Search - 2004

 
 
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 12, 2005

Chelsea leads three-horse race in quest for Premiership title

LONDON -- According to Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon the 2005-06 Premiership title will be won by "a small bunch of one" with manager Jose Mourinho predicting the Blues will confirm their second successive English crown in the last fixture on May 7 at Newcastle. So that's this season then. Roll...
JAPAN
Aug 11, 2005

Truants dip 0.01-point to 123,000

About 123,000 elementary and junior high school students were absent from school for 30 days or longer in the 2004 school year, down about 3,000 from the previous year, the education ministry said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2005

Shiseido sees no synergy from Kanebo bid

Shiseido Co. will withdraw from a series of tenders for Kanebo Ltd. and Kanebo Cosmetics Inc. soon to be held by the Industrial Revitalization Corp. of Japan, company sources said Wednesday.
JAPAN / 60 YEARS AND ONWARD
Aug 11, 2005

Remnants of war still buried in Japan

Residents in the western Tokyo suburb of Nishitokyo recently had a World War II flashback.
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2005

Record 566 teachers judged incompetent

A record 566 teachers in public schools were ruled incompetent by local boards of education in the 2004 school year, up 85 from the year before, according to a government survey released Tuesday.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 7, 2005

Will Giants turn to foreign manager after Horiuchi departs?

The Yomiuri Giants are not going to win the 2005 Central League pennant and most likely will finish in the "B Class" (bottom three) for the first time since 1997.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2005

Nepalese children caught in the crossfire

NEW YORK -- The armed conflict in Nepal between the government and Maoist guerrillas is making victims of an increasing number of children, who have been subjected to a wide array of human-rights violations. Over the past several years, the U.N. Security Council has worked to develop a body of law intended...
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2005

Honda will go it alone on fuel-cell cars unless GM comes knocking

Honda Motor Co. will work alone to develop fuel-cell cars but is open to the idea of joint research with General Motors Corp., President Takeo Fukui said in an interview Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2005

When will China's miracle hit the wall?

PHILADELPHIA -- U.S. "Fed" Governor Ben Bernanke has blamed net inflows of capital from the rest of the world, especially China, for a global savings glut that is driving up the U.S. current account deficit. Unfortunately, some commentators have echoed this seemingly plausible but outrageously silly...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jul 25, 2005

Depredation of species that get in our way

NEW YORK -- "Protected Birds Are Back, With a Vengeance: Cormorants Take Over, Making Some Enemies." This headline in the New York Times earlier this month, inset in a photo showing a few black birds atop a tree, struck me with the thought: So it has come to pass. Hadn't the same daily some years back...
BUSINESS
Jul 21, 2005

Honda sets sales goal of 4 million cars

Honda Motor Co. said Wednesday it hopes to boost its worldwide car sales to 4 million vehicles in fiscal 2007, up 23.4 percent from fiscal 2004, by launching new models with better fuel efficiency and expanding its lineup in North America.
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2005

Ministries to seek complete asbestos halt

The health and trade ministries will jointly ask 18 industry groups to stop all use of asbestos as soon as possible, sources said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2005

Japan's quiet time bomb

Health problems linked to asbestos, which was used in large quantities as heat-insulation material for buildings during the period of Japan's high economic growth, are spreading among workers who inhaled the substance in the past. One enterprise after another has released lists of workers who have died...
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2005

Bid-rigging smacks of 'amakudari' to core

As the No. 2 at the Japan Highway Public Corp., the unidentified bureaucrat wielded enormous power over Japan's major road-builders.
Japan Times
Features
Jul 10, 2005

DEPRESSION

'Istarted to get to work late -- sometimes at 11, then at 12 and then at 2; and then I had to quit my job."
EDITORIALS
Jul 7, 2005

Putting ODA in its place

The Japanese government has recently announced a plan to renew an important component of its diplomacy -- a plan aimed at not only checking but reversing the downtrend in Japan's official development assistance. Specifically, in its basic policy program for the nation's financial and fiscal operations...
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2005

Thai woman admits selling girl into sex trade

A Thai woman in Kanagawa Prefecture has been arrested on suspicion of selling a teenage Thai girl to a woman who manages prostitutes, and a Japanese man in Tokyo was taken into custody for introducing the girl to another man for purposes of solicitation, police said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2005

The increasing threat of AIDS

The Seventh International Conference on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific (ICAAP), which opened in Kobe on Friday, comes at a time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic is spreading rapidly from Africa to Asia. The message is loud and clear: Without stepped-up efforts to combat the crisis, it could reach serious proportions...
EDITORIALS
Jul 2, 2005

Protection in a modern economy

The recent theft of data from some 40 million credit-card accounts in the United States is another reminder of the insecurities of the digital world. Electronic commerce continues to rise in volume but consumers, retailers, financial institutions and other parts of the business chain have not yet adjusted...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2005

Firms upbeat for first time in three quarters: 'tankan'

Japan's large manufacturers turned more confident about their business in the April-June quarter, marking the first improvement in three quarters, according to the Bank of Japan's "tankan" business sentiment survey released Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 30, 2005

Bid-rigging probe targets highway body

Tokyo prosecutors on Wednesday searched the headquarters of Japan Highway Public Corp. in connection with their investigation into massive bid-rigging for bridge construction projects.
BUSINESS
Jun 30, 2005

Romania envoy seeks more investment in EU entry runup

Romania has sent Aurelian Neagu, one of its Japan experts, to Tokyo as ambassador at a time when Japanese companies are considering investing in Romania and Bulgaria in the runup to the two nations' planned entry into the European Union in 2007.
BUSINESS
Jun 30, 2005

Foreign investment hit record 4 trillion yen in '04

Direct investment in Japan by foreigners jumped 90.3 percent in fiscal 2004 from the previous year to a record 4.027 trillion yen, with capital inflow from the United States swelling more than sevenfold, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jun 29, 2005

World Press prizewinning photos get to the heart of the story

Every year the Dutch-based non-profit organization World Press Photo sifts through thousands of news photographs from around the world in search of images that "represent an event, situation or issue of great journalistic importance and demonstrate an outstanding level of visual perception and creativity."...

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