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Dec 16, 2004

State petitioned to ID bones linked to Unit 731

Scholars and residents of Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, submitted a petition Wednesday to the central government to have a superimposing method used to confirm whether human bones dug up there belong to six wartime prisoners who may have been subject to atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army's infamous...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2004

Give Japan's royal diplomacy a chance

Something is amiss within Japan's Imperial household. For nearly a year now, the Crown Princess Masako has suspended her official functions for "health reasons." The public knew next to nothing about the details of her disposition or the effectiveness of treatment, for reasons that included the extreme...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2004

Princess turns 41; seen on the mend

Crown Princess Masako marked her 41st birthday Thursday by continuing to show signs of recuperating from a stress-induced illness and raising prospects that she might resume some official duties for New Year's.
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2004

Bureaucrat gets suspended term for JDA bribes

The Tokyo District Court sentenced a former chief of the Social Insurance Agency to a suspended 2 1/2-year prison term Thursday for accepting bribes from the nation's main dental lobby while serving on a government advisory panel.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2004

More effort urged to curb youth drug use

The man was 17 when he took speed for the first time, experimenting with a high school friend by inhaling the amphetamine in smoke form.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2004

Government is urged to offer more help for foreigners with HIV, AIDS

A group of researchers and nongovernmental organizations is urging the government to reinforce support measures for foreigners with HIV or AIDS in Japan.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Nov 18, 2004

Bush-Kerry presidential contest was one for the textbooks

WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush's re-election victory was a masterpiece of political strategy and execution by the Bush campaign team. There has been a feeling of relief throughout the nation that:
EDITORIALS
Nov 15, 2004

Auditors, don't be shy

Every annual report from the Board of Audit (BOA), an independent government body, makes dismal reading -- until you get to the bottom line. The latest says that 43 billion yen in taxpayer money was wasted and misused in fiscal 2003. That is the largest amount in 20 years. The report gives appalling...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 14, 2004

Strategy maximizes Iraqi civilian deaths

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- The stunning revelations that postinvasion Iraqi deaths are three to 10 times higher than any previous estimates will be a major embarrassment for the Bush administration.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2004

Neocon lessons for Democrats

WASHINGTON -- As Democrats comb the 2004 election results for lessons, one should be obvious: we need bolder, newer ideas, particularly in this post-9/11 world in the realm of foreign policy. Just as neocons have provided much of the spark and intellectual energy behind modern-day Republicanism, Democrats...
EDITORIALS
Oct 24, 2004

Tallying national happiness

I n most countries, progress is measured in terms of GNP or GDP -- gross national or domestic product. But one small country has adopted a startlingly different yardstick. In 1972, the king of Bhutan declared that progress in the landlocked Himalayan mini-kingdom would henceforward be gauged in terms...
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2004

Japanese dads told to get involved in family life

Japanese fathers should take more responsibility in family affairs, allowing females to better participate in the labor force, according to the visiting Finnish social affairs minister.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 21, 2004

Candidates focus on battleground states

WASHINGTON -- Regardless of what you thought of the idea before the debates came off, chances are you will have to admit that the 2004 U.S. presidential debates provided a rare and welcome opportunity to get a better understanding of the two candidates, U.S. President George W. Bush and Massachusetts...
EDITORIALS
Oct 15, 2004

Enough words, let's see some action

The Social Insurance Agency, which has been accused of corruption and criticized for wasteful use of pension-insurance premiums, has announced a set of countermeasures aimed at reforming itself through its own efforts. However, many of the measures are presumed to have been enforceable within the existing...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2004

Iraq asks donor states to boost aid

Iraq's deputy prime minister on Wednesday called on the international community to increase the flow of aid and speed up the implementation of projects to help rebuild the war-torn country.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2004

Japan must open door to foreign workers, panel head says

The government needs to look at the broader picture and actively work to open the domestic labor market to unskilled workers so Japan is not alienated from the global community.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2004

Ministries to pave way for U.S. beef imports

The health and farm ministries will present policy blueprints aimed at easing blanket testing for mad cow disease to an advisory panel as early as Friday, setting the stage for a resumption of U.S. beef imports, sources said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2004

Living wills need legal recognition: conference

Living wills created by terminally ill patients need to gain greater legal recognition in order to ensure their effectiveness, participants at the opening of an international conference on the right to die said Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2004

Latest mad cow case spotlights nationwide spread

The health minister said Tuesday the discovery of Japan's 12th case of mad cow disease in Kyushu testifies to the nationwide spread of the illness.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2004

India continues to shine for only a few

MADRAS, India -- One important cause for the debacle of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition in the recent Indian general elections was their slogan, "India Shining." Some analysts feel that it alienated the country's millions of poor people.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 9, 2004

Heartening news for some from an Ice Age gene mutation

In Terry Gilliam's 1985 film "Brazil," a tiny printing error in a bureaucratic document leads to the mistaken arrest and detention of an innocent man. A single letter is changed in a file and the set of instructions are automatically followed by the authorities.
COMMUNITY
Sep 4, 2004

Unhappy? Confused? Traumatized? Try IMHPJ

As the only native German-speaking accredited clinical psychologist in all Japan, Uta Sonnenberg-Watanabe is in transition.
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2004

Unionization now option for part-timers

Working conditions have been declining at many firms in recent years as the economic slump drags on, and especially hard-hit have been those with "temporary" status, as they face falling wages and shortened contracts.
COMMENTARY
Aug 29, 2004

Refighting the Medicare budget battle

WASHINGTON -- Medicare, which offers health-care coverage for America's elderly, faces trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities. Unfortunately, legislators are constantly tempted to increase benefits and thus spending. They should resist their inner darkness as the Bush administration attempts to...

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