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MORE SPORTS
Dec 5, 2004

Fukabori makes move

Keiichiro Fukabori turned a two-stroke deficit into a one-stroke lead Saturday by equaling the day's low of 5-under-par 65 heading into the final round of the Nippon Series JT Cup.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 5, 2004

Existentialist/essentialist

SHINTO: The Way Home, by Thomas P. Kasulis, preface by Henry Rosemont Jr. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 2004, 188 pp., $15.00 (paper). One day several years ago, the author of this new book on Shinto took an early stroll through the grounds of Yasukuni Shrine. After "feeling the connectedness...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Dec 5, 2004

Joji Yamamoto: Time to serve

Joji Yamamoto was a young, idealistic politician with a bright future -- but all that promise dissolved on Sept. 4, 2000, when he was arrested on suspicion of fraud.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 5, 2004

Fujino bags top honors at meet

Japan's Maiko Fujino, a silver medalist at the 2002 Asian Games in Pusan, won the women's 200- and 400-meter individual medley at a two-day World Cup swimming meet in Taejon, South Korea. A day after winning the 200 medley at the 25-meter Taejon Municipal Swimming Pool, Fujino again emerged victorious...
EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 2004

What's up with Phinnaeus and Hazel?

A merica doesn't have princesses in the sense that Japan and Britain and a few other countries do. But it has its princess substitutes, from presidential first daughters such as Caroline Kennedy and Chelsea Clinton to a handful of the nicer Hollywood actresses. Just as with real princesses, there is...
Features
Dec 5, 2004

Revealing 'The Japanese Sensibility': Intimacy

To punish men for their sins The smoothest skin The longest black hair All that Is me
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Chanel opens boutique in Ginza to long lines

Chanel launched a boutique Saturday on ritzy Chuo-dori in Tokyo's Ginza district, with 200 people lining up before the doors opened at 11 a.m.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 5, 2004

Way of the corporate giant robot

MOBILE SUIT GUNDAM, by Yoshiyuki Tomino, translated by Frederik L. Schodt with an introduction by Mark Simmons. Stone Bridge Press, 2004, $14.95 (paper). Yoshiyuki "Kill 'em All" Tomino is the mega-prolific creator of the Mobile Suit Gundam phenomenon, known, perhaps a little patronizingly, as the "Star...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Adventurer plans trek across Canadian Arctic

Adventurer Mitsuro Oba is planning a 3,800-km trek across the Canadian tundra above the Arctic Circle over a four-month period beginning in February.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Dec 5, 2004

TV Tokyo's "Totsugeki! Idobata 7" and more

According to a recent article in weekly newsmagazine Aera, 8,158 Japanese women are married to non-Japanese men (the largest national group is American), while 27,881 Japanese men are married to non-Japanese women. The article says that the divorce rate among these "international couples" is rising faster...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2004

Doctor Lonnie Smith: "Too Damn Hot"

Hammond B3 organ master Doctor Lonnie Smith's latest release, "Too Damn Hot," starts out innocently enough. Smith lays down a funky little riff on "Norleans." Then, hardbop guitarist Peter Bernstein and funky guitarist Rodney Jones, taking time off from their own solo projects, both take tight, tasty...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2004

Canberra's free trade polka

SYDNEY -- The convening of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Australia and New Zealand at ASEAN's meeting in the Laotian capital last week was a landmark for the region's push toward greater security and economic growth. It also started a move toward a free trade area that will...
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Defense Agency chief leaves for Iraq to visit SDF troops

Defense Agency chief Yoshinori Ono left Saturday for Iraq to visit the troops deployed in the southern city of Samawah -- just as the government prepares to extend the troops' mission, which started in January.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2004

Zap Mama

Originally an Afro-European vocal project based in Brussels, Zap Mama has over the past decade-and-a-half become the sole property of Zaire-to-Belgium transplant Marie Daulne, who formed the group with some "slightly eccentric" female friends in 1990. As those friends left, Daulne's sound became increasingly...
Japan Times
SOCCER / J. League
Dec 5, 2004

Hot Reds aim to put away ailing Marinos

The last ever J. League Championship final kicks off at International Stadium Yokohama on Sunday and the end-of-season showdown between two of the league's big guns could not have come at a better time for Urawa Reds.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 5, 2004

Telephone fraud is criminally dumb at the end of the line

Misfortune for some can be entertaining to the rest of us. Microwaved poodles and death-by-sexual-dalliance often have such a ridiculous aura about them that we tend not to identify with the victims because the stupidity inferred precludes any feelings of sympathy.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

GSDF officer involved in LDP's draft for constitutional revision

A senior officer in the Ground Self-Defense Force has compiled a draft plan for revising the Constitution to authorize the existence of a "military force" and enable the nation to engage in collective defense, it was learned Saturday.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2004

Miyake kids will have to carry gas masks to school

All elementary and junior high school students will have to carry gas masks to school when they return to volcanic Miyake Island in February -- 4 1/2 years after being evacuated, the island's education board said Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2004

EU frittering away influence in Korea

BRUSSELS -- One of the last best hopes for securing a solution to the current crisis on the Korean Peninsula is being killed by U.S. politicking and EU penny- pinching. U.S. neoconservatives are determined to drive North Korea into a corner, while the European Union bickers over "small change"' rather...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2004

Jones, Kase in front

Overnight leader Brendan Jones shot a 3-under-par 67 Friday and was joined at the top of the leaderboard by Hideki Kase at the midway point of the season-ending Nippon Series JT Cup.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Foreign English teachers call for fair treatment

About 40 foreign English teachers urged the government Friday to take steps to eradicate the serious problems they face on the job, including low wages and sudden dismissal.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Panel advises the more expressway traffic the better

A government panel wants to boost the use of the nation's expressways, citing such benefits as fewer traffic accidents on other roads and reduced emissions of greenhouse gases, a draft proposal showed Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Would permanent UNSC seat beget more responsible Japan?

OSAKA -- Becoming a permanent member of an expanded United Nations Security Council could force Japan to become a more responsible international player.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Trafficking victims to be given better treatment

As part of efforts to combat human trafficking, Japan plans to revise immigration legislation next year to exempt trafficking victims from being deported in the same way as foreigners who overstay their visas or illegally enter Japan, it was learned Friday.
EDITORIALS
Dec 4, 2004

Asia takes a historic step

Historians may well look back at this week's summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and call it the first real move toward creating a regional economic group that unites all of Asia. It pushed the political agenda forward as well, signaling a shift in the ASEAN-Plus-Three (Japan,...
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2004

Foreign students pass 117,000, but tight screening slowing pace

There were 117,302 foreign students in Japan as of May 1, but the pace at which they are entering Japan has slowed because universities are tightening admissions criteria, a survey by a student-support organization showed 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