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Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2005

Rakuten and TBS bury hatchet, agree to start tieup talks

After intense 11th-hour negotiations, Rakuten Inc. and Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. agreed Wednesday to launch talks on potential business tieups after the Internet firm withdrew its proposal to merge with the private broadcaster.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2005

Shocked reactions to suspect's arrest

Japanese-Peruvians living here expressed shock and worried about their community's image after a man of Peruvian and Japanese descent was arrested Wednesday in connection with the murder of a 7-year-old girl in Hiroshima.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 27, 2005

Democracy's foes are both within and without

When I was traveling around the Soviet Union way back in the summer of 1964, people were talking about a mummy that had been found in a cave in Dagestan, in the northeast of the Caucasus. It wasn't long before scholars were debating how old it was, with two opinions coming to the fore: either it was...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 25, 2005

Economic challenges and opportunities lie ahead for Japan

The rapid aging of the Japanese population is both a challenge and an opportunity as it will force the nation to confront structural problems with its economy and make tough choices, visiting French journalists said at a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Nov 25, 2005

Auto lobby battling tax plans -- but why?

Japan's automotive industry Thursday lambasted the government's plans to make tax revenues hitherto earmarked for road construction available for general purposes.
JAPAN
Nov 19, 2005

Old-timer Kitty Hawk carries on

ABOARD THE USS KITTY HAWK -- With a deafening roar, a U.S. Navy F/A-18 approached the USS Kitty Hawk, but failing to hook one of the four trap wires, the fighter had to go around and try to land again.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 19, 2005

Pan-Asianism central to exile activist's ideology

Author, artist, thorn in the flesh of America's political right and confirmed pan-Asianist M.T. Karthik is taking time to return to his roots in Madras. Preparing to make the first of several trips to India, he will then move on to Portugal before returning to Japan, where he is in self-imposed exile...
BUSINESS
Nov 16, 2005

Yosano downplays criticism of BOJ

Economic and fiscal policy minister Kaoru Yosano downplayed criticism Tuesday within the government over the Bank of Japan's plan to explore an end to its ultra-loose monetary policy.
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2005

Ex-SMBC chief tapped to lead key postal firm

The government said Friday it has selected former Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. President Yoshifumi Nishikawa to run the holding company that will oversee the privatization of the postal system.
BUSINESS
Nov 9, 2005

Koizumi unlocks auto taxes

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has ordered the government to use revenue from some auto-related taxes for purposes other than road-related projects, infrastructure minister Kazuo Kitagawa said Tuesday.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 9, 2005

Study finds broccoli combats gastritis

As futurists get excited by the prospect of engineering ourselves to have longer lives, it's easy to forget that, as well as the high-tech ways, there are very simple ways to live longer.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2005

NHK head apologizes for arrest

ponders a question during a news conference at the public broadcaster's headquarters in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 6, 2005

The dangerous liaisons of ambassadors to China

AMBASSADORS FROM THE ISLANDS OF IMMORTALS: China-Japan Relations in the Han-Tang Period, by Wang Zhenping. Honolulu: Association for Asian Studies/University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 388 pp., with illustrations, $53.00 (cloth). Relations between Japan and China may be troubled right now, but then they...
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2005

Heads roll at Meiji Yasuda as severity of scandal sinks in

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. said Friday that 11 executives, including President Ryotaro Kaneko, will step down Nov. 30 to take responsibility for the company's repeated failure to pay legitimate insurance claims.
JAPAN
Nov 5, 2005

FSA to make all bourses check systems

Trading on the Nagoya Stock Exchange was suspended Friday morning due to a system malfunction, prompting the Financial Services Agency to say it will order all six of the nation's stock exchanges to submit reports on their computer systems.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 3, 2005

And the winner, by a nose, is . . .

Speaking at the news conference following the closing ceremony of this year's Tokyo International Film Festival, lead actor Koichi Sato said that while working on "Yuki ni Negau Koto (What the Snow Brings)" he "never imagined that this film would go on to receive the top prize at an international event."...
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2005

Abe deflects politicians' responsibility on judging Yasukuni war criminals

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe argued Tuesday that only historians -- and not contemporary politicians -- will eventually make the correct call on how Japanese Class-A war criminals should be judged.
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2005

Suzuki gets manual, mocks ministry 'secrets'

House of Representatives member Muneo Suzuki said Tuesday he has received a copy of the so-called Muneo manual drafted by the Foreign Ministry to instruct its officials on how to deal with the lawmaker who once wielded enormous influence with the ministry.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2005

Takebe reappointed secretary general of LDP; Nakagawa gets policy affairs

Prime Minister and Liberal Democratic Party President Junichiro Koizumi reappointed Tsutomu Takebe, 64, to the party's No. 2 post of secretary general, while switching LDP Diet affairs chief Hidenao Nakagawa to the post of policy affairs chief.
BUSINESS
Nov 1, 2005

Tsutsumi brothers seek Seibu

Two brothers of disgraced Seibu group patriarch Yoshiaki Tsutsumi proposed Monday buying Seibu Railway Co., casting a pall over a group reorganization plan drawn up by the firm's management.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

FSA punishes Meiji Yasuda once again for unpaid claims

The Financial Services Agency on Friday ordered Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. to suspend part of its operations following the insurer's repeated failure to pay legitimate insurance claims.
BUSINESS
Oct 29, 2005

Reform of state lenders in works

A Liberal Democratic Party panel studying reforms to eight government-backed financial institutions agreed Friday that Shoko Chukin Bank should be privatized.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2005

Japan, U.S. agree on new Futenma site

relocation (plan) because of a lot of opposition," Koizumi said. "We need to carry out (the new plan) as soon as possible." The defense chief called for cooperation from Okinawans, saying Japan had done its best to protect the environment.
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2005

Key panel in favor of females on throne

can be expanded to a maternal line," panel Chairman Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, a former president of University of Tokyo, told a news conference after Tuesday's panel session. "It's almost certain that the (tradition of) paternal-line-only succession can't continue to exist," he added.
EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2005

No winners in the noodle wars

A recent scientific report appeared to reassure the world that not everyone in China is dwelling on that country's muscle-flexing space program or the intractability of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Some Chinese, it suggested, are focused on less tendentious things. Take archaeologists, the subject...

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb