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COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 28, 2005

Visa crackdown -- don't get burned

Last year The Japan Times ran an article entitled "Students pay price in visa crackdown" about Americans put through the wringer on minor infractions.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2005

Poll indicates DPJ poised for gains

With one week to go before the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, a new poll shows support for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan among voters in the capital is up 10 percentage points from four years ago.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2005

Career soldier sees China for what it is

LOS ANGELES -- How many of you out there would just love to see Colin Powell back in the saddle as U.S. secretary of state? Or, better yet, as secretary of defense, giving the boot to his arch-nemesis -- the war-prone Donald Rumsfeld?
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2005

Ethnic Myanmar refugee pleads for policy change

A refugee from Myanmar belonging to an ethnic minority urged Japan on Monday to grant asylum to more of his compatriots, saying they face serious persecution back home.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2005

Japan rejects U.S. plan for U.N. reform

Japan rejected a U.S. proposal on United Nations reform Friday despite receiving support for its quest to become a permanent member of the powerful U.N. Security Council.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 17, 2005

Alcohol continues to fuel Best's free fall toward tragic ending

LONDON -- When George Best was having problems with his first wife, Angie, I shared a flight back to England with him from Miami -- he was playing for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the North American Soccer League at the time.
JAPAN
Jun 16, 2005

JAL jet landing at Haneda loses nose gear wheels

The two nose gear wheels on a Japan Airlines Corp. jetliner broke off during landing Wednesday at Tokyo's Haneda airport, the airline said.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 16, 2005

Worlds of nature are just a click away

Although I've only just packed away my skiing gear (the remnant snowfields have crept too close to the peaks to make the physical cost of carrying heavy boots and skis so far uphill worth the downhill benefits), and though mountain cherry blossoms have only recently begun to shed their petals here in...
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2005

Did Nakayama apologize over sex-slave gaffe?

Education minister Nariaki Nakayama apologized Tuesday for "causing trouble" to the government with his recent remark hailing the removal of references to wartime sex slaves for Japanese troops from revised history textbooks, top government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2005

Government eyes policing of Internet

The government may go after what it regards as harmful information on the Internet following last week's bombing of a Yamaguchi Prefecture classroom by a youth who claimed he learned how to make explosives from a Web site, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 12, 2005

In Japan's tabloid world, truth trumps pulp fiction

TABLOID TOKYO: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies, by Geoff Botting, Ryann Connell, Michael Hoffman and Mark Schreiber. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 255 pp., 1,400 yen (paper). Aside from the sight of middle-age Japanese businessmen happily reading comic books,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 12, 2005

'Woe is me' nation awaits return of its sadsack heroes

In the last days of May, news reached Japan that two former soldiers in the Imperial Army had been found in the Philippines. Apparently the two men, who had been hiding during the entire postwar period in an area around the town of General Santos close to the southern tip of the island of Mindanao, now...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2005

North Korea eager to return to talks: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Monday that he believes North Korea is eager to return to the stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear ambitions although it has yet to clearly say so.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2005

Ex-prime ministers hit Yasukuni visits

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi should refrain from making his contentious visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine to avoid further damaging ties with Japan's Asian neighbors, five former prime ministers intimated Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 31, 2005

Odakyu chief, group execs to resign over phantom shareholder coverup

Odakyu Electric Railway Co. said Monday that its chairman and group CEO Kunio Toshimitsu will resign on June 10 to take responsibility for its coverup of phantom shareholders.
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2005

Stop the torture and abuse

The steady drip of revelations about the abuse of prisoners in the global war against terror is doing serious damage to the U.S. image and efforts to win that battle. Contrary to official claims, the instances of misbehavior are not episodic or exaggerated; they appear to be serious, widespread and systematic....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 15, 2005

The great corporate escape: Blame it on the factotums and avoid responsibility

The news media's breathless coverage of the train derailment in Amagasaki that claimed 107 lives last month operated on several levels. On one level was an investigation into the details of the accident itself. On another was the coverage of victims and their families. And on a third was the gradual...
BUSINESS
May 13, 2005

TSE to delist Kanebo over accounting scandal

The Tokyo Stock Exchange announced Thursday that it has decided to delist Kanebo Ltd. on June 13 over a massive case of accounting fraud.
EDITORIALS
May 9, 2005

Fishing for sustainable profits

The good news for Japan's fisheries is that some of its products enjoy growing demand abroad, particularly in some parts of Asia. This year's government white paper on fisheries stresses the importance of developing overseas markets and highlights a variety of export-oriented initiatives across the country....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 8, 2005

The urban underclass of a modernist Tokyo

THE SCARLET GANG OF ASAKUSA, by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Alisa Freedman, foreword and afterword by Donald Richie. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 2005, 231 pp., $17.95 (paper). "Art is bad," Guy Davenport posited, "when it is poor in news," and it is not surprising...
COMMENTARY
Apr 29, 2005

Taiwan opposition tests winds in Beijing

HONG KONG -- Little more than a month after China's passage of its antisecession law, the cross-strait situation has undergone a remarkable change. While there has been some negative fallout, with Taiwan delaying talks on expanding chartered flights between the two sides and banning journalists from...
JAPAN
Apr 27, 2005

Postwar reconciliation with rest of Asia in peril

Bilateral relations between Japan and the United States during the four years Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been in office have often been characterized as a "honeymoon."
JAPAN
Apr 26, 2005

Government plays up outcome of Koizumi-Hu talks

The government played up on Monday the importance of Saturday's meeting between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Hu Jintao, where the two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to salvage relations.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 24, 2005

Menswear to the rescue

The Fall 2005 season saw the Tokyo Collections in a sorry state.
BUSINESS
Apr 20, 2005

SMFG President Nishikawa to be replaced by Kitayama

Yoshifumi Nishikawa, president of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc., will step down and be succeeded by 58-year-old Deputy President Teisuke Kitayama, the company said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Apr 18, 2005

Japan, China wasting time

Recent mass anti-Japanese protests in Chinese cities have plunged Sino-Japanese relations to their lowest since diplomatic ties were normalized in 1972. Stones thrown by demonstrators damaged the Japanese Embassy in Beijing on April 9. Japanese-owned businesses in other cities were likewise attacked,...

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