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COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 2004

Price of exclusivity too high

"Nippon Chinbotsu" -- Japan Sinks -- was the title of a 1980s best-selling novel that predicted how massive earthquakes would push the Japanese islands below the waters of the Pacific. The drenched survivors would head for Australia.
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2004

Shinsei Bank sees first-half group net profit rise 20%

Shinsei Bank said Monday its first-half group net profit jumped 19.8 percent from a year earlier thanks to brisk business in both institutional and retail banking.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 21, 2004

WBC champ Kawashima honored

WBC super-flyweight champion Katsushige Kawashima was named the Japanese Boxer of the Year on Monday, boxing officials said. Kawashima beat Masamori Tokuyama on a first-round technical knockout to win the World Boxing Council title in June and successfully defended it in September with a unanimous decision...
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2004

Defense budget slips 1% to 4.86 trillion yen

Defense spending for fiscal 2005 will fall by 1.0 percent, according to the draft budget approved Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2004

Justice Ministry plans legislation to combat human trafficking

The Justice Ministry plans to crack down on human trafficking, particularly involving foreign women forced into prostitution, when it submits a number of bills next year to revise the Penal Code, ministry officials said Monday.
BUSINESS
Dec 21, 2004

Sony sees the LCD light, decides to pull out of plasma TV business

Sony Corp. is studying scaling down its plasma television business and might withdraw from it completely by the end of next year, industry sources said Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2004

Chief Yasukuni priest brings business savvy to shrine

At one time, Toshiaki Nambu was just an ordinary employee at Dentsu Inc., the nation's top advertising agency, working with such clients as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2004

Parents deny medical care for children

Nearly 20 percent of hospitals with pediatric departments responding to a survey said that parents had refused last year to allow their children to receive medical treatment recommended by doctors, it was learned Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Dec 20, 2004

Seeing eye to eye with a neighbor

Grass-root ties between Japan and South Korea look better than at any time since the end of World War II. Mutual understanding and friendship have deepened visibly over the past few years, as demonstrated by the successful cohosting of the 2002 World Cup and the surge of Japanese interest in South Korean...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2004

NHK airs show aimed at restoring public trust

NHK broadcast a special show Sunday night aimed at restoring public trust following a series of embezzlement scandals involving its employees.
Dec 20, 2004

Chief Yasukuni priest brings business savvy to shrine

At one time, Toshiaki Nambu was just an ordinary employee at Dentsu Inc., the nation's top advertising agency, working with such clients as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
Dec 20, 2004

Parents deny medical care for children

Nearly 20 percent of hospitals with pediatric departments responding to a survey said that parents had refused last year to allow their children to receive medical treatment recommended by doctors, it was learned Sunday.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2004

Public opinion of China hits record low, national poll shows

Only 37.6 percent of Japanese feel friendship toward China, down 10.3 percentage points from a year earlier, according to a Cabinet Office survey.
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2004

Weigh antiterror measures

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Home Secretary David Blunkett (who resigned last week) have been doing their utmost to alert the British people to the terrorist threat. This is seen by some as a cynical attempt to divert criticism of government support for the Americans in Iraq and to...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2004

NGO builds bridges between Japan, U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Most Americans still think of Japan as having a "weak" economy. Japan's reputation in the United States from an economic standpoint has not fully recovered from the bursting of the 1980s' "bubble."
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 2004

Aiming for Earth-friendly development

PARIS -- This is a season of renewed hope and concern for the fate of the Earth's climates. Five thousand delegates from government and civil society gathered last week at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention in Buenos Aires, only weeks after Russia ratified the Kyoto Protocol....
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Dec 20, 2004

Consumption tax, reforms, incentives key to future growth

The Keidanren in September released a simulation of the medium- to longer-term prospects for Japan's fiscal policies and social security programs. The simulation made itclear that unless the fiscal structure of the Japanese government is reformed, Japan's outstanding public debt will likely expand to...
EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2004

Happiness is a warm TV set

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

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