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Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2005

Koizumi calls election for Sept. 11

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi dissolved the House of Representatives on Monday and called a general election for Sept. 11 a few hours after the House of Councilors voted down the government-sponsored postal privatization bills.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2005

Opponent-free panel OKs thorny postal reform bills

A special committee of the House of Councilors passed a package of postal privatization bills Friday, pushing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi toward a final showdown with reform foes in his Liberal Democratic Party in Monday's plenary session.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2005

Ishihara told to eschew Yasukuni

Relatives of the war dead and citizens representing various groups demanded Friday that Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara refrain from visiting Yasukuni Shrine on the Aug. 15 anniversary of the end of World War II, but to no avail.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2005

Scrap Byrd Amendment, trade minister tells U.S.

Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Shoichi Nakagawa repeated his demand Tuesday that the U.S. scrap the Byrd Amendment but expressed concern that Japan's retaliatory duties on U.S. steel products could spill over to the bilateral row over the ban on U.S. beef imports.
BUSINESS
Jul 27, 2005

All insurers told to probe payouts

The Financial Services Agency on Tuesday ordered all 39 life insurance companies operating in Japan to investigate and report by the end of September whether they failed to make due payouts to policyholders over the past five years.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2005

Condoleezza Rice's unfortunate decision

HONOLULU -- The recent decision by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to skip the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) ministerial-level dialogue this Friday in Vientiane represents a setback for U.S. efforts to persuade Southeast Asians that Washington really cares about their region. Rice plans...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 22, 2005

Asbestos deaths just tip of the iceberg

Recent revelations that hundreds of workers at firms across Japan have died from asbestos-linked diseases over the past few decades have raised questions about whether the health risks of the unburnable mineral were duly recognized by the government and businesses.
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Jul 17, 2005

Tokyo eyes global catwalk

The Japanese fashion business is abuzz with the news that the six-week-long Tokyo Collections event that has forever been largely ignored by the international media is to be compressed into a government-backed, 10-day industry showcase staged in the grounds of Meiji Shrine in Tokyo's supertrendy Harajuku...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2005

Wanted Pyongyang agent taught Korean to Yokota, Soga

A former North Korean agent on an international wanted list taught the Korean language and North Korean philosophy to two Japanese abducted to the country in the late 1970s, sources said.
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2005

U.N. calls for antidiscrimination law

The government urgently needs to acknowledge that deep discrimination against minorities, Korean and Chinese residents and other foreigners exists in Japan, an independent investigator said Monday.
BUSINESS
Jul 12, 2005

KDDI to offer handsets for JR East payments

KDDI Corp. said Monday it will start a new service in January in which its handsets can be used as smart tickets for trains operated by East Japan Railway Co.
JAPAN
Jul 6, 2005

Sanyo looks to shed 14,000 workers

Sanyo Electric Co. said Tuesday it will cut 14,000 employees, or 15 percent of its global workforce, as part of a sweeping restructuring plan under new management headed by Chief Executive Officer Tomoyo Nonaka.
BUSINESS
Jul 6, 2005

Meiji Yasuda president to resign

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. President Ryotaro Kaneko announced his intention to resign at a representative members' meeting Tuesday because new cases of the company illegally withholding policy payouts have been discovered.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2005

Postal bills headed for Lower House vote

A special House of Representatives committee approved a hotly contested package of postal privatization bills Monday, setting up a showdown between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and postal privatization opponents within his Liberal Democratic Party.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2005

Postal bills headed for Lower House vote

A special House of Representatives committee approved a hotly contested package of postal privatization bills Monday, setting up a showdown between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and postal privatization opponents within his Liberal Democratic Party.
BUSINESS
Jun 28, 2005

Microsoft, Toshiba in HD-DVD tieup

Microsoft Corp. and Toshiba Corp. announced Monday they will jointly develop new-generation high-definition DVD players, concluding an agreement that strengthens their alliance in the wider area of technology for digital home electrical appliances.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jun 28, 2005

Visa crackdown -- don't get burned

Last year The Japan Times ran an article entitled "Students pay price in visa crackdown" about Americans put through the wringer on minor infractions.
JAPAN
Jun 27, 2005

Poll indicates DPJ poised for gains

With one week to go before the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, a new poll shows support for the opposition Democratic Party of Japan among voters in the capital is up 10 percentage points from four years ago.
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2005

Career soldier sees China for what it is

LOS ANGELES -- How many of you out there would just love to see Colin Powell back in the saddle as U.S. secretary of state? Or, better yet, as secretary of defense, giving the boot to his arch-nemesis -- the war-prone Donald Rumsfeld?
JAPAN
Jun 21, 2005

Ethnic Myanmar refugee pleads for policy change

A refugee from Myanmar belonging to an ethnic minority urged Japan on Monday to grant asylum to more of his compatriots, saying they face serious persecution back home.
JAPAN
Jun 18, 2005

Japan rejects U.S. plan for U.N. reform

Japan rejected a U.S. proposal on United Nations reform Friday despite receiving support for its quest to become a permanent member of the powerful U.N. Security Council.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jun 17, 2005

Alcohol continues to fuel Best's free fall toward tragic ending

LONDON -- When George Best was having problems with his first wife, Angie, I shared a flight back to England with him from Miami -- he was playing for the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the North American Soccer League at the time.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 16, 2005

JAL jet landing at Haneda loses nose gear wheels

The two nose gear wheels on a Japan Airlines Corp. jetliner broke off during landing Wednesday at Tokyo's Haneda airport, the airline said.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jun 16, 2005

Worlds of nature are just a click away

Although I've only just packed away my skiing gear (the remnant snowfields have crept too close to the peaks to make the physical cost of carrying heavy boots and skis so far uphill worth the downhill benefits), and though mountain cherry blossoms have only recently begun to shed their petals here in...
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2005

Did Nakayama apologize over sex-slave gaffe?

Education minister Nariaki Nakayama apologized Tuesday for "causing trouble" to the government with his recent remark hailing the removal of references to wartime sex slaves for Japanese troops from revised history textbooks, top government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2005

Government eyes policing of Internet

The government may go after what it regards as harmful information on the Internet following last week's bombing of a Yamaguchi Prefecture classroom by a youth who claimed he learned how to make explosives from a Web site, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 12, 2005

In Japan's tabloid world, truth trumps pulp fiction

TABLOID TOKYO: 101 Tales of Sex, Crime and the Bizarre from Japan's Wild Weeklies, by Geoff Botting, Ryann Connell, Michael Hoffman and Mark Schreiber. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2005, 255 pp., 1,400 yen (paper). Aside from the sight of middle-age Japanese businessmen happily reading comic books,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 12, 2005

'Woe is me' nation awaits return of its sadsack heroes

In the last days of May, news reached Japan that two former soldiers in the Imperial Army had been found in the Philippines. Apparently the two men, who had been hiding during the entire postwar period in an area around the town of General Santos close to the southern tip of the island of Mindanao, now...

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