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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 30, 2005

Roots Manuva: "Awfully Deep"

After three years away from the circus, Roots Manuva is back to remind listeners just who runs U.K. hip-hop. It's not easy to describe Manuva, aka Rodney Smith, but then he does a pretty good job himself, boasting on his new album, "Awfully Deep," of his "venomous eloquence" and his "cryptic displays...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jan 30, 2005

TBS's "The Heart of Valentine is French Chocolate" and more

This week, TV Asahi's business documentary series, "The Dawn of Gaia" (Tue., 10 p.m.), looks at the past, present and future of automobile navigation systems, which have become an indispensable part of motoring in Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 30, 2005

Bathhouse pushes a foreigner into the doghouse

JAPANESE ONLY: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan, by Debito Arudou. Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2004, 407 pp., 3,500 yen (paper). Discrimination is an all too common experience for non-Japanese residents who study, work, marry and raise families here. Many of us have come to terms...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

One life that bridges many realms

Exchanging business cards and checking out what's written on them is a good way to start a conversation, but Ryo Kasuga has so many different job descriptions that you'd hardly know where to start. Not only is he a Buddhist priest, but he's an opera singer and an astronomer who runs a planetarium as...
MORE SPORTS
Jan 29, 2005

Dechy withdraws

Natalie Dechy of France, the singles semifinalist at the ongoing Australian Open, is among the five players who have decided to withdraw from the upcoming Toray Pan Pacific Open women's tennis tournament due to injuries, organizers said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 29, 2005

Airbus queuing up for a future

A irbus, the European plane maker, recently unveiled the Airbus A380, a superjumbo jet designed to transform the way people fly. The plane is a technological masterwork. It is the world's largest commercial jet, and accommodating it will be no small task for airports around the world. The decision to...
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

MMC execs resign as automaker gets 540 billion yen bailout

Ltd. MMC's latest plan includes no specific steps for increasing profits, he said. But MMC chief financial officer Hiizu Ichikawa said that external consultants have reviewed the plan and claimed he was confident it would work.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Roppongi: from ashes to 'High Touch Town'

The Roppongi district of Tokyo has been through a turbulent time in the 60 years since it was destroyed by firebombing during World War II.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Ex-NHK chief Ebisawa, aides pass on adviser posts amid viewer outrage

, declined to be an adviser to the broadcaster.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Mondays see most suicides; men tend to pick 5 a.m., women noon

Mondays had the most suicides in Japan in 2003, with the most common hour being around 5 a.m. for men and around noon for women, an analysis by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare showed Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Former deportee protests denial of bid to live here, near wife's grave

A Bangladeshi man once deported from Japan staged a protest Friday in front of the Justice Ministry, slamming the government for not allowing him back quickly enough to spend time with his Japanese wife as she died of cancer and for telling him he must now leave the country where she is buried.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Lower House OKs extra budget

The House of Representatives on Friday approved the government's supplementary budget bills for fiscal 2004, worth about 4.77 trillion yen, including 1.36 trillion yen allocated toward disaster relief.
COMMENTARY
Jan 29, 2005

China's global impact grows

LONDON -- Suddenly China has become the No. 1 topic on the agenda of every Western policy forum and think tank. That the focus should be so sudden is in a way surprising.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 29, 2005

Margaret Powell

Headquartered in Reading, England, GAP Activity Projects is a nonprofit organization that arranges gap year activities for young people. In the U.K., the gap year is offered between high school and university. GAP was originated in 1972 by a teacher who knew that some students were eager for overseas...
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

NPA reports 17 cases of 'phishing'

The National Police Agency said Friday it has received 17 reports since late December of online fraud known as "phishing."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 29, 2005

To do or not to do -- that is the decision

Westerners often find it takes Japanese a long time to make decisions. I believe the training for decision-making starts at an early age, when Japanese children are conditioned to be shy.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jan 29, 2005

Take this job and love it

Maybe it was Benjamin Disraeli or maybe it was Mark Twain or maybe it was me who said, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics . . . followed by Japanese financial data."
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

U.K. vow to fill Samawah security void after Dutch exit elates officials

move," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a regular news conference Friday morning. Although Britain has said its troops would work with Iraqi security forces in the province, some Japanese government officials have expressed doubts over the plan, pointing out that the foreign military presence...
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2005

Seibu urged to merge with spinoff, sell team

A Seibu group reform panel released an interim reform plan Friday urging Seibu Railway Co. to merge with a spinoff from Kokudo Corp., its core firm, absorb the Prince Hotels chain, and consider selling the Seibu Lions baseball team.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Jobless rate edges to six-year low

Japan's unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percent to a six-year low of 4.4 percent in December.
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2005

Output up 5.5% in 2004 despite late slide

Japan's industrial production expanded an unadjusted 5.5 percent in 2004, marking a second straight yearly rise, the government said Friday.

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