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EDITORIALS
Jun 11, 2005

Democratic dilemmas in Mideast

Two election results pose deep dilemmas for democrats who support reconciliation in the Middle East. In recent municipal ballots in the Gaza Strip, the Islamic militant group Hamas made a surprisingly strong showing. Soon after, a coalition of parties led by Hezbollah swept elections in southern Lebanon....
BUSINESS
Jun 10, 2005

Spain's bank presence back as BBVA opens branch

Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria announced Wednesday the opening of a branch in Tokyo with the aim of financing Japanese firms doing business in Latin America.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 9, 2005

TM bolsters notion of a Japanese mind-set over mortality

As we heard in a government white paper on the elderly last week, the number of people aged 90 or over topped 1 million in Japan for the first time in 2004. Japan has long held the record for its citizens having the longest life expectancy in the world. And the government is only too aware of the graying...
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 2005

Wisdom for an aging world

In the 21st century, the world faces a dual demographic problem. First, the world population will continue to grow, increasing from about 6 billion in 2005 to more than 9 billion in 2050. Second, by around that time, the waves of an aging society now enveloping the developed countries as a result of...
JAPAN
Jun 6, 2005

Frenchman to try to row from Chiba to San Francisco

Emmanuel Coindre, the French sailor who has crossed the Atlantic five times in a rowboat, is planning to set out this month on the first-ever solo nonstop rowboat voyage from Japan to the U.S.
JAPAN
Jun 5, 2005

Two Renoirs fetch 310 million yen

A pair of oil paintings composed in 1895 by impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir sold Saturday for 310 million yen in a Tokyo auction, the second-highest price ever at an art auction in Japan, Shinwa Art Auction Co. said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jun 5, 2005

Seiji Hirao: Mr. Rugby

At the Rugby World Cup Sevens in Hong Kong in March, a group of eminent rugby journalists were talking about Japan's bid to host Rugby World Cup 2011.
MORE SPORTS
Jun 4, 2005

Brotherly rift surfaces following funeral

The passing of sumo elder Futagoyama has exposed a widely suspected rift between his once celebrated sons.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 2005

Premise of mutual confidence

The long-standing problem of the Northern Territories has been weighing heavily on relations between Japan and Russia. Summit talks between the two countries in the past have lifted hopes for a new development toward a settlement. Each time, though, hopes waned in due course because a new Soviet or Russian...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 1, 2005

Silk Road was the path to peace and war

As standards of history teaching are supposed to be falling around the world, it might be worth trying to captue the imagination of students of world history by presenting much of it in terms of romantic sounding trade routes. This approach has clearly paid dividends with centuries of obscure Central...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 29, 2005

Divorce was a tradition, the taboo an invention

DIVORCE IN JAPAN: Family, Gender and the State 1600-2000, by Harold Feuss. Stanford University Press: Stanford, 2004, 226 pp., $45 (cloth). In recent years there has been a cascade of media reports about the dysfunctional Japanese family. The alarming incidence of domestic violence, child abuse, suicide,...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2005

ATMs need to take foreign cards: critics

The inability of most automated teller machines at Japanese banks to accept foreign credit cards has long irritated tourists and short-term foreign residents in a country where cash still plays a key role in everyday life.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2005

SMFG posts record group net loss

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. said Tuesday it posted a record 234.2 billion yen group net loss for the business year ended March 31, a sharp reversal from the 330.4 billion yen net profit it recorded a year earlier.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2005

Service industries up for sixth year

Service industries expanded for the sixth straight year in fiscal 2004, with the tertiary industry activity index posting the biggest growth in eight years, the government said Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 24, 2005

Here comes the fear

Japan is following other developed countries in drafting antiterrorism laws.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 24, 2005

Vikings, traditional gear and theater

Viking Katya has what she calls a "random goofy question." She wants to know why it is that a buffet here is called "viking."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 22, 2005

Joe Lovano

Saxophonist Joe Lovano knows just how to rough up a bop number, wail like a bird of prey and keep each and every note right on target. Too young to have fully joined the free jazz movement and too old to be a slick self-promoter, Lovano relies instead on straight-on integrity. He knows people don't come...
BUSINESS
May 20, 2005

Japan Net Bank books first profit

Japan Net Bank said Thursday it posted a net profit of 1.1 billion yen in the business year that ended March 31, the company's first net profit since it started operating in October 2000.
BUSINESS
May 14, 2005

Machinery orders grew 6.5% in '04

Core private-sector machinery orders grew 6.5 percent in fiscal 2004 from the previous year, marking a second straight yearly rise, the government said Friday.
COMMENTARY
May 11, 2005

The failures to counteract inhumanity

LONDON -- Sadako Ogata was at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs in April for the release of the book she has written about her experiences as U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) between 1991 and 2000.
MORE SPORTS
May 10, 2005

Q-chan parts ways with coach Koide

Sydney Olympic gold-medalist Naoko Takahashi said Monday she will part company with longtime coach Yoshio Koide and continue her running career without a trainer.
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2005

Nonproliferation plus disarmament

An international conference to review the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) opens at the United Nations Monday. The 1970 treaty is riddled with inefficacy, as illustrated by North Korea's nuclear-weapons program, Iran's moves to enrich uranium, and the existence of an international black market for nuclear...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Apr 30, 2005

Rosie Stancer

Only three women have ever on their own reached the South Pole. The first was a Norwegian skier. The second was a Briton, who covered the requisite 1,123 km in 42 days, a record that stands. The third was Rosie Stancer, also a Briton and the eldest of the three when at 43 she trekked solo in one of the...
COMMENTARY
Apr 29, 2005

Taiwan opposition tests winds in Beijing

HONG KONG -- Little more than a month after China's passage of its antisecession law, the cross-strait situation has undergone a remarkable change. While there has been some negative fallout, with Taiwan delaying talks on expanding chartered flights between the two sides and banning journalists from...
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2005

Learn from the train tragedy

Monday's railway accident in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, was the worst since Japanese National Railways was privatized in 1987. A packed seven-car commuter train jumped the tracks at a sharp curve and the front car slammed into the parking floor of a nearby apartment building, killing more than 100...
BUSINESS
Apr 28, 2005

Japanese find life tough in foreign securities firms

Foreign securities companies may be steadily gaining a foothold in Japan, but many of the Japanese now working for them have a tough time compared with when they used to work at domestic commercial banks and securities firms.

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