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BUSINESS
Oct 21, 2006

Daiei operating profit up, net profit down

Daiei Inc. said Friday its operating profit for its March-August half was 25.45 billion yen, up 41.9 percent from the previous year, on sales of 672.1 billion yen, due to strong sales in its credit card subsidiary OMC Card Inc.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 20, 2006

Rogge: Baseball still has work to do before Olympic return

IOC President Jacques Rogge said Thursday the Olympics has not closed the door on baseball for good, but that the major leagues need to take an even tougher stance on doping and make their star players available for selection if the sport has any chance of being welcomed back to the fold.
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2006

Afghanistan at the tipping point

The top NATO military commander in Afghanistan, British Gen. David Richards, has warned that Afghanistan is at a crucial juncture. If the lives of ordinary Afghans do not improve soon, there is the very real danger that they will switch their allegiance back to the Taliban. Loss of the support of the...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 20, 2006

GO!GO!7188 "Parade"

Like many of the best things in life -- love, drunkenness, ice cream, fireworks -- GO!GO!7188 are tricky to explain but a joy to experience. Formed in 1998, the band blend rockabilly rhythms, surf guitar and J-pop hooks, and the end result is enough to elicit giddiness, goose bumps and gasps from just...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 20, 2006

Isis "In The Absence of Truth"

Where does a band go after stretching the boundaries of its genre as far as possible? Well, if you're Isis, you virtually abandon it. Since their inception as a sludge-metal act in 1997, each of the American quintet's expansive releases have experimented with, and further removed them from, their hardcore...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 17, 2006

Why is Japan kept in dark?

For tourists and residents alike, the quintessential image of Tokyo is of a city lit by artificial light. As soon as twilight gathers, the central shopping and entertainment districts of Shibuya, Shinjuku and Roppongi are awash with neon, shining from each shop and office, even turning the night to a...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Oct 17, 2006

Sony readying plan to challenge iPod

Sony Corp. has vowed to fight iPod's domination in portable digital music players by featuring superior sound quality and simple music downloads that won't require a computer.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 17, 2006

The false hopes of tax cuts

NEW YORK -- There is a movement in medicine to require that applications for licenses to sell a new drug be "evidence-based." By contrast, trained economists view their discipline as having already achieved this scientific standard. After all, they express their ideas with mathematics and arrive at quantitative...
MORE SPORTS
Oct 16, 2006

Chinese stars earn repeat titles

Lin Dan capitalized on his signature left-arm firing shots and Taufik Hidayat lost his signature -- his cool.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 15, 2006

Things a lot different for 2006 Fighters heading into Japan Series

Congratulations to manager Trey Hillman and everyone connected with the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters on winning the franchise's first Pacific League pennant in a quarter century. The organization has come a long way since the last championship 25 years ago and should make a much better showing than last...
BUSINESS
Oct 14, 2006

Retailer Aeon gets Daiei rehab mandate

Daiei Inc. and its biggest shareholder, Marubeni Corp., said Friday they have picked Aeon Co., the nation's largest supermarket chain, to gather capital and organize business alliances to rehabilitate the struggling supermarket operator.
EDITORIALS
Oct 14, 2006

The darkness in Russia

Three recent killings in Russia raise troubling questions about the rule of law in that country. The three incidents are not linked but that is not to say they are random killings: Investigations of the murders will probe the same murky corners where political and economic influence intersect. The realization...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 13, 2006

G. Love and Special Sauce

Comprising guitarist Garret Dutton (Mr. G. Love himself), upright bassist Jimmie Prescott (Jimi Jazz) and drummer Jeffrey Clemens (Houseman), Philadelphia's G. Love & Special Sauce first began turning heads with the release of their nearly gold-certified, 1994 self-titled debut. Incorporating a mish-mash...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 12, 2006

A triple threat in contemporary dance

In recent years, the contemporary dance scene in Japan has grown both in audience size and in the diversity of high-quality, small dance companies. Thirty-one year-old Jo Kanamori, artistic director at the Niigata Ryutopia arts center, is widely considered a trigger for the movement. Kanamori's dance...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2006

Beijing challenges the West in Africa

PRAGUE -- Ever since the Berlin conference of 1883, which Belgium's King Leopold II called "the sharing of Africa's cake," the West has assumed exclusive rights over sub-Saharan Africa. But, while centuries of struggle to end colonial rule and apartheid have not changed this much, now Western influence...
BUSINESS
Oct 12, 2006

Hitachi announces bid for control of Clarion

Hitachi Ltd. said Wednesday it will launch a tender offer on Oct. 25 to acquire a controlling stake in Clarion Co., a leading maker of car audio and navigation equipment, to boost the group's sales in the growing car information systems market.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event would garner valuable worldwide media coverage...
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 8, 2006

LONDON CALLING

Home to some 50,000 people born in Japan, London has been well served for some time with aspects of culture and lifestyle from the Land of the Rising Sun.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 7, 2006

Super start: Pitching stars square off in Pacific League series opener

TOKOROZAWA, Saitama Pref. -- The Seibu Lions are right where they want to be.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2006

Aeon good partner for Daiei but road ahead is still rocky

With Daiei Inc. expected to take Aeon Co. as its business partner, analysts say Daiei still faces a big challenge to turn its business around.
EDITORIALS
Oct 7, 2006

Higher calling for top diplomat

South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon is a shoo-in for becoming the next secretary general of the United Nations. Succeeding Mr. Kofi Annan, Mr. Ban will take up his new job Jan. 1. His election as secretary general later this month by the 192-member General Assembly became certain...
EDITORIALS
Oct 7, 2006

Consequence of skating on thin ice

Mr. Katsuichiro Hisanaga, former head of the Japan Skating Federation, and two others have been arrested on suspicion of embezzling 5.8 million yen from the organization in 2002. The arrests are regrettable especially since Japan has produced world-class figure skaters in the past decade. This year Ms....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2006

Old school rappers look to new schools

Since hip-hop emerged in the late 1970s, it's been closely linked with basketball. But just as the United States is no longer the dominant force in international hoops, its dominance in the world of beats and rhymes is also waning.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 5, 2006

Iraq's Christians at risk of annihilation

LONDON -- The world is consumed by fears that Iraq is degenerating into a civil war between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. But in this looming war of all against all, it is Iraq's small community of Assyrian Christians that is at risk of annihilation.
EDITORIALS
Oct 5, 2006

JAL flying through stormy skies

The international and domestic operations units of Japan Airlines Corp., the nation's flag carrier, merged Oct. 1. The merger means the complete reorganization of JAL and a new start for the airline. But the new JAL faces rough times ahead.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?