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Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2006

New tours with military theme score direct hit for Hato Bus

Travel agents are always looking for new ways to entice the fickle Japanese customer, and Hato Bus Co. has landed a direct hit with a set of new military-themed tours.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 29, 2006

What's your opinion of gender roles in Japan?

Nikki Halligan Linguist, 26 In my last job, men were promoted over women. The discrimination came from the women, who would fawn over the male staff and mistreat female staff. In my current job, I was promoted because of a lack of females in the industry.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2006

Abe wants stronger prime minister's office if he gets top job

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe would increase the role of the prime minister's office in setting key policies in education and national security if he becomes the country's leader, sources close to him said Friday.
BASKETBALL
Aug 22, 2006

Battle of NBA stars a big draw

HIROSHIMA -- Pau Gasol and Dirk Nowitzki provide the headline attraction for Monday afternoon's 4 p.m. game here.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2006

U.S. veteran turns up old Okinawa photographs

Sixty-one years ago, Cosmo Vitale walked over the mountains dividing an island near Okinawa and ran into Japanese prisoners of war on the other side.
BASKETBALL
Aug 19, 2006

Commish Kawachi tips U.S. for top prize

As the FIBA World Championship tips off Saturday, Toshimitsu Kawachi, the commissioner of the bj-league, Japan's first professional basketball league, shared his thoughts on the tournament, including the Japan national team, the American team and other topics in a wide-ranging interview at his Ginza...
BASKETBALL
Aug 19, 2006

Host Japan prepares for opener

HIROSHIMA -- The Japan National Team held a light, hour-long practice Friday afternoon at the Hiroshima Prefectural Sports Center.
BASKETBALL
Aug 17, 2006

3-point shooting, pressure defense are key objectives for Japan at worlds

The Japan National Team appeared in the 1998 FIBA World Championship after a 31-year absence. The team was eliminated in the first round and failed to qualify for the tournament four years later.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2006

Intelligence works better than bullets

The British police, acting closely with intelligence agencies in the United States, Pakistan and perhaps elsewhere over many months, have foiled a major terrorist plot of blowing up numerous planes between Britain and America.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 10, 2006

There's an art to saving country life

Just a few hours north of Tokyo's seemingly endless sprawl is the mountainous region of Echigo-Tsumari in Niigata Prefecture. Like so many other rural parts of northern Japan, it is a rugged, isolated, aging and economically stagnant place where elderly men and women can be found doubled over in terraced...
COMMENTARY
Aug 9, 2006

Beijing loath to cast the fate of elections in Hong Kong to the wind

HONG KONG -- With Hong Kong having entered its 10th year as a Chinese special administrative region, pressure is building on Beijing to honor its promise of allowing full democratization of this former British colony. Opinion surveys consistently show that the majority of Hong Kong residents want to...
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 8, 2006

Abe close to sewing up LDP majority

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe is close to gaining majority support among Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, putting him in a strong position to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as LDP president and prime minister.
COMMENTARY
Aug 8, 2006

Danger of education divide

During its five-year rule, the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has completed a number of structural reforms, including the privatization of the postal service. To that extent, the administration deserves high praise.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2006

75% worry about crimes against kids: poll

Three out of four respondents to a government survey said they were worried about crimes against children, the Cabinet Office said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2006

BOJ repeating history, board exec from 2000 warns

When the Bank of Japan ended its "zero-interest-rate" policy at its two-day Policy Board meeting last month, Nobuyuki Nakahara recalled the last time the central bank made the same move, when he was a board member in August 2000.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 5, 2006

Israel-Hezbollah conflict: the end game

LONDON -- The kill ratio is becoming a problem: Israel has been killing about 40 Lebanese civilians for every Israel civilian who is killed. They are all being killed by accident, of course, but such a long chain of accidents begins to look like carelessness, and even in Israel and the United States...
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...
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2006

Sumitomo Light Metal dinged for 250 million yen in back taxes

Tax authorities have determined Sumitomo Light Metal Industries Ltd. gave more than 1 billion yen in undeclared donations to deficit-ridden subsidiaries over a four-year period through March 31, 2005, sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2006

Suit by Japan Highway boss against 'true story' is thrown out

The Tokyo District Court dismissed a libel suit Monday filed by Haruho Fujii, former president of the now-defunct Japan Highway Public Corp., and said a magazine article correctly reported his concealment of the corporation's financial statements.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 1, 2006

How seriously do you are take the recent North Korean missile tests?

Kumiko Teacher, 24 I am concerned about how Koreans are treated after something like this. After the tests, a Korean ship was refused entry into Japan. There were Korean students returning home. They grew up here, Japan is their country too.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2006

Is bigger better for European Union?

See related story EU membership sharpens Central, East Europe's competitive edge
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 30, 2006

Dawn of news for Chinese journalism

PRAGUE -- A remarkable incident has emboldened Chinese journalists. Earlier this year, the government suspended publication of the newspaper Bing Dian Weekly, provoking unprecedented open protest, which received extensive media coverage worldwide.
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2006

Words carrying weight

Last week's discovery of a memorandum recording the words of the Emperor Showa explaining why he stopped visiting Yasukuni Shrine will exert considerable influence on the debate over Japanese publicly remembering Japan's war dead, while praying for peace, in a manner acceptable both to Japanese and to...
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2006

Fitting memorial for war dead

With the governing Liberal Democratic Party set to elect its new leader in September -- when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi step downs as LDP president (and hence as prime minister) some LDP lawmakers are proposing ways to solve the ongoing row over Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine. Visits...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 23, 2006

Democracy falters as underworld forces flourish

Kyrgyzstan is referred to as a faltering state, meaning that it is not quite failing.
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2006

'Hirohito memo' won't affect shrine visits: Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday that a reported memorandum saying the late Emperor Hirohito was upset about Yasukuni Shrine's decision to enshrine 14-Class A war criminals will not affect his contentious visits.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past