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EDITORIALS
Aug 31, 2004

Medal bonanza was not a fluke

The performance of Japanese athletes at the Athens Olympics came as nothing less than spectacular for their compatriots.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 31, 2004

'I want to clear my name and the name of my country'

One morning Islam Mohamed Himu woke up to find the Japanese media camped outside his home, and plainclothes police officers banging on his front door.
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2004

Feeling the enemy's breath

LONDON -- The Americans are going home. Or, to be more precise, after more than 60 years, 70,000 American military personnel are to be gradually withdrawn from the European arena. Since the present number of American troops under "European command" is 116,000, this will leave in the longer term between...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2004

Okada assured of return to DPJ helm

Katsuya Okada was assured of re-election as president of the Democratic Party of Japan on Monday after no one stepped forward to challenge him.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Aug 30, 2004

Financial-sector shakedown afoot

Amid close scrutiny both in Japan and abroad, the integration of Japan's major banks is progressing at a rapid pace -- and triggering unprecedented legal battles in the process.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Aug 30, 2004

Fear of cultural decline: the next chapter

NEW YORK -- Every August my wife Nancy and I leave New York to go south to spend two weeks at a friend's summer house at Sunset Beach, North Carolina. Driving leisurely, mainly so we can ride ferries on Delaware Bay and on Pamlico Sound, we stop for two nights on the way, usually lodging in Onley, Virginia,...
EDITORIALS
Aug 29, 2004

Another 'Americanization'

A merican consumers have been described as "quick to spend" while Japanese consumers have been "slow to spend." In fact, Americans tend to spend the extra money they get rather than save it. So a tax cut quickly boosts spending, often leading to an overheating of the economy. A culture of overconsumption...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2004

Golden efforts belie risk-averse image

WASHINGTON -- A stereotype exists in the United States and elsewhere: Japanese are risk-avoiders while Americans are risk-takers.
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2004

Jobless rate logs biggest increase in six years

Japan's unemployment rate rose to 4.9 percent in July, up 0.3 percentage point from June, the sharpest rise in six years, the government said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2004

Halfway home is far from a China deal

MADRAS, India -- The Dalai Lama is still the leader of Tibet. He may be just a figurehead, but China, which annexed Tibet in 1959 and drove the Dalai Lama and his followers into India, knows that only this monk can convince his people to reconcile to Beijing's control over Lhasa.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2004

Voice actors win damages for video and DVD products

The Tokyo High Court ordered an animation company and its subsidiary Wednesday to pay approximately 88 million yen in damages to 361 voice actors for converting cartoons they performed on into videos and DVDs without their consent.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 26, 2004

Thinking aloud

Does language determine thought? Are there concepts in some languages that can't be understood in others because that language doesn't have the word for it?
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Aug 24, 2004

Question to Japanese in Australia: Will you ever go home?

Yumi Sugiyama Retail worker I have no desire to return because Japanese society is very square. Here, everything is more free. We can get Japanese food here, but it's not the same. I miss deep baths.
Features
Aug 22, 2004

Keeping it in the club

On Oct. 16 last year, Hans van der Lugt, a correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, telephoned the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry with a simple inquiry.
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2004

Barbaric immigration policy

Japan's current campaign against visa overstayers is both puzzling and cruel.
COMMENTARY
Aug 21, 2004

Bad book with good message

LONDON -- Here's a slightly crazy story for these hot summer days. The book the whole world is reading on its holidays -- or at any rate the whole English-speaking world -- is called "The Da Vinci Code," by the American writer Dan Brown.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 19, 2004

Down in the grim intertidal zone

A coffee-shop friend of mine recently summed up his appreciation of our local lowland forest just outside Sapporo, saying: "You know, it's wonderful here; every season is the best season." And, you know, he has a powerful point.
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2004

Kepco admits more pipe inspections missed

Accident-hit Kansai Electric Power Co. said Wednesday it has not carried out pipe inspections at 11 designated points at three of its nuclear reactors in Fukui Prefecture, and added that it would immediately shut down the one reactor currently in service.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2004

Pullout of U.S. forces could skip Japan

Despite the U.S. announcement Monday that it will withdraw up to 70,000 service members from Asia and Europe over the next decade, America's military presence in Japan might not be part of that scenario, according to government officials.
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2004

Pullout of U.S. forces could skip Japan

Despite the U.S. announcement Monday that it will withdraw up to 70,000 service members from Asia and Europe over the next decade, America's military presence in Japan might not be part of that scenario, according to government officials.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2004

Japan hopes opening bond sales to foreigners will solve woes

The Finance Ministry is increasingly hoping to sell Japanese government bonds to foreigners. And the economic recovery is forcing this effort to be accelerated.
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2004

How will postal privatization help?

Japan's postal savings system, along with mail and insurance services, is to be privatized over a 10-year period beginning in 2007, according to the guidelines drawn up by the government's Economic and Fiscal Policy Council earlier this month. The question is how to transform the system into a viable...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2004

Offshore fever grips heavy equipment auctions

YOKOHAMA -- On a scorching mid-July day, hundreds of huge hulks were slowly paraded along a 30-meter tarmac in front of a circus tent packed with sweaty buyers.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2004

State debt no boon for financial markets

PRAGUE -- There is a palpable schizophrenia concerning public-sector debt. On one hand, a high proportion of public-sector debt relative to gross domestic product is seen as a warning sign that a country is suffering from macroeconomic imbalances. Similarly, a high ratio of government debt to total debt...

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami