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JAPAN
Sep 21, 2006

LDP election broke with norm

to a certain degree," he said. "Without Koizumi's guidance, Abe would never have become party president." Abe won 464 votes, or 66 percent of the total, although he had reportedly been shooting for more than 70 percent. Aso came in second with 136 and Tanigaki got 102.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2006

The next Palestinian struggle

LONDON -- An expert in international law and an old friend of the Palestinian people wrote me with utter distress a few days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh were reported to have reached an agreement Sept. 11 to form a national unity government. The content...
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2006

Share of urban wealth

While the gap between the haves and have-nots -- which is believed to have widened under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's administration -- has become a political issue, another economic gap deserves attention. This is the gap between the nation's business and economic centers and the countryside....
Japan Times
JAPAN / LASTING IMPACT
Sep 18, 2006

Aum's crimes marked start of growing public safety fear

Last in a series
EDITORIALS
Sep 18, 2006

Unfinished business

The Tax Commission, an advisory body that directly reports to the prime minister, has decided to put off for a year or so recommendations on middle-range tax reforms. Short of official recommendations, however, commission chief Hiromitsu Ishi has issued a personal statement calling for public discussions...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2006

Long inevitable goodbye of Tony Blair

LONDON -- In early 1999, Paddy Ashdown, then the leader of Britain's Liberal Democratic Party (and since then, as Lord Ashdown, Europe's envoy in Bosnia), was found with a woman not his wife and forced to resign his post.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 17, 2006

Struggling to put the brakes on the culture of drunk driving

What makes a crime more heinous than another? We usually think it has to do with intention. Murder, which implies pre-meditation, is more seriously punished than manslaughter, which implies lack of premeditation.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2006

Horie ordered profit inflation tactics, Miyauchi says

Livedoor Co.'s former Chief Financial Officer Ryoji Miyauchi testified about his former boss Takafumi Horie in court Friday and said that he and other former executives acted on orders from Horie to inflate the company's earnings for the business year to September 2004.
COMMUNITY
Sep 16, 2006

Sun and Moon Yoga: 'Within my body, a city'

Trying to find the way in and out of the Sun and Moon Yoga studio in Meguro, Tokyo, is a bit like trying to negotiate an Escher drawing. Do you take the clean way, the dirty way, the back way or the other way? No worry, says owner-director Leza Lowitz, there is no right or wrong way, only the space that...
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 2006

Mr. Ozawa on the offensive

Just as the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election campaign is making headlines, Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, president of the Democratic Party of Japan, formally announces his candidacy in the No. 1 opposition party's leadership race and discloses his platform. By emphasizing the need to rectify what some...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2006

Peeping economist nabbed in groping

Economist Kazuhide Uekusa, who was once a regular guest on TV programs but was convicted for trying to look up a girl's skirt in 2004, has been arrested on suspicion of groping a 17-year-old female high school student on a train in Tokyo, police said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2006

Daiei to cut debts through selloff of properties, stocks

Struggling giant retailer Daiei Inc. will cut its interest-bearing liabilities by 200 billion yen from 350 billion yen on an unconsolidated basis by selling real estate and stock holdings, sources said Thursday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2006

Mixi skyrockets in stock market debut

Shares of Mixi Inc., Japan's most popular social networking site, shot up during the company's stock market debut Thursday as buy orders swamped sell orders and more than doubled its initially offered price.
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2006

8.3 billion yen shot in the arm eyed for drugmakers

The government plans to give the nation's anemic pharmaceuticals industry a shot in the arm next year by boosting support by 80 percent so companies can better compete on a global scale, officials said Tuesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2006

Hokuetsu, Nippon Paper agree to hold tieup talks

Hokuetsu Paper Mills Ltd. and Nippon Paper Group Inc. said Tuesday they have agreed to begin discussing a business tieup that would include mutual supply of printing paper under each other's brands.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2006

Ozawa seeks re-election as DPJ chief

Democratic Party of Japan leader Ichiro Ozawa announced Monday he will run for re-election as the party's president.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2006

Trouble looms as foreign labor floods in

OSAKA -- It's 2030, and Japan is facing an unprecedented social problem. For the past quarter-century, ever since the population began declining, the government has encouraged the hiring of foreign laborers. But measures to control immigration have failed, and in some towns and villages foreigners now...
BUSINESS
Sep 12, 2006

July machinery orders fall record 16.7%

Core private-sector machinery orders plunged a seasonally adjusted 16.7 percent in July from the previous month, their biggest fall in 19 years, the government said Monday, but it downplayed the decline as a reaction to a surge in June.
BUSINESS
Sep 12, 2006

Small consumer lenders rush to restructure

Consumer finance companies, particularly midsize and small firms, are expected to restructure their operations as the government considers lowering the cap on consumer loan rates.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 12, 2006

Owning the bragging rights to work addiction

The Japanese were once famed for their work ethic. Now, shigoto-chudoku (workaholism) has been franchised out to the rest of the world and become a fact of globalized life.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 10, 2006

Talented Ushijima's exodus comes too soon for struggling BayStars

Too bad about the resignation/firing of Yokohama BayStars manager Kazuhiko Ushijima. I thought he was one of the better young skippers to come along in many a year, but he's being shown the exit door after only two seasons at the helm.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 10, 2006

What's love got to do with it? Holding on for a while

Many modern people have probably formed their idea of romantic love through the popular arts. We know from Jane Austen novels that marrying for love is an idea that preceded Hollywood, but people still wed for many other reasons, including simple companionship, convenience and money. Nevertheless, love...
EDITORIALS
Sep 9, 2006

Mr. Horie gets his day in court

Mr. Takafumi Horie, once the high-flying president of the Internet service firm Livedoor Co., who was known for his T-shirt-and-slacks attire, appeared in public this week in a suit and tie. This time he was in Tokyo District Court charged with violating the securities law. Reflecting not only public...
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2006

METI submits criminal complaint on Mitutoyo

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry filed a criminal complaint on Friday against precision instrument maker Mitutoyo Corp. and its executives on suspicion of unlawfully exporting two measuring devices that could be used to make nuclear weapons to Malaysia in 2001, ministry sources said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 9, 2006

Alex Kerr

The name Alex Kerr is well known in many contexts, as he is a person of many parts. He is a scholar, linguist, specialist and prize winner, accomplished in diverse fields.
BUSINESS
Sep 8, 2006

Newspapers to set up joint Web site

A group of 51 newspaper publishers in Japan including The Japan Times said Thursday it will establish a new company this month that will create a Web site containing news and regional information.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 7, 2006

Web gives niche interests a chance in the free market

Economists right back to Adam Smith in the 18th century have exalted the concept of the free market, where all commodities can be bought and sold without tariffs or subsidies. In Western neoliberal political thought, market freedom had become viewed by the 1980s as an extension of personal autonomy....

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat