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EDITORIALS
Jun 19, 2006

A united lobby for life

Japan has seen more than 30,000 people kill themselves annually for eight consecutive years since 1998. Last year, 32,552 people took their own lives, a total that breaks down to 89.18 suicides per day and 3.71 suicides every hour. Certainly these are grim figures.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

Business at Beijing's pleasure

In a May 30 Wall Street Journal article, former U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary Charles W. Freeman III expressed doubts about the prospects of a free-trade agreement between the United States and Taiwan: "Given its almost obsessive antipathy for President Chen (Shui-bian), Beijing will do almost anything...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

The radicalization of Western Muslims

LONDON -- What is it that makes young Muslims in the West susceptible to radicalism? What is it about the experience of the West's rising generation of Muslims that leads a small minority to see violence as a solution to their economic and political dilemmas, and suicide as their reward and salvation?...
COMMENTARY
Jun 19, 2006

Tokyo's hard line slowing solution to abduction issue

Japan is understandably upset over past abductions of its citizens by North Korea. But rightwing pressure has made a solution almost impossible. It is a good example of how emotional nationalism and Tokyo's manipulations can damage sensible foreign policies.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Jun 19, 2006

Keidanren to use same play book under Mitarai

On May 24 the Keidanren started anew under the leadership of Canon Inc. Chairman Fujio Mitarai, who has declared his goals to be the "innovation of Japan" and the continuation of the organization's drive for structural reforms under his predecessor Hiroshi Okuda.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 19, 2006

China's monetary surge dooms its boom

ATLANTA -- Chinese monetary authorities raised their one-year benchmark rate by 27 basis points while allowing the deposit rate to remain unchanged at 2.25 percent. This move was mostly greeted with praise, but the change is trivial and will have little discernible impact on the Chinese economy or the...
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 18, 2006

Japan, Croatia riding in same boat

NUREMBERG, Germany -- At such an early stage of the World Cup it is becoming apparent that it is an unforgiving one for less fancied nations, a tournament shorn of the first-round shocks of Japan-Korea four years ago.
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 18, 2006

Dutch team shows togetherness in win over Cote d'Ivoire

STUTTGART -- The Netherlands killed off Cote d'Ivoire in the Group of Death after just two matches.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jun 18, 2006

Swallows embracing contribution from first baseman Riggs

The 1991 World Series champion Minnesota Twins had the "homer hankies" waved by fans at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2006

Magic bean talk

Well, here's news worth celebrating with a big glass of Irish coffee. The more coffee you drink, U.S. researchers announced last week, the less likely you are to suffer alcohol-related liver damage. In a world sloshing in bad news, the assertion had the effect of a morning-after double espresso on anxious...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Dress-fest for a warming world thaws political chill

These days, between blasts of hot air over disputed gas fields and outbursts condemning "revisionist" history books, it's rare to hear praise from China for its geopolitical rival to the east.
SPORTS / MULLY'S MISSIVES
Jun 18, 2006

New ball credited for number of long-range strikes

NUREMBERG, Germany -- Raspers, screamers, piledrivers, howitzers, thunderbolts. Soccer writers are running out of ways to describe all the long-range goals seen so far at the World Cup.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 18, 2006

In the wake of the true traditional Japanese funeral

MODERN PASSINGS: Death Rites, Politics, and Social Change in Imperial Japan, by Andrew Bern- stein. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006,242 pp., with photos, $39 (cloth). I have long admired Japan's attitude toward death, its acceptance, its no-nonsense attitude toward disposal and entombment,...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 18, 2006

Roles that lead a company to success

THE TEN FACES OF INNOVATION by Tom Kelley and Jonathon Littman. Doubleday, 276 pp., 2005, $29.95 (cloth). "It's the smile, stupid."
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2006

Mizuho Bank to give 200 of its branches the individual touch

Mizuho Bank plans to devote more than 200 of its branches to serving individual customers in a reorganization of its nationwide network in the coming two years, Mizuho officials said Saturday.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Retro's where the future's at

Japan's talking heads of a liberal persuasion are clearly troubled by a rising nationalistic sentiment they detect throughout the land. But while speculation on the geopolitical consequences of any such shift may be an absorbing topic, trends in the world of culture -- and the changing tastes of consumers...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 18, 2006

The lore and legend of Asian lawmen

"The Calf Strung Up beneath The Cart" will cause you agony profound; "The Ass tied tightly to The Post" will make you scream and leap around; "The Phoenix drying both her Wings" to death itself will bring you near; "The Boy who Sits and Contemplates," the stoutest soul will cause to fear; And if "The...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 18, 2006

To whom it may concern:

Something exceedingly tragic is occurring in Japan today, something it falls to me to reveal now on these pages. It is, simply, that the Japanese people are becoming invisible before our very eyes. At the present rate, by my rough estimate, not one single identifiable Japanese individual will be living...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 18, 2006

Kanjani 8 hosts "Suka*J" on TV Tokyo, Nihon TV's "Tetsuwan Dash" and more

Always on the lookout for new variety show ideas, TV Asahi experiments with the idea of mathematical probability.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 18, 2006

NHK's public service is to take your money and run . . . bad TV

Fans of baseball star Ichiro Suzuki had reason to be mad at NHK two weeks ago. The Seattle Mariners outfielder was on the verge of his 2,500th career hit, one of the game's rare milestones, which was predicted to happen some time between June 6 and 9. However, the public broadcaster, whose BS-1 satellite...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 18, 2006

Have you heard the one about . . ?

Maybe it's simply down to human nature, but stereotypes about foreigners seem to be joke-fodder the world over. In the corners of bars, in huddles at parties, in books and movies, countless laughs have been had, for example, at the expense of supposed American boastfulnes, "uptight" British, "humorless"...
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2006

Government looking for entrants in mail service

The government plans to revise the 2003 mail service law in a bid to encourage new entrants into the mail business now effectively monopolized by Japan Post, sources said Saturday.
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 17, 2006

England pulls out victory

NUREMBERG, Germany -- Peter Crouch and Steven Gerrard spared England's blushes with two late goals in a 2-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday to ensure qualification for the second round.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight