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Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 26, 2006

The capital delights of Nara

To visit Kyoto is often to experience what Oscar Wilde thought of Wagner's music -- beautiful moments, but bad quarters of an hour. The time spent soaking up the splendors of its temples and gardens seems slight at the side of those long bus rides getting there across a cityscape that goes out of its...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
May 26, 2006

Rock 'n' grot in the crypt

Welcome to Furanken-no-Hanayome, a freaky, style-y, junk-filled lair for insomniac rockers and creep show freaks. I thought I knew all the weird rock 'n' grot bars in Tokyo, but this one somehow managed to slip under my radar undetected -- and has managed to do so for the past 10 years.
CULTURE / Music
May 26, 2006

Dirty Pretty Things "Waterloo to Anywhere"

Ex-Libertines Pete Doherty and Carl Barat may have gone their own ways, but the soap opera continues. While Doherty chose drug-fueled insanity and the release of a self-indulgent album with Babyshambles, Barat formed Dirty Pretty Things -- and on the basis of their debut, "Waterloo to Anywhere," they...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 26, 2006

Inaba drives in three for Fighters to cut Giants down to size

Sure, let the big guy sit. And let the kid pitch too.
CULTURE / Music
May 26, 2006

Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band "Your New Best Friend"

By naming itself after the soft-porn mondo director Russ Mayer, and his erstwhile cameraman, Ralph Myerz and the Jack Herren Band seem to set themselves up as purveyors of the kind of low-fi, freaked-out lounge music that graces soundtracks. On their second album, "Your New Best Friend," the Norwegian...
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

Surge in oil prices reduces trade surplus 31.8%

The trade surplus shrank 31.8 percent in April to 646.2 billion yen for the 16th straight month of decline as soaring oil prices inflated the value of imports, the Finance Ministry said in a preliminary report Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

Bonuses to be second-highest ever

The summer bonus to be paid by 113 major companies will come to 877,191 yen on a weighted average basis, the second-highest amount since records started to be kept in 1959, the Japan Business Federation said Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

FSA orders Sompo suspension

The Financial Services Agency on Thursday ordered Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. to suspend most of its operations for two weeks at all of its offices nationwide for illegal sales practices.
JAPAN
May 26, 2006

Upper House panel OKs reform bill

A House of Councilors panel approved an administrative reform promotion bill Thursday aimed at downsizing the government, one of the pillars of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reform drive.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

Customers push megabanks to share the wealth

The top six banking groups' record profits from 2005 are being criticized not only by customers who have put up with years of bad service and token interest rates, but also regional banks seriously affected by their advances.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

Honda debuts bio-fabric for cars

Honda Motor Co. said Thursday it has developed a plant-based bio-fabric with sufficient durability and resistance to sunlight for use as a surface material in auto interiors.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2006

Consumer electronics shipments up

Consumer electronics shipments in Japan leapt 10.8 percent in April from a year earlier to 214.4 billion yen, rising for nine months in a row, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association reported Thursday.
CULTURE / Music
May 26, 2006

Tab Benoit et al "Voice of the Wetlands"

Perhaps the only good to come out of the Hurricane Katrina disaster has been the many excellent New Orleans music compilations, whose profits are going to those dispossessed by the storm and the ensuing chaos. The most political and most passionate of these is Tab Benoit and company's "Voice of the Wetlands."...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 25, 2006

Shinjo reprimanded

Pacific League head umpire Yoshio Maekawa reprimanded Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo with another warning Wednesday, telling his club that Shinjo's collared undershirts and other shenanigans will not be tolerated.
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2006

A love that can't be legislated

The Diet has started discussions on a government bill to revise the Fundamental Law of Education. First and foremost, the bill represents an attempt to lay down a legal basis for using education as a means of instilling "love of nation" in students. While love of nation is something that should grow...
JAPAN
May 25, 2006

Frozen fraudulent deposits worth 3.5 billion yen, FSA says

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Mizuho Bank, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Resona Bank froze a combined total of about 3.5 billion yen in deposits as of the end of March on suspicion the accounts were being used for fraudulent purposes, officials at the Financial Services Agency said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 25, 2006

Abe looks to enter LDP race after G8

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe hinted Wednesday he will officially announce his candidacy to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after the mid-July summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in St. Petersburg, Russia.
JAPAN
May 25, 2006

Consulting firm chief quizzed in quake scandal

Police questioned the head of a Tokyo-based consulting company on a voluntary basis Wednesday over a fraud case involving a hotel in Nara Prefecture built with fake earthquake-safety data, investigation sources said.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2006

Evidence portrays Russia as failed state

LONDON -- Have you read Russian President Vladimir Putin's 2006 State of the Nation message yet? The one he gave last week? You should.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 25, 2006

Incidentally Capturing the city

Berlin is not beautiful like Paris, rich like London, or charming like Amsterdam. Prewar buildings in the German capital are pockmarked by bullet holes, while postwar architecture testifies to the city's division due to the Cold War -- American, British and French sectors were restored or rebuilt, the...
JAPAN
May 25, 2006

New law bans big complexes in suburbs

The House of Councilors approved a bill Wednesday to revise the City Planning Law so that construction of shopping malls and amusement facilities with more than 10,000 sq. meters of floor space will effectively be banned in suburbs.

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