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COMMENTARY
Aug 27, 2005

Beware the green terrorists among us

WASHINGTON -- Political terrorism, exemplified by 9/11 and most recently in London, may pose the greatest security threat facing most nations. But other terrorists also lurk among us, mostly in the guise of animal rights and environmental activists.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Aug 27, 2005

Hiroji Koide

When he was barely turned 30, Hiroji Koide became vice chairman of the International Exchange Committee of the Japan Chamber of Commerce. That marked the beginning of his active participation in public affairs, which still continues more than 46 years later. He is a jovial, outward-looking Nagano man,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2005

Kanagawa eyes base reductions in return for hosting U.S. Army

Kanagawa Gov. Shigefumi Matsuzawa has hinted he may accept a U.S. military realignment plan to transfer the Army's First Corps headquarters to Camp Zama if other U.S. military facilities in the prefecture are returned or reduced.
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2005

Single-person households to top stats by '25

Single-person households will percentagewise be the most typical kind in all 47 prefectures by 2025, National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates showed Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2005

When a family court knows best

In separate cases recently, family courts in the nation have handed down decisions concerning juvenile crime that appear to contradict each other. While one court committed an offender to a reformatory, two others decided that the offenders should face criminal charges. These decisions should prompt...
JAPAN
Aug 26, 2005

Capital recoups most of late hotelier Yokoi's tax

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has collected nearly three-fourths of the 400 million yen in residency tax owed by the late Hideki Yokoi, the controversial businessman and disgraced owner of Hotel New Japan, through a property sale held by his relatives, it was learned Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2005

China and Russia: brothers in arms?

Last week, China and Russia began their first ever joint military exercises. The drills have some armchair strategists warning of a new entente between Beijing and Moscow that could pose a threat to the existing regional security order. The truth about the exercises is considerably less exciting. For...
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2005

Keidanren to officially back Koizumi

The Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren) will officially back the Liberal Democratic Party in the Sept. 11 Lower House election as a show of support for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms, sources said Wednesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / POLL SHOWDOWN
Aug 24, 2005

New parties to team up against LDP: Watanuki

Kokumin Shinto (People's New Party) will cooperate with another new party in the Sept. 11 general election and oppose Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatization drive, leader Tamisuke Watanuki said.
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2005

Pet health, liability policy market finds insurers wagging their tails

Medical and liability insurance for pets is something most owners never consider, but the industry aims to change that.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2005

Party leaders head out on the national stump

Ruling and opposition leaders traveled to various parts of the country Saturday to seek public support ahead of the Sept. 11 general election.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 21, 2005

It's the eccentrics whose appeal endures

KILLING RAIN, by Barry Eisler. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2005, 337 pp., $24.95 (cloth). BANGKOK TATTOO, by John Burdett. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005, 304 pp., $24 (cloth). While perhaps not as well known as Sherlock Holmes or Agent 007, pulp magazines and later paperback books featuring the intrepid...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2005

Consolidating against conflict, disaster

SINGAPORE -- Despite some initial difficulties, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations preserved its cohesion as a credible regional organization to end a weeklong series of annual meetings on a good note late last month in Vientiane:
EDITORIALS
Aug 19, 2005

Statements befitting future conduct

On Monday, the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi issued a statement apologizing for Japan's past colonialism and aggression. He also decided that day not to visit Yasukuni Shrine, a symbol of Japan's militarism in the 1930s and '40s. Instead, he visited and...
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2005

Tohoku temblor not area's Big One: panel

The powerful earthquake that rattled the Tohoku region Tuesday was not the big temblor predicted to strike the area within the next 30 years, the government's Earthquake Research Committee concluded Wednesday.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 18, 2005

Summers in Japan mean blood sweat and tears

Though it hasn't been scientifically proven, there appears to be a definite link between summer heat and summer funerals. In my neighborhood, the onset of o-neppa (heat wave), followed by those negurushii yoru (restless nights) sets off a string of o-soshiki (funerals) at the local temple. Almost always,...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 18, 2005

What a curious wonder the walrus is

The walrus is a peculiar, even comical, creature -- and not only in Lewis Carroll's 1872 poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
BUSINESS
Aug 17, 2005

Investor funds flourish, but caveat emptor

Ranging from hip-hop music to premium wines and a ramen court, funds are emerging in myriad fields to whet the appetites of investors tired of the minuscule interest on regular bank deposits and eager for a taste of adventure.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 17, 2005

Viewing the United States from an Asian perspective

HONOLULU -- During a gathering of Asians and Americans in Honolulu, the Asians seemed ambivalent about the role of the United States in their region. As one put it, "We want the Americans to be on tap but not on top."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Aug 17, 2005

Artists' works join the EU

In the last 30 years, the central eastern European nations of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary have experienced tumultuous times. Under communism, state control and censorship forced artists to be regional and nationalistic, but since the soft slides into capitalism and democracy epitomized...
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2005

The other nuclear crisis resumes

Iran appears to be headed -- once again -- toward conflict with the rest of the world over its nuclear programs. Tehran has rejected a European proposal that was designed to end concerns over its determination to develop facilities that would allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon -- an objective the Iranian...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2005

Abe, ministers, Diet members visit shrine

Amid heightened attention on Japan's wartime past, 47 Diet members visited contentious Yasukuni Shrine together Monday, the 60th anniversary of the nation's surrender.
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2005

Police suspect Joyu may try to retake Aum's helm

Fumihiro Joyu, the nominal head of the Aum Shinrikyo cult that launched the deadly sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system in 1995, may be attempting a comeback, police sources said Sunday.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past