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BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 1, 2004

Kiyohara to play for Giants in 2005

Disgruntled veteran slugger Kazuhiro Kiyohara said Tuesday he has reached middle ground with the Yomiuri Giants and will play for the Central League club next season, the final year of his four-year deal.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Softbank gets Hawks for 20 billion yen

Softbank Corp. said Tuesday it has agreed to pay 20 billion yen for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks and its gaming rights, capping years of speculation on the fate of the athletically sound but financially ailing baseball team.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Hashimoto admits taking JDA donation

Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, speaking Tuesday to a closed Diet panel session, effectively acknowledged that he received an unreported 100 million yen donation from the Japan Dental Association in July 2001.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Arms export shift turns low key

The government will not stipulate the planned lifting of its self-imposed ban on arms exports when in the next week or so it adopts a new basic defense policy, according to politicians who attended the ruling coalition's security panel meeting Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Winny file-sharer gets suspended term

A man arrested last year on copyright charges for disseminating films on the Internet was given a three-year suspended sentence Tuesday -- averting a jail term in one of the first crackdowns on file-sharing in Japan.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Princess Nori's engagement to be declared Dec. 18

The Imperial Household Agency said Tuesday it will officially announce the engagement of Princess Nori -- the 35-year-old daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko -- to Tokyo Metropolitan Government employee Yoshiki Kuroda on Dec. 18.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

Taking public pulse on Iraq mission turns up disturbing information gap

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has said he will take into account public opinion, along with various other factors, when he decides whether to extend the one-year Self-Defense Forces mission in Iraq, which expires Dec. 14.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2004

For visa violators, it pays to come clean

In June 2000, Mohammad Mizanur Rahman was deported from Japan for overstaying his visa. Shortly after he was forced back to his native Bangladesh, his Japanese girlfriend joined him and they married.
BUSINESS
Dec 1, 2004

DoCoMo, mm02 to provide i-mode services in Europe

NTT DoCoMo Inc. and major British mobile carrier mm02 have agreed on a deal to allow mobile telephone users in Britain, Germany and Ireland to surf the Internet on their handsets, DoCoMo said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Nov 30, 2004

Four Hollywood studios back Toshiba's HD DVD

In what could be a major coup in a fierce format war, Toshiba Corp. and its partners said Monday they have won support from four major Hollywood movie studios for their next-generation DVD.
BUSINESS
Nov 30, 2004

Daihatsu launches Mira Gino minivehicle

Daihatsu Motor Co. on Monday launched its new Mira Gino minivehicle, fully remodeled for the first time in five years.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2004

Asahara lawyers seek suspended trial

Lawyers for Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara said Monday they have asked the Tokyo High Court to suspend his appeal case on the grounds that he is incompetent to stand trial.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 29, 2004

A new dawn for Myanmar?

Many Myanmar watchers might have been surprised when they got news of the pending release of nearly 4,000 prisoners who had been inappropriately jailed by the notorious Military Intelligence (MI) wing of former Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt's regime.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Nov 28, 2004

A clotheshorse for all seasons

"What will she be wearing?"
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2004

Kokudo employee found dead in suspected suicide

An employee of scandal-hit Kokudo Corp. was found dead Nov. 21 on the seashore in Yamagata Prefecture, and police are looking into the possibility he killed himself, according to sources familiar with the case.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2004

Education minister slams textbooks as 'self-torturing'

Education minister Nariaki Nakayama said Saturday that history textbooks used in secondary schools contain passages that are extremely "self-torturing" and suggest "Japan has done nothing but bad things."
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Koizumi an official at Yasukuni

The Thursday court ruling on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's 2001 visit to Yasukuni Shrine indicates he may longer be able to continue to be ambiguous about the nature of his contentious visits, many scholars agree.
EDITORIALS
Nov 27, 2004

A revealing melee in Chile

It seemed like a sideshow at the time, but the incident in Santiago last weekend in which U.S. President George W. Bush intervened to "rescue" one of his Secret Service agents from a scuffle with Chilean police has been mushrooming all week. In retrospect, that melee -- and a dispute last Sunday involving...
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2004

Government strong-arms Itami airport

OSAKA -- The battle over the future of the Kansai region's airports heated up this month as the central government pressured Osaka's Itami airport to shift domestic flights to Kansai International Airport and threatened to take away Itami's official status as an international airport.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 26, 2004

Furuta, NPB officials on same page

Officials of Nippon Professional Baseball and representatives of the pro baseball players association met Thursday to negotiate possible revisions of the rules regarding trades and player transfers, salary and the amateur draft system.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 25, 2004

Now may be the time to finesse U.S. 'bully'

Beneath the buzz of news last week, it was easy to overlook one important story -- as much of the media did. On Thursday, the Russian Federation submitted to the United Nations its ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, beginning a 90-day countdown to the protocol's entry into force. As a result, on Feb....
BUSINESS
Nov 25, 2004

MTFG, UFJ post declines in first half

Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. announced Wednesday its group net profit fell 43.1 percent in the fiscal first half from a year earlier to 171.7 billion yen, while merger partner UFJ Holdings said separately its group net loss was 674.3 billion yen for the six months to September.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Nov 24, 2004

Kiyohara set to stay

Disgruntled veteran Yomiuri Giants slugger Kazuhiro Kiyohara indicated Tuesday he will stay with the Central League club next season.
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2004

Mizuho, SMFG loan ills abating

Mizuho Financial Group Inc., the nation's biggest bank by assets, said Monday its first-half net profit fell 8.4 percent from a year earlier but its bad loans shrank due to improved earnings at borrower firms.

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