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EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2006

Turbulent times for JAL

The drama started Feb. 10, when four board members of Japan Airlines Corp.'s international operations unit visited JAL President Toshiyuki Shinmachi with a petition carrying the signatures of some 50 managers. They urged him and two other executives to take responsibility for the JAL group's poor business...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2006

High levels of mercury found in beached whales

About a dozen melon-headed whales that recently beached in Chiba Prefecture and died had mercury concentrations some 10 times higher than the level the government considers acceptable, a study showed Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2006

Can Do chain pulls jewelry over lead risk

The operator of the Can Do 100-yen discount store chain pulled imported metal accessories from its shelves because they may contain high levels of lead, as announced by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government the previous day.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2006

Cabinet OKs lost-and-found database

The Cabinet approved legislative revisions Tuesday on the handling of lost items by police and private companies, including setting up an online database for the public and halving storage time.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2006

Minorities call for strong antidiscrimination legislation

Representatives and supporters of minority groups issued a united call Tuesday for a robust antidiscrimination law.
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2006

A battle that has barely begun

One year since the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control went into effect, Japan's smoking rate still remains high compared with other developed nations. The government needs to create a strong momentum toward lowering the rate.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 7, 2006

Caviar poachers find Japan glad to look other way

The caviar industry is shrinking in Iran and Russia due to rampant poaching, smuggling and a lack of resources management.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Mar 7, 2006

"How the Hangman Lost His Heart," "Fish"

"How the Hangman Lost His Heart," K.M. GRANT, Puffin; 2006; 192 pp.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 7, 2006

A good cause

While Japan has no tradition of high-priced events for the wealthy to raise money for charity, expatriate communities here regularly lay on glitzy, high-profile parties as a means of raising money for the less fortunate.
COMMENTARY
Mar 6, 2006

A 'livable' society has rules

Takafumi Horie, the former Livedoor president arrested in January on charges of breaking securities laws, was one of the last men to "pay the price" for the excesses of Japan's bubble economy (1987-90). I cannot help but feel a certain amount of sympathy for him, for there are still many others who have...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 5, 2006

A few bows too many for shamed DPJ lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata

One picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words, and the one that graced the front page of the Feb. 24 Asahi Shimbun is worth more than all the kanji expended on the Democratic Party of Japan's e-mail fiasco.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Mar 5, 2006

Chizuko Ueno: Speaking up for her sex

In the United States today, it is no longer radical to suggest that the next president could be a woman. In Nordic countries, no husband would rail at a pregnant wife who expected him to share child-raising duties. And female heads of state are now found the world over.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 4, 2006

Mong-Lan

Although she was only 5 when, with her family, she was evacuated from Saigon, Mong-Lan thinks the events of war and suffering in her early life traumatized her. Thirty years later, critics find in her poetry "the tectonic force of history, beauty and despair." Poetry, giving release to her emotions,...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Mar 4, 2006

What would the village hugger do?

Eons ago in an America light-years away, my wife and I stopped at the only eatery available in a town that hit the bull's-eye in the middle of nowhere. As we ordered coffee and toast, an old man shuffling past suddenly stopped and spoke to my wife. She may have been the first Oriental he had ever seen....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Mar 3, 2006

Final hurdles cleared

All that's left for Team Japan to do is come out of the dugout and play China on Friday night.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Mar 3, 2006

Blues from the Delta Crossing

On the Tokyo blues scene, the gut power of Delta blues has had few finer exponents than Steve Gardner. A Mississippi native who has made Tokyo his home, Gardner learned the blues at its source in the Mississippi Delta. While visiting the bluesmen and blueswomen in their homes there as a photojournalist,...
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2006

Obituary: Mutsuki Kato

Former Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Mutsuki Kato died of heart failure Tuesday at a Tokyo hospital. He was 79.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2006

Mexican envoy praises fruits of FTA

Japan's second free-trade agreement, the one with Mexico that is approaching its first anniversary, has been a big success with a 30 percent jump in bilateral trade, Mexican Ambassador Miguel Ruiz-Cabanas said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Feb 28, 2006

Thoughts better left buried

LOS ANGELES -- Japan offers the world a culture of surpassing elegance, intellect, literature and political achievement, but it still remains something of an enigma. The great novelist Haruki Murakami understands, perhaps as well as anyone, this aspect of his country. His recent "Kafka on the Shore,"...
COMMENTARY
Feb 27, 2006

Nuclear carrier unwelcome

The U.S. Navy recently announced a decision to deploy a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at Yokosuka Naval Base in Kanagawa Prefecture, dismaying residents of the area. Following the decision -- made in conjunction with the reorganization of U.S. forces in Japan -- the mayor of Yokosuka, the prefectural...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 26, 2006

Will Barry Bonds play his last game at Tokyo Dome?

News came last week that San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds announced he would be retiring at the end of the 2006 season. The next day, he said he may play several more years. Typical for a guy who often changes his mind, but there's nothing wrong with that.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 26, 2006

Mourinho should take a media lesson from Wenger

LONDON -- When Arsene Wenger left the press conference in Bernabeu Stadium after Arsenal's 1-0 win over Real Madrid in the Champions League on Tuesday night he smiled as the assembled media gave him a round of applause.

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