Search - 2002

 
 
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 21, 2004

J. League set for changes in 2005

The J. League on Tuesday finalized a plan to increase the number of first-division teams from 16 to 18 and approved a switch to a one-stage format from the current two-stage system, beginning in the 2005 season.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2004

Typical wife beater: 40-year-old boozer

The typical perpetrator of domestic violence in Japan is a 40-year-old male who drinks regularly and has a six-year history of assaulting family members, according to a recent Justice Ministry study.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 21, 2004

Fiction made real

I met with Kazuo Kuroki following the premiere of "Utsukushii Natsu Kirishima (Kirishima 1945)" at the Fukuoka International Film Festival in 2002. A native of Ebino, Miyazaki Prefecture, where the film was shot, Kuroki looked content with the warm response he had received from the Kyushu audience. Smartly...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2004

Pay pension premiums or else, agency warns

The Social Insurance Agency will mail letters Tuesday to some 500 people, demanding they pay their national pension premiums or face measures such as the confiscation of their bank deposits, agency officials said.
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2004

A place for 'judicial positivism'

In a representative democracy, the value of one vote is supposed to be more or less equal. In the 2001 Upper House election, however, one vote in rural districts carried much greater weight than it did in urban districts; in an extreme case, one ballot in Tottori Prefecture was worth 5.06 ballots in...
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2004

Number of failed firms falls for first time in four years

The number of corporate bankruptcies fell by 14.6 percent in 2003 from the previous year to 16,624, down for the first time in four years, Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Monday.
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2004

Tanigaki promises to implement fiscal debt remedies, tax reforms

The government will remedy the country's mounting fiscal debts and initiate tax reforms to revitalize the economy and build a sustainable fiscal structure, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki pledged Monday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 19, 2004

Okinawans await assurance of lighter military presence

HONOLULU -- During a visit to Okinawa, which has long borne a disproportionate share of the U.S. military presence in Japan, I was peppered with questions about the impact of planned redeployments. Okinawans have high hopes that the moves will lighten their burden. I could not reassure them.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 18, 2004

On a mission for the future of funk

Coming up with a technical definition for funk isn't easy, but New York Times critic Jon Pareles did a pretty good job in his review of a Nov. 2003 concert by the New Orleans band Galactic. Stating that the "discipline of funk [is] the repetition and deliberate space that give the music its solidity...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2004

5.73 million foreigners entered in '03

About 5,728,000 foreigners entered Japan in 2003, while 13,297,000 Japanese traveled outside the country, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Justice Ministry Immigration Bureau.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2004

North Korea 'ready' to free returnees' kin by March 20

North Korea is reportedly offering to send family members of the five former Japanese abductees to Japan as early as March, it was learned Wednesday.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 15, 2004

Reysol inks Yoshiteru Yamashita

Kashiwa Reysol has signed former Japan striker Yoshiteru Yamashita from second-division Avispa Fukuoka, officials of the J. League first division club said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 15, 2004

Ashikaga chief slams accounting firm

A former head of the nationalized Ashikaga Bank on Wednesday said ChuoAoyama Audit Corp.'s sudden decision not to count the bank's deferred tax assets as part of its capital was to blame for the bank's failure in December.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004

North Korea escapees, NGO rep held in China

Two ethnic Koreans born in Japan who fled North Korea and an official of a Japanese nongovernmental organization were taken into custody by Chinese authorities in mid-December and are still being held, the NGO said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2004

Court targets obscene comics

A Tokyo publisher was found guilty in a landmark criminal trial Tuesday of distributing obscene comic books containing uncensored sex scenes.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 14, 2004

Security concerns jeopardize future of age-old tradition of 'hanko' seals

Masao Sekine, a 77-year-old doctor in Fukushima Prefecture, keeps his personal seals locked up in a safe-deposit box at the bank.
BUSINESS
Jan 14, 2004

Banks' daily lending balance in 2003 down for seventh consecutive year

The average daily balance of bank lending extended its slide into the seventh consecutive year in 2003, the Bank of Japan said Tuesday in a preliminary report.
JAPAN / TALKING SHOP
Jan 13, 2004

Prada Japan's Italian chief knows the merits of vagueness

Davide Sesia, representative director of Prada Japan Co., is on the prowl.
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2004

Prospects dim for wage round

Japan's economy is showing increasing signs of recovery, yet there is nothing to cheer about concerning the job situation as labor and management brace for what promises to be yet another difficult bargaining season. Once again, wage restraint will be the main theme of negotiation in spring 2004.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jan 13, 2004

Forensic science fiction

We periodically hear from nationalists about Japan's distinctiveness -- how "Japaneseness" is a matter of "race" and "blood," not citizenship or culture. This is usually disregarded as mere unscientific sentiment from fringe elements.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 13, 2004

Prize trouble, study in Oz, and a recap

Student rants Let us begin on a note of tolerance and goodwill, with two similar reactions to the letter from student J. in southern Japan with fellow student troubles (Lifelines; Nov. 25, 2003).
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 12, 2004

China lights Vietnam's path

SINGAPORE -- Profound similarities bind China and Vietnam together today more than ever. Twelve years after their brief border war in 1979, Hanoi and Beijing normalized relations in 1991 after resolving the "Cambodian problem" at the Paris Peace Conference. This normalization of relations put to rest...
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2004

Public interest in North Korean problems increasing: survey

Public interest in security issues concerning North Korea has increased substantially over the past year or so, with most people responding to a government survey released Saturday saying they are concerned about the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by the North.

Longform

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