Search - 2004

 
 
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 15, 2004

If it's cricket, it's TV Masala's Club Masala

What luck to pick up a promotional flier for Club Masala -- the first Indian subcontinent cable TV network operating in Japan -- in a branch of the curry chain Samrat. Interesting, I thought, and zipped off an e-mail. Now here I am with its president, Nofil Iqbal, who, it transpires, was born in Pakistan....
BUSINESS
May 15, 2004

NTT logs record profit; outlook seems less rosy

NTT Corp. said Friday its net profit jumped 2.8-fold to a record 643.86 billion yen for the year through March, helped by strong earnings at its mobile phone unit, NTT DoCoMo Inc.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 14, 2004

Yoshinoya finds U.S. beef for 'gyudon'

Yoshinoya D&C Co. on Thursday served "gyudon" beef-on-rice dishes at a food fair in Yokohama -- the first time it has served these dishes since it suspended them in February.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2004

Special farm subsidies face reduction or abolishment

The Finance Ministry wants to reduce or abolish the special subsidies paid to farmers who cultivate land deemed to be at a geographical disadvantage, ministry sources said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2004

Municipalities promoting own bonds

With national financial support decreasing and competition in the municipal bonds market intensifying, local governments are trying to enhance their creditworthiness.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2004

What's next as ASEAN+3 integrates?

MANILA -- As we watch with interest the expansion of the European Union, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Three (China, South Korea and Japan) continues to make its own progress toward regional economic integration. Needless to say, there is a long way to go. But the question...
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 11, 2004

Kidnap crisis poses a new risk

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 9, 2004

Terrorism in its most serious form

WAR AND STATE TERRORISM: The U.S., Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century, edited by Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 293 pp., £22.95 (paper). This provocative examination of state terrorism asks readers to reconsider their assumptions about who are the "bad...
Features
May 9, 2004

Translators' icon with rhythm writ large in his lexicon

When people decide to read a book by a foreign author, they may be drawn by what they know of the writer, or by an intriguing title. But for many Japanese readers, the attraction is that a book was translated by Motoyuki Shibata -- and will therefore likely be to their taste as well as his.
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2004

Seat China at the top table

Can China successfully take the steam out of its overheating economy without causing a collapse, or more appropriately, given the steam metaphor, a meltdown? The question is not an academic one, but very real — and not just for the 1.3 billion people in China.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 8, 2004

Porto's Mourinho in line to be new manager of Chelsea

LONDON -- According to various back-page "exclusives" over the past week, Chelsea is buying Walter Samuel (Roma -- £15 million), David Beckham and Ronaldo (Real Madrid -- combined fee of £100,000 million), Ronaldinho (Barcelona -- £60 million), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool -- £30 million) and any other...
BUSINESS
May 8, 2004

IY Bank logs first net profit since launch

IY Bank said Friday it posted a net profit of 5 billion yen in fiscal 2003, the firm's first profit since it started operating three years ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 5, 2004

Hara solo gives Rika Noguchi liftoff

Sometimes, for whatever reason, a "buzz" develops around an art exhibition, and soon everybody is talking about it. I'm still not sure exactly why, but there was a real buzz at the vernissage for "I Dreamt of Flying," a new Rika Noguchi show comprising about 40 photographic prints that is now showing...
JAPAN
May 5, 2004

More universities offering internships in business field

University graduates are finding it hard to get jobs despite the much-vaunted economic upturn, so the schools are promoting business internships in an effort to help them get started on their careers.
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2004

EU constitution no shoo-in

PARIS -- Now 78, former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing managed at the end of last year to achieve two major successes: He was elected to the Academie Francaise, which for more than three centuries has been France's most prestigious intellectual institution; and the Convention of the Future...
Events
May 2, 2004

KANSAI: Who & What

Takatsuki set to host sixth jazz festival: A large-scale, free jazz festival will be held on May 3 and 4 in the city of Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 2, 2004

More than a name in the game

THE MEANING OF ICHIRO: The New Wave From Japan and the Transformation of Our National Pastime, by Robert Whiting. New York: Warner Books, 2004, 318 pp., $25.95 (cloth). "The Meaning of Ichiro" is gathering deserved acclaim as a great book on baseball, but it would be a pity if it was not also appreciated...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 2, 2004

A battle for 'the fate of the world'

At approximately 6:20 p.m. on May 7, 1954, the shooting had stopped everywhere but at one last outpost, called strongpoint Lily, where a handful of Moroccan soldiers under a French major, Jean Nicolas, still held out.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2004

CPI off a sixth year in '03 but deflation pace easing

The key gauge of consumer prices in Japan dropped 0.2 percent in fiscal 2003, down for a sixth straight year, the government said Friday.
JAPAN
May 1, 2004

Listed companies replacing regular staff with part-timers

Listed firms cut the number of employees on their regular payrolls by an annual 3.4 percent on average during the three-year period through fiscal 2003, according to a Cabinet Office survey.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 30, 2004

Abramovich learning that money can't buy the Premiership

LONDON -- In the year of the comeback it should be no surprise if Chelsea manages to overturn the 3-1 first-leg deficit when it meets Monaco in the Champions League semifinal, second-leg match at Stamford Bridge next week.
JAPAN
Apr 29, 2004

Key ministers admit ducking pension fees

Four more Cabinet ministers, including Chief Cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda, and opposition leader Naoto Kan said Wednesday they failed to pay mandatory premiums for the basic pension system.
BUSINESS
Apr 29, 2004

Ministry upgrades regional economies

The Finance Ministry on Wednesday upgraded its quarterly assessment of the nation's regional economies for the third straight quarter, noting brighter signs were evident in personal consumption.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 28, 2004

Fashionable marriage

Best known in Japan as a fashion photographer and music-video director, Kazuaki Kiriya has made his feature-film debut with "Casshern," the Japanese film industry's most extravagant marriage yet between live action and 3-D animation.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 28, 2004

Young stars filling shoes of those who left for major leagues

Proof positive Japanese baseball is not "doomed," as some critics have suggested with regard to star players leaving for the major leagues, is the emergence of young phenoms coming seemingly out of nowhere to take the places of Ichiro (Suzuki), Hideki and Kazuo Matsui, Hideo Nomo, Kazuhisa Ishii, Shingo...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Apr 28, 2004

Kanashii is a many-colored thing

For the longest time, my inner dictionary of prosaic Japanese simply tagged the word kanashii with "sad." But no more. In classical Japanese, I have discovered, kanashii has the dual meaning of both sorrow and tenderness, and can be written with the Chinese characters for either sadness or love.
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2004

Nissan saw profit reach record level in fiscal '03

Nissan Motor Co. said Monday it posted a record group operating profit of 825 billion yen for fiscal 2003, up 11.9 percent from the previous year.
BUSINESS
Apr 27, 2004

Toray set to make base fiber in U.S.

Textile maker Toray Industries Inc. plans to begin manufacturing the base ingredient of carbon fiber for use in aircraft components in the United States in response to growing demand, company officials said Monday.

Longform

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