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Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 23, 2006

Brewers basking in the summer economic heat but the future looks flat

As the summer heats up, the beer is flowing around backyard barbecue grills and rooftop beer gardens in city centers. And this year, a recovering economy is putting a little extra fizz into beer sales.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2006

Following arson attack, Kato warns of 'dangerous' nationalism emerging

Veteran lawmaker Koichi Kato, victim of an arson attack on one of his houses last week following his criticism of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, is warning that signs of "dangerous" nationalism are increasing in Japan.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 20, 2006

Notes on Yasukuni and a week that will live in infamy

Following his historic visit to Yasukuni Shrine last Tuesday on the 61st anniversary of Japan's surrender, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spoke to the media. As usual, his comments had the bland quality of safely scripted pronouncements, but at one point he paused significantly: "I prayed for those...
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2006

Lobbying firm strives to be bridge to Diet

and Daniel Lintz of Nagatacho Forum pose at a Tokyo hotel in July. PETER CROOKES PHOTO
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2006

For guitar-loving Japanese, it's gotta be American and it better be Gibson

The hand-aged Gibson Les Paul Special is a replica of the 1960 original, but an American master craftsman made it exactly the way the guitar would look today, complete with aging, cracked paint and dents from scuffs and scratches.
BUSINESS
Aug 19, 2006

Sugar prices soar amid demand for bio-ethanol

High oil prices have been causing rises in not only fuel and material costs but also in one thing consumers are more familiar with -- sugar.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 18, 2006

JCG foils Senkaku landing try

A boatload of Taiwanese activists tried to approach disputed uninhabited islets controlled by Japan in the East China Sea early Thursday but was warned away by Japan Coast Guard ships before managing to enter Japan's territorial waters, JCG officials said.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 18, 2006

Kiwi-Japanese folk fusion tours unlikeliest venues

Tokyo-based New Zealander Ben Kemp is currently taking his Kiwi-Japanese folk fusion on a 22-date tour of Japan that will mainly take in small towns in the northern parts of Japan at unlikely venues, including a former sake warehouse and on a stage where the famed butoh dancer Kazuo Ono once performed....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2006

Entrepreneur beats heavy odds to make comeback

When Katsumi Iizuka personally assumed in 2001 the 2.4 billion yen debt that his failed personal computer firm had accumulated, few would have expected him to make a comeback.
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2006

Despite Oji's likely failure, M&As catching on

Japan appears to have entered a new era of mergers and acquisitions with Oji Paper Co.'s recent takeover bid for Hokuetsu Paper Mills Ltd.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 15, 2006

Affiliate marketing now coming of age

"Half my advertising budget is wasted, but I don't know which half," goes the old retailer's quip, but this dilemma may someday be a thing of the past. If so, affiliate marketing, a type of pay-for-performance advertising, will get some of the credit.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2006

Paraguay envoy looks back on emigration plan that worked

, now the Japan International Cooperation Agency, played a key role in assisting the emigrants to Paraguay and improving their lives, providing them with agricultural knowhow. Hospitals and schools were built with aid from Japan, while JICA experts collaborated to improve soybean strains and advised...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 15, 2006

No shortcuts to free access

Last January, a major scandal broke over budget hotel chain Toyoko Inn Co.'s illegal removal of special guest rooms and parking spots set up for the disabled after the construction of those facilities had passed official inspection. Toyoko Inn converted the special rooms into normal rooms and the special...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 13, 2006

High-school baseball pitches the way of the samurai

It's said that even Japanese people who don't like baseball still get caught up in the annual summer high-school baseball tournament, which happens to be taking place right now at Koshien Stadium in Hyogo Prefecture. Apparently, this same paradox applies to at least one American. On the Internet message...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 13, 2006

NHK's "Nihon to Ta-ttakatta Nikkeijin," Fuji's "Unbelievable" and more

In commemoration of the Aug. 15, 1945 Japan surrender in the Pacific War, NHK is presenting a documentary about the Japanese-American interpreters who worked with the American military during and after World War II.
EDITORIALS
Aug 13, 2006

Too risk-averse to take issue

Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda put a damper on the Liberal Democratic Party's presidential race when he dropped out of the running. Who will succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September?
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2006

Sister of B-29 copilot visits crash site in Ibaraki

TSUKUBAMIRAI, Ibaraki Pref. -- Wilma Cook remembers how hard her father tried to discover what happened to her brother, 2nd Lt. Eugene Cook, when his B-29 bomber crashed in Japan during an air raid in March 1945.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2006

BOJ gets leeway as Fed pauses interest rate hikes: economist

The U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to pause rather than end its drive to raise interest rates has taken some of the pressure off the Bank of Japan, which is planning rate hikes of its own, according to analysts.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2006

Volunteer group's play tells refugee's harrowing tale

A Tokyo-based group working to raise awareness of the plight of people seeking asylum in Japan is performing a play that depicts the struggle of a refugee who lives under constant fear of deportation.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 10, 2006

There's an art to saving country life

Just a few hours north of Tokyo's seemingly endless sprawl is the mountainous region of Echigo-Tsumari in Niigata Prefecture. Like so many other rural parts of northern Japan, it is a rugged, isolated, aging and economically stagnant place where elderly men and women can be found doubled over in terraced...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 10, 2006

First U.S. beef since ban goes on sale at Costco

U.S. beef went on sale Wednesday for the first time since the lifting of a ban imposed in January over mad cow disease, officials from the stores selling the meat said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 10, 2006

Looking beyond the West

Art historian Dr. Charles Merewether is the artistic director and curator of the 2006 Biennale of Sydney (established 1973). Merewether has worked and taught in Mexico, Spain, Australia and the United States and is the author of a number of books on art, including "Art, Anti-Art, Non-Art: Experimentations...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’