyake kids will have to carry gas masks to school

All elementary and junior high school students will have to carry gas masks to school when they return to volcanic Miyake Island in February -- 4 1/2 years after being evacuated, the island's education board said Saturday.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Would permanent UNSC seat beget more responsible Japan?

OSAKA -- Becoming a permanent member of an expanded United Nations Security Council could force Japan to become a more responsible international player.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Extra Diet session achieves little; critics declare democracy dead

The 53-day extraordinary Diet session ended Friday with little progress on key contentious issues -- namely a political money scandal and the war in Iraq.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Ex-teacher indicted over anthem

A retired Tokyo high school teacher was indicted Friday for allegedly urging parents to stay seated while "Kimigayo" was played at a graduation ceremony in March.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2004

Brutality pays poorly in interrogation

HONOLULU -- After a Japanese soldier named Shuji Ishii was taken prisoner by American Marines on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II, he expected the worse, including being put to death. Instead, he wrote later in a memoir, he was astonished to find himself in a sanitary hospital and to be given...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 4, 2004

Toshiaki Hiwatari

When he was a child, Toshiaki Hiwatari loved nature. "I was born in 1945 in Hyogo Prefecture," he said. "In my boyhood I spent a lot of time walking around Mount Rokko." Those were the years when there were far fewer alternative claims for the attention of young boys and girls. Nature was still evident,...
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2004

4 billion yen in toll tickets may be fake

Tokyo police said Thursday that a counterfeiting ring has apparently forged about 4 billion yen in expressway tickets and that many of them have already been sold to transport companies.
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2004

Bureaucrat gets suspended term for JDA bribes

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a former chief of the Social Insurance Agency to a suspended 2 1/2-year prison term Thursday for accepting bribes from the nation's main dental lobby while serving on a government advisory panel.
BUSINESS
Dec 3, 2004

Nippon Life cedes lead to AFLAC

Nippon Life Insurance Co. had lost its No. 1 position in the individual life insurance market by the end of September for the first time in the postwar period, industry officials said Thursday.
Rugby
Dec 2, 2004

Tokyo's rugby community honors former teammate

Rugby players haven't always enjoyed the best of reputations.
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2004

Free HIV and AIDS consultations in English

Free HIV and AIDS consultations in English The Japan HIV Center, a nonprofit organization based in Osaka, is offering free telephone consultation services in English for people with HIV or AIDS, or those fearing they may be infected.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Dec 2, 2004

Apres le deluge

As I write this it is 4 in the afternoon of a mid-November day, a fine, clear, crisp day, with the sun now gone down behind Iizuna mountain to leave the massive bulk of Kurohime looming black against a sky of blazing silver, its peak lightly brushed by misty cloud.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Dec 2, 2004

The biggest game of the year

I look at "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," a new urban crime role-playing game for the PlayStation 2, about the same way I might view gorgeous graffiti painted on my front door.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 1, 2004

Fun with a gentleman

Kevin Kline is every inch the professional. Unlike many other Hollywood notables he arrived on the dot for the press conference to promote "De-Lovely." He answered each question with succinct sincerity and was dressed in an immaculate suit very much like the ones he wore as Cole Porter (designed by Giorgio...
EDITORIALS
Dec 1, 2004

Manufacturing still our lifeblood

Fifteen years after the collapse of the economic bubble, Japan's longer-term economic prospects look fairly promising. One reason for this is that Japanese banks, particularly big ones, are making good progress in their efforts to clear up their nonperforming loans. Another reason is that manufacturers...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’