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JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 25, 2005

Help the disabled, but don't deny them

Several years ago, the government discussed state-sponsored care for people with disabilities. The idea was to assist mentally and physically disabled people in leaving publicly-funded facilities and entering society; or, at least, that was how it was presented.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 20, 2005

Brought to heel

The watchdog role of journalists in Japan is on trial in several cases with enormous implications for freedom of the press here
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2005

Scandal claims key Asahi, industry exec

The Asahi Shimbun's executive adviser said Wednesday he will step down from his post and resign as chairman of the Japan Newspaper Publishers & Editors Association to take responsibility for a fabricated report published in the daily.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 21, 2005

'Pacifist' Japan always ready to back a bit of conflict

"I don't care to belong to any club that will accept me as a member." -- Groucho Marx
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 12, 2005

Japan's leaders try to be 'cool' to take heat off themselves

Some people are hard to please. Though he was a member of the committee that chose the term "Cool Biz" for the campaign launched last week to bring government dress more in line with seasonal realities, fashion designer and critic Don Konishi is very disappointed with the sartorial choices made by Diet...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 1, 2005

'The Only Woman in the Room' who helped to reshape Japan

Last Monday evening, 81-year-old Beate Sirota Gordon walked onto the stage of the Japan Bar Association auditorium in Tokyo, took a seat, and for 90 minutes explained in Japanese how she helped write Japan's post-war Constitution.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 17, 2005

Prime Minister Koizumi smiles in the face of the people's apathy

No matter how alarming the day's news is, you can always count on Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to put a happy face on it. In the daily press conferences where he sidles up to journalists to field a few softballs he always has a way of making everything sound inconsequential.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 14, 2004

Japan and the immigration issue

Japan is not ready or willing to accept an immigrant influx, says Barry Brophy One of the great givens regarding Japan's aging population and declining birthrate is that an influx of immigrants, or "replacement migration," is needed if the nation's pension burden is not to become unmanageable, and the...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 5, 2004

Bottoms up to those misfiring weather forecasters

Liberal Democratic Party honcho Ryutaro Hashimoto needs all the positive PR he can muster to counteract the bad press he's received since his alleged acceptance of a bribe from the Japan Dental Association came to light.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 15, 2004

Still waiting for the final whistle in this Japan vs. China 'game'

A war of words is always preferable to any other kind of war, and for what it's worth the recent controversy over the behavior of Chinese soccer fans toward the Japanese national team at the Asian Cup tournament did offer an opportunity for the governments of the countries involved to express their views...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jul 4, 2004

Imaginative filmmakers shed light on dark side of humanity

At the end of May the Cine Pathos movie theater in Ginza was scheduled to run "Concrete," which is based on a "nonfiction novel" that itself is patterned after an incident that took place in Tokyo's Adachi Ward in 1989. Four teenage boys abducted a high-school girl and kept her prisoner for 40 days,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 16, 2004

A sea monkey and a gentleman

Umizaru Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Eiichiro Hazumi Running time: 120 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] Japanese studios used to grind out contemporary action movies by the dozen, with one company, Nikkatsu, specializing in them from...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 16, 2004

Shooting politicians in a barrel more fun than addressing pension problem

In the past two weeks the pension scandal that has touched so many lawmakers has progressed from a political embarrassment to pure farce. The offered reason for regret is that the people's "trust in politics" has been damaged, a suggestion that's risible even under normal circumstances.
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Fukuda resigns from Cabinet

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda shocked the political arena Friday by stepping down for mishandling the issue of public pension premiums that some Cabinet members -- including himself -- failed to pay.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2004

Tanaka's daughter won't appeal

The daughter of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka has decided not to appeal a high court ruling that rescinded an earlier injunction banning sale of a weekly magazine that featured an article about her divorce, her lawyers said Saturday.
JAPAN
Apr 3, 2004

Contentious magazine to remain unsold

Publisher Bungeishunju Ltd. said Friday it will not sell the remaining copies of a controversial edition of a weekly magazine, after the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday overruled a lower court's injunction barring publication of an article in the edition.
JAPAN
Apr 1, 2004

High court rescinds weekly's injunction

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday revoked a lower court injunction against the publication of a magazine that carried a story on the divorce of former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka's daughter, citing freedom of expression and the public's right to know.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2004

Pension role model a shirker herself

While reproaching the nation's youth last year in a government-sponsored TV commercial for not paying into the financially pinched mandatory National Pension System, popular actress Makiko Esumi was keeping her own dark secret.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2004

Publisher appeals injunction order

Tokyo publisher Bungeishunju Ltd. filed an appeal Saturday with the Tokyo High Court against a lower court's ban on the publication of a weekly magazine aimed at addressing concerns over privacy violation.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 21, 2004

'Mister' is a god, but he's not immortal

Former Village Voice media critic Tom Carson once wrote an essay in which he blasted the style imperative subscribed to by American men's magazines. These publications had invested so heavily in a certain male image that they couldn't imagine anything else. "You want to strike terror in the hearts of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2004

Tanaka's daughter seeks fines for publisher

The daughter of Diet lawmaker Makiko Tanaka has sought a court order forcing a publisher to pay fines of 30 million yen for every day that a weekly magazine featuring an article about her private life remains on store shelves, it was learned Thursday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 7, 2004

Levitation, drug claims and, er, melons blur reality in Asahara trial

The sarin attack on the Tokyo subway system that the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo carried out exactly nine years ago this month is often cited as the first mass terrorist strike against civilians, and like al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Aum's former guru Shoko Asahara is accepted as the mastermind...
CULTURE / Books / THE BOOK REPORT
Mar 4, 2004

New Akutagawa winners offer hope

It's been amazing to experience all the excitement surrounding the latest winners of the Akutagawa Prize, a famous literary prize awarded twice a year to promising, new authors. While TV cameras and photographers crammed Tokyo Kaikan, newspapers and magazines wrote breathless descriptions of what the...
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 3, 2004

Japan players to receive reprimands for conduct

Seven players from the Japanese national team are set to be reprimanded for violating team regulations by indulging in a drinking binge and acting improperly during a training camp in Kashima last month.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 1, 2004

Entertaining the idea of surrogate mums

Last week, the health ministry decided not to recommend revisions to current guidelines regarding fertility treatments. This disappointed the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which has been advocating the legalization of such controversial procedures as the use of surrogate mothers because they say they...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jan 18, 2004

Wacky potions can be crocks of gold

The doorbell rang. It was my neighbor, Mrs. S., asking if the lady of the house (a Taiwanese) could help her by translating the Chinese-language instructions for a "miracle" baldness remedy that someone had brought back from China and presented to her husband.

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