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JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Ministers won't quit over pension scandal

Six Cabinet members who failed to pay their mandatory national pension premiums said Friday they will not follow in the footsteps of Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda and step down.
EDITORIALS
May 7, 2004

Oil for favors at the U.N.?

Allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the oil-for-food program administered by the United Nations in Iraq during the 1990s are not new. The attention that is being devoted to them today is. The scrutiny is long overdue. The world needs to know how Saddam Hussein manipulated this humanitarian...
JAPAN
May 7, 2004

Toyota Aristo tops car thieves' shopping lists

Toyota Motor Corp.'s Aristo sedan was the most popular target for car thieves in Japan last year, according to the results of a survey released Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 5, 2004

'Kill Bill: Vol. 2': Back into the pit of vipers

True originality is a many-splintered thing. Let us recall that Shakespeare was indebted to Marlowe, Picasso drew inspiration from African totems and Van Gogh dug ukiyoe prints. Then this thing called postmodernism gave artists carte blanche to quote, sample, appropriate, reinterpret -- you name it,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
May 2, 2004

Ryuichi Hirokawa: Picture this . .

With soldiers silhouetted against dramatic desert sunsets, or helicopters swooping over cityscapes, most mainstream-media photographs we see of the war in Iraq are nothing if not models of artistic composition and taste.
COMMENTARY
May 1, 2004

Shelve NYSE derivative plan

LOS ANGELES -- Deliberately injecting a new dollop of uncertainty into the already-shaky international financial system has got to be the white-collar dysfunctional equivalent of dropping a pair of terrorism car bombs on the steps of some nation's central bank.
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.
MORE SPORTS
Apr 29, 2004

Jones, Montgomery may skip Osaka

Triple Olympic champion Marion Jones and 100 meter record-holder Tim Montgomery have pulled out of the IAAF Japan Grand Prix next month, local media reported Wednesday.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 29, 2004

Knicks a long way from being a factor

NEW YORK -- Say this much for the Knicks, at least they weren't swept by the Red Sox. But, really, what did you expect?
Features / LIFE OR DEATH
Apr 25, 2004

'I became an accessory to legal murder'

'The death penalty is legal murder, and as someone who has stood by and watched it being carried out, I am an accessory to murder."
BUSINESS
Apr 24, 2004

Investment companies to form tieup

Softbank Investment Corp. and Hong Kong investment company SW Kingsway Capital Holdings Ltd. will set up joint ventures in Japan and Hong Kong in mid-May to help Japanese and Chinese firms advance into Japanese and Hong Kong markets, Softbank Investment said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2004

Bush's blinkered nonproliferation policy

NEW DELHI -- Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have emerged as the two most pressing issues in international relations. Since 9/11, the United States has used the two to advance its strategic interests, linking them to reinforce international concerns about a terror-WMD nexus. This has...
JAPAN
Apr 20, 2004

Average value of assets held by Lower House members falls

The average value of assets held by 478 House of Representatives lawmakers elected last November stands at 51.6 million yen, excluding stocks, according to a Kyodo News survey released Monday.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2004

DPJ to field activist singer Kina

The Democratic Party of Japan plans to field Okinawan singer Shokichi Kina, who held a peace concert last year in Baghdad, as a candidate in the House of Councilors election in July, party lawmakers said Saturday.
Japan Times
Features
Apr 18, 2004

Hanging by a thread

Spurned by many top Japanese designers, patchy in quality and sprawling over a month at a mishmash of venues, the twice-yearly Tokyo Collections -- whose fall/winter 2004/05 shows end this week -- still lay claim to being the highpoints of Asia's fashion year. But are Tokyo's days numbered as the `Paris...
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2004

Soliciting for oldest trade with Shibuya-style spin

Announcements at a JR Shibuya Station exit warn people to be on guard for strangers approaching them, and police outside are on constant watch to ensure pedestrians aren't accosted.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2004

By-election races focus on Iraq, pensions

The Japanese hostage crisis in Iraq and pension reform weighed heavy on the agenda as House of Representatives by-election campaigning kicked off Tuesday in Saitama, Hiroshima and Kagoshima prefectures.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 14, 2004

Tale of two trips: 1955 Yankees here weeks, 2004 team days

It has been two weeks since the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Devil Rays cleared out of Japan following that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the Japanese fans to see the Bronx Bombers play official games right here in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Apr 14, 2004

Pots that fired the passion of a magnate

Centuries ago, during a brief span of 30-40 years, one of the classic styles of Japanese pottery was born. From the end of the Momoyama Period into the early Edo Period (late 16th-early 17th centuries) nearly 300 kilns were producing wares the world knows as Karatsu-yaki.
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2004

Little hope for Sri Lanka

Thirty years of civil war have done irreparable harm to Sri Lanka. The fight by the island's Tamils to secure a homeland has claimed more than 60,000 lives and deeply fractured the nation. A peace process appeared to be making progress, but divisions among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority derailed those...
COMMENTARY
Apr 13, 2004

Pakistani military tightens grip on power

ISLAMABAD In a year when Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has promised to step down as head of the military and continue only as a civilian president, his decision to back the Parliament's approval of a new national security council, or NSC, raises fresh concerns over the future of democracy....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Apr 11, 2004

'Experimental novelist' kicks the regular rulebook into touch

During a recent tour to Guam, members of the Tsunami Teetotallers (a Japan-based ad hoc rugby team) were left speechless when, during prematch introductions, their scrumhalf Richard Beard declared himself to be an English "experimental novelist."
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Apr 4, 2004

"News Station" becomes "Hodo Station" on TV Asahi and more

On March 26, TV Asahi's nightly news program, "News Station," ended after 18 1/2 years and 4,795 programs. Host Hiroshi Kume wrapped up the record run with a toast.
BUSINESS
Apr 3, 2004

Itochu forecasts 32 billion yen loss due to asset write-down

Trading house Itochu Corp. said Friday it will book a 125 billion yen charge to write down the value of fixed assets for fiscal 2003, joining a growing list of companies that have front-loaded an accounting rule change scheduled for fiscal 2005.
BASEBALL / MLB
Apr 1, 2004

Agreement expected on World Cup tourney

Baseball's chief labor negotiator expects an agreement soon with the players' association on a World Cup tournament, putting aside for now the larger issue of drug tests during the regular season.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 28, 2004

A subversive sampler of the future

Since the '80s -- when the first samplers came on the market -- sampling in music has evolved from a revolutionary and barely understood practice to become a standard tool in the production of even the most mundane pop song. It's all in the hands of the user -- and when those hands belong to Coldcut,...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan