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BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Dec 12, 2007

Guts' salary to be same in '08

Yomiuri Giants third baseman Michihiro "Guts" Ogasawara re-signed with the Central League club on Tuesday for an estimated annual salary of ¥380 million unchanged from this year. The signing was for the second year of his four-year contract after Ogasawara became the first player in Japanese baseball...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Dec 12, 2007

Knicks, Bobcats, Kings bid for Varejao

NEW YORK — The Knicks were among three teams who made infertile sign-and-trade proposals to the Cavaliers regarding Anderson Varejao in the dreary days leading up to the Brazilian Bouncer inking a 3-year, $17.35 million offer sheet with the Bobcats, which Cleveland promptly matched.
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2007

Protection and punishment

WATERLOO, Ontario — Dec. 9 and 10 marked the anniversaries of the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Both were an acknowledgment of the dark side of European history and embodied the determination to ban vices that had been let loose with terrible consequences...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 12, 2007

How do chimps top us in a brain test?

"We are 98.77 percent chimpanzee," Tetsuro Matsuzawa told me last week. "We are their evolutionary neighbors."
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Dec 12, 2007

Asashoryu Akinori — the people's champion?

The 2007 sumo season has drawn to a close, and no sumo fan in his or her right right mind would want to see a repeat of it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / READERS' FUND
Dec 12, 2007

Kyoto NGO works to boost Afghan women's lot, literacy

This is the first in a series on how contributions to The Japan Times Readers' Fund last year — the 52nd since the campaign started — are being put to use. Readers donated ¥1,191,888 in 2006, which has gone to six groups helping needy people across Asia.
BUSINESS
Dec 12, 2007

Toshiba boasts battery that recharges 90% in five minutes

Toshiba will begin shipping in March a quick-charging new battery for forklifts, construction machinery and other industrial use, the electronics maker said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 12, 2007

Legislating history obscures the truth

NEW YORK — In October, the Spanish Parliament passed a Law on Historical Memory, which bans rallies and memorials celebrating the late dictator Francisco Franco. His Falangist regime will be officially denounced and its victims honored.
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2007

Open debate on death penalty

In executing three death-row inmates last week, the Justice Ministry made public their names, the crimes they were convicted of and the locations of the executions. This break with its secrecy policy has slightly improved transparency in the nation's capital punishment system. This trend should not be...
BUSINESS
Dec 12, 2007

Household pessimism rises as gas, food prices surge, wages stall

Households became the most pessimistic they've been in almost four years as gasoline and food prices surged and wage growth stalled, leaving consumers less willing and able to spend.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2007

Parties reach deal on expenses disclosure

The ruling bloc and three opposition parties reached a final deal Tuesday on legislation that would require all political organizations linked to Diet members to keep receipts for every spending item of any amount — except salaries.
BUSINESS
Dec 12, 2007

Biggest milk producers to raise prices next year

Meiji Dairies Corp. and Morinaga Milk Industry Co. will raise milk prices next year for the first time in 30 years as increases in grains, petroleum and other raw materials add to production costs, the companies said Tuesday.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Dec 12, 2007

Wasp spider

* Japanese name: Naka-koganegumo * Scientific name: Argiope bruennichii * Description: You wouldn't really mistake this spider for a wasp, but its egg-shaped abdomen is dramatically striped in yellow, black and white, and the legs too are striped, though the overall pattern is perhaps more tigerish...
EDITORIALS
Dec 12, 2007

Redistribution of tax revenue

The government and the ruling coalition are thinking of redistributing revenues from the local corporate tax to equalize financial gaps among different prefectures. About ¥400 billion will be redistributed to financially weak prefectures by taking about ¥300 billion from Tokyo, about ¥80 billion from...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes