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Japan Times
Features
Sep 18, 2005

Complexities of beauty

The tall, handsome foreigner took a seat next to a Japanese woman. Drinking in her delicate beauty, he leaned over and asked in a gentle voice: "Would you mind if I talk to you?"
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 18, 2005

Japan in the doldrums needs a lot more than hot air

It is not every election in Japan that raises questions about the direction of the nation and the identity of its people. It was natural that last week's poll was a polemical one. After a "lost decade" now well on the way to becoming a "lost double-decade," Japanese people have been asking themselves:...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 18, 2005

Sweet Mysteries of the Orient

THE ASIAN MYSTIQUE, by Sheridan Prasso. Public Affairs Books, 437 pp., 2005, $27.95, 2,850 yen (cloth). Apparently, there are still Western men who believe that the East is an obliging seductress, mass producing an endless line of voluptuous women, whose laconic sexual pliancy is only exceeded by their...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2005

Taiwan sees wider recognition as key to upholding democrac

Taiwan has been endeavoring to lift the stature of its 23 million people in the eyes of the international community as a foil to China's plans for unification.
JAPAN
Sep 17, 2005

NHK to cut 10% of ranks, go after fee nonpayers

NHK is finalizing plans to chop its workforce by about 1,200 over a three-year period beginning in fiscal 2006, and may take legal action against viewers who fail to pay their fees, sources said Friday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 16, 2005

Warm to the mild port city of Numazu

Located just 100 km from Tokyo, the city of Numazu, in Shizuoka Prefecture, is less than an hour's ride away on the Hikari bullet train. Numazu merged with a neighboring city in April and today has a population total of over 211,000 and a land area of 187.1 sq. km.
JAPAN
Sep 14, 2005

Centenarians to hit 25,606 by October

The number of centenarians in Japan will set a new record of 25,606 by the end of the month, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said ahead of Respect for the Aged Day.
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2005

GDP for April-June sharply revised to 0.8% on strong capital spending

The economy expanded a real 0.8 percent in the April-June period from the previous quarter for the third straight quarterly growth, revised upward from a 0.3 percent increase in the initial report, the government said Monday.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 11, 2005

CL may hold playoffs sooner than you think

The Central League has decided to consider instituting a playoff system beginning in 2007, but we may be seeing postseason play between two CL teams a lot sooner.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 11, 2005

What price social equality since the ventriloquists' putsch?

On the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, is it too early to talk of a Bush legacy? What vision has the administration of President George W. Bush bestowed on the United States as a result of the terrorist attacks that day?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Sep 11, 2005

Assemblywoman puts sex on the agenda

In April 2003, 28-year-old Kanako Otsuji became the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka prefectural assembly when she won the seat for Sakai City. It was a distinction made more special by the fact that there were only six other women in the 110-member assembly at the time. However, another distinction...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 11, 2005

Here comes the naughty and the nice

Antony and the Johnsons (who?, I hear you say) may have won the Mercury Music Prize last Tuesday, but when the far more prestigious Fuzzy Logic awards are announced at the end of this year then the two bands profiled here are going to be in the running to get at least a gong apiece. Falsies on Heat must...
BUSINESS
Sep 9, 2005

Earnings projected up

Japan's four major steelmakers said Thursday they are on track to post record earnings for the year through March, citing strong demand from automakers and shipbuilders.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 7, 2005

Sales tax hike best solution, and it's urgent: expert

Raising the consumption tax may be considered political suicide.
JAPAN
Sep 6, 2005

Ishihara turns to Taipei as Beijing exits forum

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara will visit Taiwan on Tuesday to discuss ways to run a forum for major Asian cities, following the recent withdrawal of Beijing from the network, Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials said.
COMMENTARY
Sep 5, 2005

A historic scramble to rule

The Sept. 11 Lower House election will test Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's politics, giving voters a chance to choose the nation's leadership between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 4, 2005

When money and politics merge

THE THAKSINIZATION OF THAILAND, by Duncan McCargo and Ukrist Pathmanand. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2005, 277 pp., $23 (cloth). Thaksin Shinawatra is Thailand's flamboyant and controversial prime minister, a wealthy telecom magnate who has transformed the domestic political scene...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 4, 2005

For the love of Bollywood

BEHIND THE SCENES OF HINDI CINEMA. Edited by Johan Manschot and Marijke de Vos. With contributions by P.K. Nair, Deepa Gahlot, Gayatri Chatterjee et al. Foreword by Amitabh Bachchan, Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2005, 160 pp., profusely illustrated (cloth). The subtitle of this beautifully produced, lavishly...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 3, 2005

LDP, DPJ said on nearly same reform page

Despite heated debate between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan over which is the real champion of reform, both parties would pursue the ongoing fiscal reconsolidation the same way, a key member of the government's deregulation panel said.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2005

Budget ax poised to swing as agencies vie for shrinking pie

Starting Thursday, officials from government ministries and agencies will line up in the hallway outside the Finance Ministry Budget Bureau to make their annual pitches for hunks of the 2006 general account budget.
LIFE / Language
Sep 1, 2005

Peace scholarship looks to resourceful students

The Rotary Foundation, a century-old, worldwide benevolent group of over one million business and professional leaders, has a new scholarship on offer. Rotarians have long provided a variety of international exchange opportunities, but their newest project, the Rotary World Peace Scholarship, is committed...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2005

Where is the German vision?

WASHINGTON -- When German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder precipitated early elections in Germany, the decision to seek electoral guidance appeared appealing. Since then, the choices on Sept. 18 have been remarkable mainly for their paucity and obscurity. Unless the parties and their candidates are able...
Sep 1, 2005

Defense Agency wants 5 trillion yen

The Defense Agency on Wednesday requested 4.89 trillion yen in the fiscal 2006 budget to increase the capabilities of the Self-Defense Forces to counter threats to national security, including acts of terrorism, missile attacks and natural disasters.
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2005

Household spending sinks 3.3%

Spending by wage-earning households fell a real 3.3 percent in July from a year earlier to 323,515 yen, for the first decline in two months, the government said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2005

Foreign Ministry to seek 11.9% boost for ODA

The Foreign Ministry will request an 11.9 percent year-on-year increase in its budget for official development assistance for fiscal 2006, ministry officials said Monday.

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