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Japan Times
Features
Jul 25, 2004

Japan's inventor supreme shares the secret of 3,218 successes

Who is Japan's most famous inventor? No doubt about it, it's Yoshiro Nakamatsu -- or Dr. NakaMats as he styles himself. The doc says he has 3,218 inventions to his credit, including the floppy disk and the compact disc. Although his childhood dream was to become Finance Minister, from the age of 5, Nakamatsu...
MORE SPORTS
Jul 7, 2004

World's top agent Johnson key to IMG's future

How rare is an interview with Peter Johnson?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jun 23, 2004

Japan crowd overwhelms Jiga + Jinno; New releases spark summer's fire

Weeks of wonder culminated in a long moment of uncertainty when Jiga + Jinno of Analog Pussy took the stage back on April 9 at Cube326.
Features
Jun 13, 2004

Shaking off 'shame'

In a civilized society, people should not be scared to talk about their ailments -- especially when the illness may have been contracted from medical product infected with a potentially fatal virus.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 8, 2004

Hidden plight of detainees

'What did I do to the Japanese people," asks Merdem Yousif. "I came to Japan because I thought the people would be warm-hearted. It was my big mistake. I should have gone to another country."
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2004

New jailers, same prison?

The stage-managed toppling of ex-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's statue will not, after all, be the image defining the Iraq war. Like the famous photo of the young girl on fire running naked to escape the horror of napalm in the Vietnam War, the photographs emerging from Abu Ghraib prison will be the...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 21, 2004

Hostages released into storm of criticism

Two days before her daughter was freed Thursday night by her captors in Iraq, 65-year-old Kyoko Takato was apologizing to the public, using words more befitting of the parent of a criminal.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2004

High court rejects appeal over use of taxpayers' money

The Tokyo High Court on Friday upheld a lower court rejection of a demand that former Tokyo Gov. Shunichi Suzuki and three other metropolitan government officials refund 51 million yen spent in connection with Emperor Akihito's ascension ceremonies in 1990.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2004

Temporary magazine sales ban threatens freedom of expression

The Tokyo District Court's temporary injunction banning the sale of the weekly Shukan Bunshun over an article about the private life of a Diet lawmaker's daughter triggered debate over the issue of privacy vs. freedom of expression.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2004

Takefuji bugging fallout continues

Tokyo prosecutors on Friday charged the former chairman of consumer loan firm Takefuji Corp. with defaming a freelance journalist who wrote an article about the firm's wiretapping of his phone line.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 11, 2004

Bush majors in suppression of science

It comes as no surprise that U.S. President George W. Bush is calling for a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to heterosexual couples. He is simply using the age-old tactic of picking on others to save his own hide.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2004

LDP to submit bill on constitutional reform

The Liberal Democratic Party plans to submit to the current Diet session a bill aimed at effecting a referendum on constitutional reform, senior LDP lawmakers said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2004

Paying inventors their due

How much should a company pay an employee for his or her invention? The question has stirred controversy in Japan since January when a lower court ruled in favor of a mind-boggling 20 billion yen payment requested by Mr. Shuji Nakamura, a former chemical company employee and now a University of California...
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2004

China draws the line in Hong Kong

When Hong Kong reverted to China, Beijing pledged that there would be "one country, two systems." The capitalist redoubt would be part of "one China," but it would also keep its separate political and administrative order to maintain both stability and the vitality that transformed the city into a regional...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2004

Takei pleads guilty to wiretap

Former Takefuji Corp. Chairman Yasuo Takei pleaded guilty Tuesday to ordering a subordinate to wiretap two journalists -- one who wrote an article critical of the lending company and one who probed the firm's overseas activities.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 1, 2004

Entertaining the idea of surrogate mums

Last week, the health ministry decided not to recommend revisions to current guidelines regarding fertility treatments. This disappointed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been advocating the legalization of such controversial procedures as the use of surrogate mothers because they say they...
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 2004

Reform key to Mr. Koizumi's future

In his policy speech to the Diet on Monday, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince a public that is skeptical about sending Self-Defense Force troops to Iraq to provide humanitarian aid and assist with reconstruction. It is not clear whether he succeeded...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2004

Japan needs to emerge from behind America's apron: Wolferen

Japan may be the world's No. 2 economic power, but where diplomacy is concerned, Karel G. van Wolferen likens it to a boy who has to ask his parents (i.e. the United States) if he can go outside to play.
BUSINESS
Dec 25, 2003

Banks to receive green light to enter securities business

Banks are set to be allowed into the securities business following a recommendation Wednesday by a government panel that banks and other financial institutions be given the ability to act as sales agents for brokerage houses.
COMMENTARY
Dec 6, 2003

Chen plays a dangerous game

HONOLULU -- Is President Chen Shui-bian trying to provoke a crisis with China in the runup to Taiwan's March 2004 presidential elections?
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2003

Fresh charges served in Takefuji wiretap case

Four people who were indicted Thursday on a charge of wiretapping a journalist were served fresh arrest warrants later in the day for allegedly bugging the phones of another journalist in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2003

Farmers lose 33-year fight over land at Narita

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected an appeal by farmers seeking nullification of the government's expropriation of land for Narita airport in Chiba Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 30, 2003

all systems GO!

In the game of go, there are no cards, no dice, no tricky moves like chess or complicated formulas to remember as there are in poker or mah jongg. And though in principle the game is simplicity itself, go is in a mathematical stratosphere all of its own.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2003

Government intervenes to rescue Ashikaga Bank

Stepping into a political minefield, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided Saturday that the government would temporarily nationalize Ashikaga Bank, currently part of the Ashikaga Financial Group Inc.

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