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JAPAN
Feb 16, 2006

Critics cry white elephant while backers hunker down and hope

KOBE -- It was the airport nobody except the Kobe Municipal Government and a few local business leaders originally wanted.
OLYMPICS
Feb 16, 2006

Okazaki misses out on medal in 500

Veteran speed skater Tomomi Okazaki was overtaken in the second run of the women's 500-meter event Tuesday, narrowly missing out on a podium finish at the Turin Olympics.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2006

Soga did brief tutoring in North: Jenkins

SADO, Niigata Pref. (Kyodo) Ex-U.S. Army deserter Charles Jenkins, who spent four decades in North Korea and now lives in Japan, said Wednesday his wife, freed Pyongyang abductee Hitomi Soga, only had to coach six men and women, including army officers, in Japanese on three occasions in the North between...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2006

Egypt ambassador counsels caution on cartoons

Attacks like the ones on the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon last weekend could take place in Japan if the media here insult Muslims by reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr warned Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2006

Politics loom at Kansai business meet

KYOTO -- The 44th annual Kansai Economic Seminar began in Kyoto Thursday, but in the opening speeches and plenary sessions, social and political concerns instead of economic issues received the lion's share of attention.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 7, 2006

Twisted legal logic deals rights blow to foreigners

Steve McGowan, an African-American resident of Kyoto, sued an eyeglass shop in Daito City, Osaka Prefecture, for refusing him entry in 2004 on the basis of the color of his skin.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 6, 2006

Dementieva batters Hingis at Pan Pacific

Russia's Elena Dementieva ended Martina Hingis' bid for a first singles title in her comeback with a crushing 6-2, 6-0 win in the Pan Pacific Open on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Feb 5, 2006

Rule of the people, by our people, for our people

There is a specter haunting the world. The specter is democracy. As U.S. President George W. Bush never fails to remind us: Democracy is on the march and there is no stopping it.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 4, 2006

New auto jobs, not quotas

WASHINGTON -- U.S. automakers are in dire straits. While non-U.S. brands are gaining market share, both GM and Ford have announced major plant closings and substantial layoffs. For some, these announcements have raised the specter of a return to the policies of the 1980s, when the United States imposed...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jan 29, 2006

With Horie's downfall, who can young Japan look up to?

The media has had a field day with Takafumi Horie, the 33-year-old founder of the communications firm Livedoor.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 29, 2006

A reliquary for the story of Buddha

BUDDHISM: On the Path to Nirvana, by Swati Chopra, foreword by Lokesh Chandra, photo editor Lance Dane. New Delhi: Brijbasi Art Press, Ltd., 2005, 160 pp., 200 color photos, $35 (cloth). The true accomplishments of any leader are often compromised when legend wraps itself around the man himself. This...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 25, 2006

Saving our environment one step at a time

Having ended 2005 with a rant (see below), let me begin 2006 on a more positive note by introducing some valuable environmental education resources.
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2006

Something wiki this way comes

'W ikipedia": Anyone looking for information online in the last few years is bound to have come across this funny word. Type any search term into Google, and a Wikipedia entry will probably pop up somewhere on the first page or two. On "Japan," for example, the Wikipedia entry comes in an impressive...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 22, 2006

Home from home

The first Doreen Wingate saw of Yokohama was the immigration and customs office next to the now famous Red Brick Warehouse on Shinko Pier. The year was 1952, and Doreen, her husband and 6-month-old son were arriving in Japan by ship, the same way as most of Yokohama's fledgling expatriate community....
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2006

A new empire is shaken

Mr. Takafumi Horie, president of the high-flying Internet services company Livedoor Co., has once again been thrown into the media spotlight as a criminal investigation into his business activities begins.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2006

Heretical to the Asia concept

The European Union is a community founded on the concept of Europe. This concept has been nurtured by the historical consciousness of Europeans to overcome national rivalries and to maintain European traditions. The process of consolidating such consciousness has, however, been accompanied by a process...
EDITORIALS
Jan 15, 2006

A psychedelic anniversary

'M ost human beings live nowadays in big cities, in a dead world. They go to the moon, but don't even know how to look at a starry sky." The Swiss scientist who made that remark in a television interview ahead of his 100th birthday last Wednesday certainly did his bit to promote star-gazing -- of a sort....
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jan 15, 2006

Full of the fittest intentions

I nervously typed the numbers onto the Web site -- first my height, then my weight. I held my breath and clicked "Calculate."
COMMENTARY
Jan 13, 2006

Gas as a weapon of choice

LONDON -- What did the Russians hope to achieve? Their threat two weeks ago, now happily averted, to cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine unless it immediately paid four times the current contract price was bound from the start to backfire.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2006

Ministry defends not telling Koizumi of diplomat's suicide

The Foreign Ministry on Wednesday defended its actions in not informing the Prime Minister's office about the 2004 suicide of a Japanese diplomat in Shanghai.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2006

Moot 'right' raises risk of dying at home

NEW YORK -- Under the slogan "If you have a weapon you have a problem," the Ministry of Justice in Argentina has initiated a campaign against gun ownership in the country. It began as a response to a request from several nongovernmental organizations concerned about the high levels of violent deaths...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2006

Keys to greater prosperity

WASHINGTON -- As we begin a new year, we look for guideposts to help governments and business improve economic performance. In a world of global competition, the platform provided to firms and individuals is crucial to growth and prosperity. From observations comparing countries that do well with those...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 8, 2006

Unsparing view of Indonesia past

IN THE TIME OF MADNESS by Richard Lloyd Parry. London: Jonathan Cape, 2005, 315 pp., £12.99 (paper). This firsthand account of fin de siecle Indonesia, an era of widespread chaos and violence, takes us into the heart of darkness, searing our consciousness with images of deprivation, fear and mayhem...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 7, 2006

Getting away? No easy trick

Think you need to get away? In our case, a mother-in-law in dwindling health, jobs of various importance and a sense of responsibility too puffed up for our own good had resulted in this: For six years my wife and I had not taken a vacation. And this in beehive-busy Japan.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 7, 2006

Kagura theater: talking with gods

Every four years on our island, we have a New Year's kagura performance. You don't just sit back and watch kagura; you become a part of it whether you intend to or not. All the other events on the island over the past four years seemed like mere practice sessions compared to kagura.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Dec 31, 2005

Is hiking taxes the solution to Japan's fiscal mess?

The nation has no choice but to make salaried workers pay more taxes to put its finances in order.
JAPAN
Dec 31, 2005

Overseas challenges attractive for JICA senior volunteers

When Setsuko Inoue was 57 years old, she quit her job as a principal at an elementary school in Tokyo's Suginami Ward and served as a volunteer worker for a day-care center for physically and mentally disabled children in Nepal.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear