Search - (2006-01-27)

 
 
EDITORIALS
Apr 24, 2006

Death to the Doha Round?

Mr. Joshua Bolten, the new chief of staff for U.S. President George W. Bush, is cleaning house in the White House. Mr. Bolten has two objectives: to restore the luster to the Bush presidency as it enters its final two years and help Republican candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. Yet, changes in...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 23, 2006

Ronald Searle's sketchbook of prisoner-of-war horrors

TO THE KWAI -- AND BACK: War Drawings 1939-1945, by Ronald Searle. Souvenir Press, 2006, 208 pp., £25 (cloth). Ronald Searle, one of the ablest and most famous British cartoonists, and the creator of the girls of "St. Trinians" strip, was a prisoner of war of the Japanese from February 1942 to August...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 23, 2006

Detective fiction written for the love of Tokyo

THE SNAKE THAT BOWED, by Edward Seidensticker, based on works by Okamoto Kido. Tokyo: Printed Matter Press, 2006, 144 pp., 1500 yen (paper). Edward Seidensticker, the most eminent translator from Japanese to English, is a man of many parts. Not only has he given us "The Tale of Genji," "The Makioka Sisters,"...
EDITORIALS
Apr 22, 2006

Trust and the Food Safety Commission

The trustworthiness of the Food Safety Commission appears to be in jeopardy. Half of the 12-member panel under the commission that was tasked with assessing the safety of North American beef resigned as of March 31. The six who quit were regarded by consumer groups as being cautious about the idea of...
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2006

McDonald's to boost 24-hour shops

McDonald's Co. (Japan) plans to open more 24-hour outlets and raise the price of its main products, according to its business plan for fiscal 2006.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 21, 2006

Keeping rock simple

Jad Fair is the most unlikely of rock heroes. In his 40s, yet with the tall and gangly body of an adolescent and the naive blue eyes of a child, he looks like a preternaturally wide-eyed manga character.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Apr 21, 2006

Psychedelic radar 04.21

Saturday, April 22
BUSINESS
Apr 19, 2006

Patent Office hands out IP awards

Academics, corporate leaders and companies were among recipients Tuesday of the Japan Patent Office's 2006 intellectual property rights system awards.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006

Ugly and macho or ultimate supercool on wheels?

The streets of central Tokyo are thronged with countless high-end automobiles, but one model above all others stands out from the crowd. Two meters high and 2.1 meters wide, with a mean, military-style mien, the Hummer H2 is hard to miss among the massed ranks of Toyotas, Nissans, Beemers and Mercs....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 15, 2006

Maureen Tan

When Mutsuko Miki, widow of former Prime Minister Takeo Miki, set up the Asian Ladies Friendship Society in 1968, she could not have projected how the society would rate in 2006. To her gratification, ALFS today, expanded to the Asia-Pacific Ladies Friendship Society, has 24 member countries and a general...
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2006

Wage gap getting wider

Income disparities have widened among people in their 20s in Japan and will likely get wider despite Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's denial of such a trend, according to an annual government report now under compilation.
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2006

Tokyo condo supply rose in March

The number of condominiums put on sale in the Tokyo metropolitan area in March rose 13.4 percent from a year earlier to 7,596 units, the first year-on-year increase in five months, the Real Estate Economic Institute said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2006

FamilyMart's net rose 12% in '05

Convenience store chain FamilyMart Co. said Tuesday its consolidated net profit jumped 12.5 percent to 14.20 billion yen in the year that ended in February on 9.3 percent sales growth to 276.44 billion yen.
BUSINESS
Apr 12, 2006

Japan tells China to change 'unfair' trade practices

Japan urged China on Tuesday to alter trade practices that it considers unfair, such as imposing tariffs on auto parts that are as high as those on assembled cars, and expanding its list of hazardous chemicals on short notice to effectively block exports of items that contain them.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 9, 2006

New generation has Arsenal dreaming

LONDON -- From The Invincibales of England to The Unbeatables and Impenetrables of Europe, the Gunners continued their march toward the Champions League final with the confidence and style of a team that reflects its manager's football philosophy.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 9, 2006

Looking at the big picture of Kyoto

CAPITALSCAPES: Folding Screens and Political Imagination in Late Medieval Kyoto, by Matthew Philip McKelway. Honolulu, University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 282 pp., 24 color plates, numerous b/w illustrations, $56.00 (cloth). One of the major formats in the history of Japanese painting are the byobu-e,...
BUSINESS
Apr 8, 2006

Yoshinoya halves loss, harbors high hopes

Yoshinoya D&C Co. President Shuji Abe on Friday painted a rosy picture for his company, one in which United States beef imports resume by September, sharply boosting profit at the restaurant chain famed for its beef-on-rice bowl dishes in time for the latter half of the business year.
EDITORIALS
Apr 8, 2006

Problems in textbook screening

The Education, Science and Technology Ministry has screened and approved 306 textbooks, most of them for first-year high-school students, for use from next spring. Departing from the original screening policy, the ministry has accepted inclusion of topics and concepts beyond the scope of the current...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 6, 2006

U.S. is its own worst enemy

HONG KONG -- U.S. congressmen heartily congratulated themselves when -- after their outcry -- Dubai Ports World backed off and decided to relinquish control of the U.S. ports that were included in its takeover of P&O.
SPORTS / E-LIST
Apr 5, 2006

No ducking WBC's highs and lows

Welcome to the E-List, home of integrity and baseball, although the two are one in the E-List's mind. And the List does have a mind of its own, which brings me to the next point.
COMMENTARY
Apr 4, 2006

Hope dims for plebiscite bill

Now that the budget bills for fiscal 2006 have cleared both houses of the National Diet, one of the focal issues for the remainder of the current session will be how to reconcile conflicting views between the ruling and opposition parties over legislation on plebiscites, a process indispensable for amending...
BUSINESS
Apr 4, 2006

Manufacturers' confidence takes surprising drop

Confidence among major manufacturers dropped unexpectedly -- albeit slightly -- in the first quarter of the year due to high oil prices, marking the first decline in four quarters, according to the Bank of Japan's closely watched "tankan" survey released Monday.
BUSINESS
Apr 4, 2006

850,000 new grads enter workforce

An estimated 850,000 new graduates from colleges and high schools joined the workforce Monday, up several hundred thousand from last year as many companies hired more young people on the back of the economic recovery and ahead of the upcoming mass retirement of postwar baby boomers.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Apr 4, 2006

"Regarding the Sink," "Magyk: Septimus Heap Book One"

"Regarding the Sink," Kate Klise, Harcourt; 2005; 127pp.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 1, 2006

Giants rout BayStars on Opening Day

Opening Day must be Koji Uehara's least favorite day of the year, but things change.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 1, 2006

Play of young Guns illustrates Wenger's eye for talent

LONDON -- We should have known better than to question Arsene Wenger's judgment.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan