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JAPAN
Oct 6, 2005

Weekly admits plagiarizing wire poll stories

The weekly magazine Shukan Kinyobi has apologized to Kyodo News and Jiji Press for plagiarizing stories from the two news agencies about the Sept. 11 general election.
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2005

Six held in bogus mushroom ads

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested six people Wednesday including an executive of a Tokyo-based publisher on suspicion of violating the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law by advertising in books a type of mushroom as a treatment for cancer.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2005

A lesson from Pakistan on proliferation

ISLAMABAD -- The controversy surrounding North Korea's nuclear program is a reminder of past miscues in Pakistan, whose disgraced nuclear scientist, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, was accused last year of selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2005

High courts not on same page on Yasukuni visits

Last week's conflicting high court rulings on Prime Minister's contentious visits to Yasukuni Shrine showed that the judicial system of the world's second-largest economy is sharply divided on the politically sensitive issue.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2005

Japan's tech may be up to SST task but business prospects adding drag

Preparing for a crucial flight test this week, officials with the key contractor developing a Japanese supersonic jet said they are confident they have the technology to make the project fly -- but not so sure of its future business prospects.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 4, 2005

Hidden wisdom of 'the guv,' Shintaro Ishihara

Adored by large sections of the Japanese public, reviled in equal measure by the foreign community and courted tirelessly by the domestic media: There are few more divisive figures in Japan today than Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2005

Winning doesn't make him right

The Osaka High Court on Friday found unconstitutional Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's three visits to Yasukuni Shrine from 2001 to 2003. The court said the visits violated Article 20, Section 3, of the Constitution, which prohibits religious education and any other "religious" activity by the state...
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2005

Marks match on freighter, capsized boat

The Japan Coast Guard on Sunday examined a fishing boat found capsized last week with seven of its crew dead and said marks on it appear to match damage found on an Israeli freighter.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 3, 2005

Japan's GDP and GNP: How far will the domestic and the national spread?

Numerical targets are much in vogue these days. The post-election Koizumi government also seems to have caught the bug in light of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy's latest plans for managing the economy over the medium to longer term.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 2, 2005

Killing your career in the media to keep your superiors happy

The vocation of journalism in Japan is not exactly the same as it is in the West. The "kisha club" system makes reporters beholden to the bureaucrats and politicians they cover rather than to the public they're supposed to serve, while the Japanese corporate tradition of on-the-job training means that...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 2, 2005

A stinging voice of conscience who told it like it is

He would have turned 80 this month. And in our time of ill-lived religious fanatics and retrograde policy planners, we feel his loss all the more.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 2, 2005

The looking glass of Chinese history

MIRRORING THE PAST: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China, by On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005, 307 pp., $50 (cloth). It was the 19th-century English historian E.A. Freeman who observed that "history is past politics, and politics is present history."...
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2005

NHK censorship story had 'uncertain' info: Asahi

The Asahi Shimbun admitted Friday that an article it ran in January about an NHK documentary in 2001 contained "uncertain" information but the daily has no plans to correct it.
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2005

U.S. state denied trial exemption in suit over firing

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday dismissed a request by the U.S. state of Georgia seeking a trial exemption in connection with a lawsuit filed by a former employee of the Georgia port authority's Tokyo office.
EDITORIALS
Sep 30, 2005

Extending the SDF missions

The government has opted to extend by one year the Maritime Self-Defense Force mission to supply fuel in the Indian Ocean to ships of the U.S. Navy and allied nations engaged in antiterrorist activities related to security in Afghanistan. A law specifying a duration of two years -- enacted after the...
BUSINESS
Sep 27, 2005

'Yes-no' sensor eyed for ALS patients

Hitachi Ltd. and two other entities announced Monday they plan to market by year's end a brain blood flow-measuring device that will enable sufferers of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to respond with "yes" or "no" to questions posed to them.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2005

Aichi World Expo comes to a close on a sunny note

NAGAKUTE, Aichi Pref. -- The Aichi World Expo ended Sunday with gorgeous weather, record crowds and a sense of a job well done among organizers and participants.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Sep 25, 2005

Storm surge of deficit spending forecast

WASHINGTON -- When things go wrong, they all go wrong for U.S. President George W. Bush. We have watched his approval ratings sag through the summer as his policies in Iraq and elsewhere have begun to unravel. Then came Hurricane Katrina nearly four weeks ago, and it appears that the bottom has fallen...
Features
Sep 25, 2005

Shinobazu Pond

"Listen," said Nishizawa-san.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 24, 2005

Get ready for the Hokkaido steeplechase temple pilgrimage

The Buddhist pilgrimage, a type of holy hiking, is an ancient tradition in Japan that requires visiting temples, bushwhacking through brush and swatting mosquitoes. There are two kinds of pilgrimages: big and small. The big ones like the Shikoku 88-temple pilgrimage take five to six weeks to walk (six...
COMMENTARY
Sep 22, 2005

Japan's 'Thatcher' moment?

LONDON -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koziumi's smashing election victory could give him the same kind of political power as that which fell into the hands of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Should he therefore follow the Thatcher recipes and methods for structural economic reform,...
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Sep 20, 2005

Maru boats

Dear Alice,
COMMUNITY / LIFELINES
Sep 20, 2005

T-shirts, leave and a reminder

T-shirt exchange "Get it Pumping!", "I'm a steel driving man," "Almost famous," and "New Kids on the Block world tour." Random English adverts on the train? An English lesson gone wrong?
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 20, 2005

Brought to heel

The watchdog role of journalists in Japan is on trial in several cases with enormous implications for freedom of the press here
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2005

A mandate to finish the job

The Sept. 11 general election produced stunning results unprecedented in Japanese political history. Unaffiliated voters gave overwhelming support to the governing Liberal Democratic Party, handing the LDP-New Komeito coalition more than two-thirds of the 480-seat Lower House. Paradoxically, conservative...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji