Search - news

 
 
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Dec 12, 2004

Lord Shrimp gets deep-fried over New Year's special

While surfing for coverage of the most recent NHK scandal on commercial television, I naturally had my radar tuned for expressions of schadenfreude, especially on the wide shows, where commentators enjoy a little more freedom to be critical. But there hasn't been much gloating. Last Monday, the host...
JAPAN
Dec 11, 2004

Hotline flooded with calls over tainted blood fears

A health ministry hotline has been flooded with calls from people nationwide worried about whether they have hepatitis C, after the government announced Thursday that it has a list of nearly 7,000 medical institutions that handled the tainted blood coagulant fibrinogen before 1994.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Dec 11, 2004

Controversial Hoddle given one more chance by Wolves

LONDON -- "You and I have been physically been given two hands and two legs and a half-decent brain. Some people have not been born like that for a reason.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2004

Extended Iraq tour a given from get-go

Although media opinion polls showed most respondents opposed extending the Self-Defense Forces deployment to Iraq, the government never seriously discussed a pullout of the Japanese troops from the war-torn country at the Dec. 14 end of their one-year mission.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2004

Remains not those of Yokota

The remains North Korea gave Japanese officials last month are not those of Japanese abductee Megumi Yokota as Pyongyang had claimed, government officials said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2004

FSA approves Jasdaq's graduation

Kyodo News The Financial Services Agency on Friday granted Jasdaq Market Inc., the operator of an over-the-counter stock market, a license to convert into a full-scale stock exchange.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 2004

Brutality pays poorly in interrogation

HONOLULU -- After a Japanese soldier named Shuji Ishii was taken prisoner by American Marines on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II, he expected the worse, including being put to death. Instead, he wrote later in a memoir, he was astonished to find himself in a sanitary hospital and to be given...
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2004

DPJ seeks criminal charges against Hashimoto for nonreporting of funds

The Democratic Party of Japan will file a criminal accusation against former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto for allegedly falsifying his faction's annual political funds reports, a DPJ official said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Dec 2, 2004

Subscribers get first view of BBC Japan channel

BBC Worldwide Ltd., the commercial arm of the British Broadcasting Corp., and digital data broadcaster Japan MediArk Co., launched BBC Japan on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2004

Political funds law revision on hold as graft trial proceeds

Lawmakers Wednesday postponed revising the Political Funds Control Law, having failed to agree on how to curb the money politics problem despite a recent donation concealment involving the largest faction of the Liberal Democratic Party.
BUSINESS
Nov 23, 2004

New Kokudo chief vows to clean up Seibu group

The new president of Kokudo Corp. vowed Monday to break with the ironhanded ways of the company's former patriarch and clean up scandal-ridden subsidiary Seibu Railway.
EDITORIALS
Nov 20, 2004

Keep the assistance flowing

Four weeks have passed since the Niigata-Chuetsu Earthquake struck. The good news is that reconstruction is making progress. Schools in the disaster zone have resumed classes, the Kan-etsu Expressway has reopened to traffic, and the region's well-known sake breweries have started shipping again. The...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 20, 2004

Why Johnny can't read 'kanji'

Here's a quick communication survey of your typical long-term foreign resident of Japan, particularly one from the West.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2004

Opposition hears Muraoka deny shady funds link

Former Liberal Democratic Party heavyweight Kanezo Muraoka reiterated Wednesday he had nothing to do with a shady 100 million yen donation made to his party faction and claimed money matters were handled by others, including former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 13, 2004

China's sub intrusion sparks Tokyo protest

Tokyo lodged a strong protest Friday with Beijing after confirming that a submarine that intruded into Japan's territorial waters off Okinawa earlier this week belongs to the Chinese Navy.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 13, 2004

New pro hoop league to take flight in Japan

Plans for a new professional basketball league in Japan will be announced at a news conference on Nov. 24 in Tokyo, organizers said in a news release on Friday.
BUSINESS
Nov 12, 2004

Shipping firms log record profits

Japan's top three shipping companies on Thursday reported record earnings for the first half, enjoying a historic boom in the global sea freight market, driven by China's red-hot economic growth.
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2004

Unidentified submarine intrudes near Okinawa

An unidentified submarine briefly entered Japan's territorial waters off the Okinawa Islands early Wednesday, and Maritime Self-Defense Force patrol aircraft were sent to track it.
Japan Times
Features
Nov 7, 2004

Love her or hate her...

Nahoko Takato became famous on the night of April 8 this year, when the Arab satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera aired video footage of her and two other Japanese held blindfolded at gunpoint in Iraq.
EDITORIALS
Nov 7, 2004

The fattening of the planet

I t's not just Americans and Japanese sumo wrestlers who are fat nowadays. As a witty commentator put it recently in The Hindu newspaper, the world is round, and so are a growing number of its inhabitants. From New York to New Delhi, nutritionists are sounding the alarm about the rising tide of obesity,...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2004

Sporadic rocket attacks on SDF camp don't constitute combat, officials say

While a rocket attack that damaged a storage container at the Ground Self-Defense Force camp in Samawah, southern Iraq, on Monday rattled the government, Japan remained adamant that the area is still a noncombat zone and that the troops can stay.
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2004

Public's sympathy for Koda tempered

The news that hostage Shosei Koda was found dead in Iraq was met with sympathy Sunday on the streets of Tokyo, but for many people interviewed by The Japan Times, the grief was tempered by the belief that the government was right in not succumbing to terrorists.
BUSINESS
Oct 29, 2004

Initial quote for Xinhua Finance falls below IPO

Xinhua Finance Ltd. fetched an initial quote of 163,000 yen in its debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market Thursday.
BUSINESS
Oct 26, 2004

Seibu Rail declines to offer much info on director's exit

The Seibu group's secretive reputation was further underscored Monday, as Seibu Railway Co. declined to give details about a managing director's resignation last week over his involvement in questionable sales of its shares.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2004

Ministers visit regions bludgeoned by typhoon

Several government inspection teams led by ministers and vice ministers went on a day trip Friday to inspect areas hit hard by powerful Typhoon Tokage.
BUSINESS
Oct 22, 2004

Nothing has changed in oil spat between Japan, China: adviser

A TV news report in June about China's oil field development close to the Sino-Japanese demarcation line for their exclusive economic zones in the East China Sea prompted an adviser to Uruma Resources Development Co. to recall a conversation he had with a bureaucrat decades ago.
JAPAN
Oct 22, 2004

State might dip into reserve funds to repair typhoon damage

The chief Cabinet secretary said Thursday that the government might use reserve funds in the general-account budget for fiscal 2004, rather than creating a supplementary budget, to deal with the serious damage brought by Typhoon Tokage.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2004

Top court holds state to account for Minamata

The Supreme Court on Friday held the state responsible for the spread of Minamata disease after January 1960.

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