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EDITORIALS
Dec 25, 2006

Lucky breaks in new budget

The fiscal 2007 draft budget, the first one compiled under the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, reduces the amount of new debt, lifting hopes for the nation's financial reconstruction. But the reduction is mainly due to lucky circumstances -- not because of strenuous efforts to cut spending....
COMMENTARY
Dec 25, 2006

No rush to divide the north

In a recent appearance before the Diet, Foreign Minister Taro Aso floated the idea of settling the long-standing feud with Russia over the sovereignty of the Northern Territories (four islands off Hokkaido) by evenly dividing the total area of dispute. In September, Aso sug gested the possibility of...
JAPAN
Dec 25, 2006

More sanctions against North off table for now

sanctions are working," Foreign Minister Taro Aso said on a Fuji TV talk show. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki, appearing at a news conference announcing the Cabinet's endorsement of the fiscal 2007 budget, concurred.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 25, 2006

How Japan's economy fared in 2006 and its prospects for 2007

There were two major developments in the Japanese economy in 2006.
BASKETBALL
Dec 24, 2006

Five Arrows beat 1st-place Niigata

The host Takamatsu Five Arrows snapped the Niigata Albirex BB's five-game winning streak, with an 85-83 triumph on Saturday in bj-league action.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 24, 2006

Best Christmas gift might be cable or satellite TV

If you have not yet found that Christmas gift for the baseball fan in your family, an idea might be to get him or her a cable and satellite TV dish, tuner and service if you do not already have it. Otherwise, that fan will be watching fewer Japanese games in 2007 if your household has only terrestrial...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2006

Dolphin with breeding record dies

A beloved dolphin said to have the world's longest breeding record has died after spending 36 years at an aquarium in Shizuoka Prefecture, the aquarium said.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2006

Japan plays weak hand, may seek more sanctions

The lack of progress in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons underscores Japan's growing difficulties in trying to defuse the crisis and resolve the abduction issue.
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2006

Five days and no leads

The latest round of the six-party talks aimed at halting North Korea's nuclear weapons programs ended without tangible results Friday. The participants even failed to decide on the date of the next round. Moreover, Japan and North Korea held no bilateral talks on resolving the fate of Japanese nationals...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2006

Emperor turns 73, avoids shrine topic

from Emperor Showa regarding the mourning of the war dead." On the September birth of Prince Hisahito, his first grandson and the first heir to the throne in 41 years, the Emperor said his first impression was that the prince was "a very fine and healthy baby."
JAPAN
Dec 24, 2006

Japan plays weak hand, may seek more sanctions

The lack of progress in the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons underscores Japan's growing difficulties in trying to defuse the crisis and resolve the abduction issue.
EDITORIALS
Dec 24, 2006

Beware of norovirus

Outbreaks of norovirus -- which causes infectious stomach and intestinal ailments -- have prompted Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to call on the health ministry to take special measures. The ministry's statistics show that from Nov. 1 to Dec. 18, a record 9,650 people suffered from food poisoning believed...
COMMENTARY
Dec 24, 2006

Next to the Iraq catastrophe, minor dramas marked 2006

LONDON -- In hard news terms, it's been one of the slower years: no great events, few surprises and no real shocks. But as the little events accumulated during 2006, the shape of the future gradually became clearer in three important dimensions.
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 24, 2006

Penmanship: A lost art is rediscovered

At this time of the year, you may have received and sent any number of Christmas cards. Or, in the Japanese tradition, you might still be panicking about writing all the New Year's postcards that the nation's army of mailmen and women endeavor to deliver on New Year's Day.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 24, 2006

The spirit of classics in a luminous new translation

TALES OF MOONLIGHT AND RAIN by Ueda Akinari, translated by Anthony H. Chambers. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006, 236 pp., with 1776 edition woodcuts, $29.95 (cloth). Ueda Akinari (1734-1809), scholar and poet, is remembered for his collection of nine stories, the "Ugetsu Monogatari," first...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Dec 24, 2006

Ongoing Vietnam tragedy revives ghosts of a Christmas past

Christmas brings to mind many wonderful memories for most of us. But history has bequeathed to some of us a most awful little two-word phrase blackening those memories like a stain. That phrase is "Christmas bombing."
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 24, 2006

Find out why a fountain pen 'personalizes' your prose

Kumiko Kumazawa of Pilot Corporation placed four fountain pens in front of me.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 24, 2006

Word power: 'The way' and the way you say it

OGYU SORAI'S PHILOSOPHICAL MASTERWORKS: The Bendo and Benmei, edited and translated by John A. Tucker. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006, 478 pp., $56 (cloth). One of the foremost thinkers of our time, Noam Chomsky, has argued that the United States is a rogue state. To arrive at this conclusion,...

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