Search - special

 
 
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 2, 2003

Stores start yearend gift campaigns

Major department stores across the country on Saturday started their campaigns for the annual "oseibo" end-of-year gift-giving season, hoping to recover some of the losses incurred during the prolonged economic slump.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2003

Single moms find favor with ministry

The health ministry plans to give preferential treatment to single mothers when hiring part-time workers, officials said Thursday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 25, 2003

F.W. Rustmann

In 1992, F.W. Rustmann founded CTC International Group. This initiative, he reports, represented "an effort to fill the growing need for U.S. corporations to collect business intelligence and to protect their proprietary information. CTC is a pioneer in the field of business intelligence and a recognized...
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2003

Spacecraft technicians tutored in art of soldering

Japan's space agency is giving special soldering iron training to technicians who manufacture parts for H-IIA rockets to help them improve the quality of their work.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 12, 2003

Young Japanese silently reject salaryman lifestyle

Government facilities are depressing places, but none are as depressing as your neighborhood unemployment office. That's why, in Japan, unemployment offices have been given the cheery, infantilized name "Hello Work," a term that conjures up visions of company presidents waiting at the entrance with job...
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2003

Antiterror debate deserved better

The Upper House of the Diet on Friday passed a key bill extending by another two years the special antiterrorism law. The debate proceeded without a hitch by skirting an essential discussion. The central question -- what roles Japan should play in the international fight against terror -- was not thoroughly...
COMMENTARY
Oct 9, 2003

Small states seek bigger say

LONDON -- The meeting of European Union member states in Rome to begin discussing a possible new constitution has opened on a discordant note. The smaller countries of Europe do not like the way things are going. The worries are not just those of "the usual suspects" -- the British, Danes and Swedes....
BUSINESS
Oct 8, 2003

Forex reserves hit new record on interventions

Japan's foreign-exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of September, rising $49.79 billion to $604.87 billion due to massive currency market interventions, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2003

Mizuho outlook brighter following Nikkei surge

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. said Monday it has raised its earnings forecast for the fiscal first half, citing the recent stock market advance, lower-than-expected credit costs and special tax returns.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 3, 2003

Luxor: Pride of Italy, transplanted

You eat better at Italian restaurants in Tokyo than you do in Italy. A preposterous statement of unreconstructed chauvinism? An urban myth propagated by a few disgruntled tourists ripped off in Rimini? No, that is the considered opinion of a growing number of people familiar with both countries and their...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 24, 2003

Sounds Numero Ono

You could call Seigen Ono a connoisseur of sound. He chooses only the finest sonic ingredients and knows exactly how to obtain them. As an avant-garde jazz composer and guitarist, he might not be a household name, but check out the credits on some of the best records of the last two decades and there's...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2003

The dark, radiant world of Rembrandt van Rijn

It doesn't look like the face of a man who paints religious scenes. Fleshy, with that famously crumpled nose, he sports a jaunty hat and a look of shabby dandyism. In his later years -- more than two decades after he engraved this 1631 self-portrait -- the artist would be forced into bankruptcy, unable...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 21, 2003

An endless supply of meat for loan sharks

Half the job of solving social problems is getting the word out. This is especially true when it comes to criminal activities like fraud. Victims of fraud are by definition people who don't know enough about fraud to realize when they're being ripped off.
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2003

Iranian visa violators can stay

The Tokyo District Court on Friday granted an Iranian family of four in Gunma Prefecture who have overstayed their visas for more than 13 years permission to stay in Japan, citing humanitarian reasons.
COMMENTARY
Sep 14, 2003

Shy man performs historic balancing act

HONG KONG -- Because Hong Kong's leader tends to view the news media (local or otherwise) with the enthusiasm of a swimmer greeting a school of sharks, Tung Chee-hwa has scant hope of receiving his due as the historically pivotal man he is. His public image is generally terrible, and he is often portrayed...
BUSINESS
Sep 12, 2003

LDP panel OKs deregulation plans

An LDP deregulation committee on Thursday approved a set of 48 proposals tied to the third series of special economic zones introduced as part of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's deregulation drive.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2003

Seniors enjoy thespian therapy

Kiyoko Goto, 86, dried her eyes several times as she watched the action unfold before her.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Sep 11, 2003

Firefly squid

* Japanese name: Hotaru ika * Scientific name: Watasenia scintillans * Description: With a body length of just 4-6 cm, these squid are small but perfectly formed. Squid have a streamlined head and body, with eight arms and two tentacles around the head. (Octopi don't have tentacles, which are longer...
BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2003

Foreign exchange reserves down in August

Japan held $555.09 billion in foreign exchange reserves at the end of August, down $1.75 billion from a month earlier for the first decline in nine months, the Finance Ministry said Friday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 5, 2003

Carmakers aim for 'greater safety performance'

The catchphrase among Japanese automakers these days is "greater safety performance."
MORE SPORTS
Sep 1, 2003

Sugiyama battles into quarters

NEW YORK -- Japan's Ai Sugiyama produced a hard-fought come-from-behind win over Australia's Nicole Pratt on Saturday to advance to the U.S. Open women's singles quarterfinals for the first time in her career.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 31, 2003

When your number's up ...

Emiko Kameyama has two close friends she likes to hang out with. In addition to their monthly dinners and the occasional trips they take together, two years ago the trio began a new tradition -- playing the Jumbo takarakuji (lottery).
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 20, 2003

Leisure sites expand hours to lift revenue

Zoos open at night. A Ferris wheel still running past midnight.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Aug 17, 2003

Black widows striking back

MOSCOW -- Animalistic labels stick to terror. Adolf Hitler's commandos were called werewolves; terrorist cells in Turkey in the 1970s, gray wolves; now the Russian media have christened Chechen female suicide bombers black widows.
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2003

Ambiguous signs of economic change

At first glance, Japan's latest GDP figures look impressive. In the second quarter of this year, April through June, the gross domestic product in real terms, excluding the effects of price change, expanded 0.6 percent from the previous quarter for an annualized rate of 2.3 percent. Thus the economy...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2003

Doubts linger as Iraq bill passes

The controversial bill to send Japanese troops to Iraq for humanitarian and security assistance passed the Upper House early Saturday morning despite a last-ditch attempt by the opposition parties to block the procedure. Final approval of the ad hoc measure followed a special committee vote Friday evening....
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2003

More transparency needed in investigations of suspects

Little progress is reported in Japan-U.S. talks on legal proceedings in the alleged rape of an Okinawan woman by a U.S. serviceman. A hitch has developed over the demand by U.S. authorities for greater protection of the suspect's rights.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2003

Discontent runs deep in Hong Kong

LONDON -- The way in which the administration in Hong Kong was forced to pull back from its proposed antisubversion legislation has rightly been hailed as a rare example of popular feeling making its impact on the unelected government of the former British colony. But it raises more fundamental questions...

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