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EDITORIALS
Feb 25, 2005

Mr. Thaksin can't relax

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held earlier this month. That win followed a completion of a full term in office, a historic accomplishment in its own right. Yet victory has not ended Mr. Thaksin's worries. Violence in the country's southern...
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2005

Tertiary industry activity up second year

The tertiary industry activity index gained 2.2 percent in 2004 from the previous year for the second straight yearly rise, with the index registering its highest score since 1988, the government said Wednesday.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Feb 24, 2005

'Win-win' tie-up sets sights on sustainable seafood stocks

At the New England Aquarium in Boston, Mass., Heather Tausig is leading a project that, until recently, was unimaginable.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 23, 2005

Foreign stars to battle Japan stars in March 14 charity game

Kudos: To Bobby Valentine, Trey Hillman, Tsutomu Ito, Kazuhiko Ushijima and all the players who will participate in the Pro Yakyu Charity Game at Tokyo Dome on Monday, March 14.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2005

The right thing is not permanent tax cuts

WASHINGTON -- Since his re-election, President George W. Bush has emphasized the need for U.S. fiscal responsibility. He has pledged to halve the enormous federal budget deficit in his second term. He has vowed to put social security on a sound, long-term footing. And he has just submitted a 2006 budget...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 19, 2005

Cosmopolitan stands for cultural understanding

A gaggle of students leaving Cosmopolitan Consultancy in Kawasaki's Shin-Yurigaoka point the way to the front door. "Up, up," they urge, to the third floor, where Suzan Matkin awaits with slippers and English tea.
COMMENTARY
Feb 16, 2005

Answering Pyongyang's divisive tack

HONOLULU -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's initial response to Pyongyang's surprise announcement that it felt compelled to suspend its participation in the six-party talks and that it had manufactured nukes was exactly right.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2005

Nonresidents buy record 15 trillion yen in stocks, bonds

Nonresident investors remained net buyers of Japanese stocks and bonds in 2004 for the second straight year, with net purchases reaching a record 14.99 trillion yen, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2005

Kitajima says that despite the fame, he is still the same

It has been nearly six months now since he shot to stardom at the Athens Olympics, but swimmer Kosuke Kitajima says that, in spite of all that has transpired since, fame has not altered his personality, though it has changed his life.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2005

Middle East truce opens a door

How many times has the world observed an Israeli-Palestinian handshake and breathed a sigh of relief that hostilities in that sliver of the Middle East finally appeared to be ending? The answer, of course, is far too often for the latest declaration of peace to promise much. Camp David, the Rose Garden,...
SOCCER / J. League
Feb 8, 2005

Sandro handed suspended sentence

The Tokyo District Court on Monday sentenced Brazilian forward Sandro Cardoso Dos Santos of J. League team JEF United Ichihara-Chiba to 10 months in prison, suspended for three years, for sexually assaulting a woman at his home in May 2004.
COMMENTARY
Feb 8, 2005

LDP missing the big picture

How to privatize postal services is the biggest issue in the regular Diet session. The government plans to introduce a privatization package in mid-March, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has vowed to "get it through the current session at all costs." But with many members of the Liberal Democratic...
EDITORIALS
Feb 7, 2005

Banking on safer cash cards

In recent months, Japan has been hit by a new wave of crime: cash-card forgery. According to banks, cash withdrawals by forged cards have amounted to hundreds of millions of yen. At stake is the security of deposits. Action is urgently needed on two fronts: crime prevention and loss compensation.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 6, 2005

The attractive helplessness of a reluctant foreigner

THE TOWER OF LONDON: Tales of Victorian London, by Natsume Soseki, translated and introduced by Damian Flanagan, calligraphy by Kosaka Misuzu. London: Peter Owen, 2005, 240 pp., 12 illustrations, £14.95 (paper). In 1900 the Japanese government sent three young scholars to London to study and equip themselves...
EDITORIALS
Feb 5, 2005

Mr. Bush's ambitious agenda

In the first State of the Union address of his second term, U.S. President George W. Bush laid out an ambitious agenda that is designed to transform his country and the world. The speech marked the opening volley in Mr. Bush's attempt to shape his legacy. He reveled in the victory afforded by Iraq's...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 5, 2005

National Children's Centers cater to body, spirit

In July 2000, after 15 years heading the International Section of the Children's Castle, Teri Suzanne left the play and educational center in Aoyama, Tokyo, and became a freelance bilingual specialist. Two years later she was employed as program adviser to the 14 National Children's Centers of Japan's...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 3, 2005

Takaoka, Wainaina on marathon list

Japanese record-holder Toshinari Takaoka and two-time Olympic medalist Eric Wainaina of Kenya were among the 11 runners invited to this month's Tokyo International Marathon, the Japan Association of Athletics Federations said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 2005

Miyakejima calling

It has been four years and five months since volcanic activity on Miyakejima island, about 200 km south of Tokyo, forced all residents to evacuate. On Wednesday, the first group of 62 people returned to the island. We congratulate them on their homecoming, although life on the island is fraught with...
EDITORIALS
Feb 1, 2005

Flying high over the Taiwan Strait

The victory of the opposition Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan elections last December was widely seen as a rebuke of President Chen Shui-bian and an opportunity for the People's Republic of China. In theory, a democratic check on Mr. Chen allows Beijing to retake the initiative...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Former deportee protests denial of bid to live here, near wife's grave

A Bangladeshi man once deported from Japan staged a protest Friday in front of the Justice Ministry, slamming the government for not allowing him back quickly enough to spend time with his Japanese wife as she died of cancer and for telling him he must now leave the country where she is buried.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Jobless rate edges to six-year low

Japan's unemployment rate edged down 0.1 percent to a six-year low of 4.4 percent in December.
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2005

CPI declines for the fifth straight year as deflation continues to dog economy

The key gauge of consumer prices in Japan fell 0.1 percent in 2004, marking a fifth straight yearly decline and underscoring that the economy is still beset by deflation, the government said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Population up 0.05% in 2004

Japan's population rose to about 127,687,000 in 2004, up by 0.05 percent from a year earlier, according to a preliminary government report on estimated demographic shifts obtained by Kyodo News.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 28, 2005

Top student players need to get a 'real' rugby education

The university final earlier this month between Waseda and Kanto Gakuin highlighted all that is good and bad about college rugby in Japan.
BUSINESS
Jan 28, 2005

Takara chief to leave over fiscal decline

Toy maker Takara Co. announced Thursday that its president, Keita Sato, will step down to take responsibility for the 10.5 billion yen net loss expected for the current fiscal year to March.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2005

High court refuses to acknowledge police negligence led to fatal stalking

The parents of a woman who was murdered in 1999 by a group of men linked to her ex-boyfriend failed Wednesday to win recognition that the negligence by Saitama police who failed to act on her complaint of stalking and harassment led to her slaying.

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