Search - 2004

 
 
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 22, 2004

McGrady looking at Suns, Rockets, Spurs, Lakers for future

NEW YORK -- For obvious reasons, Tracy McGrady has narrowed his choices to play next season -- or the following one, at the latest, should the Magic incomprehensibly fail to arrange a trade -- to four teams, all of whom flaunt a centrifugal force.
EDITORIALS
May 22, 2004

New development plan needed

A s far as corporate earnings reports show, Japan's economic recovery is moving in the fast lane, with many large companies chalking up record profits for the fiscal year that ended March 31, 2004. At the top of the list is Toyota Motor Corp., which reported group net income of more than 1 trillion yen...
JAPAN
May 22, 2004

Fiscal 2003 a brutal year for MMC

Struggling Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Friday it fell deep into the red in fiscal 2003, blaming the slide in part on increased competition and auto loan-related losses in the core U.S. market.
JAPAN
May 22, 2004

Embattled MMC unveils 'last chance' survival plan

Japan's crisis-hit Mitsubishi Motors Corp. unveiled a survival plan Friday featuring a 450 billion yen cash injection, relocation of its head office from Tokyo to Kyoto and major cuts in its global workforce and Australian output.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
May 21, 2004

Millwall hopes to leave dark history behind in F.A. Cup final

LONDON -- At the end of a season dominated by Arsenal's unbeaten Premiership success an even less likely achievement of 2003-2004 has been overshadowed and overlooked by the all-conquering Immortals of Highbury.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2004

Revolving door fatality dooms bonus

Sanwa Shutter Corp. said Thursday it will not pay bonuses to any of its 10 board members for fiscal 2003 due to a fatal accident involving one of the firm's revolving doors at Tokyo's Roppongi Hills complex.
BUSINESS
May 21, 2004

Ultraeasy monetary policy goes unchanged

The Bank of Japan Policy Board left its ultraeasy monetary policy unchanged Thursday.
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2004

A Kerry victory would curtail spending

WASHINGTON -- Republicans control both the White House and Congress, but Washington, D.C. remains a fiscal sinkhole. The best hope for budget probity is to turn over one branch of government to the Democrats.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 19, 2004

Hanshin's relief trio has Tigers in hunt for repeat in CL

The Hanshin Tigers have a reputation of winning the Central League pennant once every other decade. Their last three titles came in 1964, 1985 and 2003, and their fans surely do not want to wait until 22-something for the next championship.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 19, 2004

The sorrows of superficiality

On Oct. 31, 1999, race driver Mika Hakkinen finished first at the Suzuka Speedway to win the Japan GP and that year's F-1 Driver's Championship. It was a close and dramatic victory for the likeable Finn, and among his delirious fans on that day was the French artist Sylvie Fleury. Soon afterward, when...
BUSINESS
May 19, 2004

Aussie, N.Z. lamb treading here now that U.S. beef can't

SYDNEY (Kyodo) As diners throughout Japan stare longingly into their empty bowls of "gyudon" beef on rice, sheep farmers in Australia and New Zealand are counting their blessings.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 18, 2004

Students pay price in visa crackdown

When American students Angela Luna and Richard Nishizawa tried to board a plane bound for San Francisco in March, airport authorities threw them in a small holding cell and held them incommunicado for several days before banishing them from Japan for five years.
JAPAN
May 18, 2004

UFJ Holdings faces 100 billion yen net loss

UFJ Holdings Inc., one of Japan's top four banking groups, will probably book a net loss of some 100 billion yen for 2003, with its loan-loss charges having swelled to about 1 trillion yen, banking sources said Monday.
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2004

China's influence soars in Asia

HONOLULU -- A battle for the hearts and minds of Asians has begun. While there has been considerable attention on "the rise of China," we're only slowly beginning to appreciate the meaning of that overused phrase. China's economic influence is well apparent. It has become Southeast Asia's leading trade...
JAPAN
May 16, 2004

SDF vs. NGO -- an Iraqi tale of cost-effectiveness

Self-Defense Forces troops are not the only ones using Japanese cash to provide humanitarian aid in southern Iraq.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 16, 2004

Whispers as loud as shouts

BREASTS OF SNOW: Fumiko Nakajo -- Her Tanka and Her Life, by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold, preface by Makoto Ueda. Tokyo: The Japan Times, 2004. 152 pp., 2,000 yen (paper). Fumiko Nakajo's short life (1922-54) was both illustrated and illuminated by the tanka that she began writing after she developed...
Features
May 16, 2004

A guide by any other name

We don't know when she was born, or when she died -- was it April 9, 1812, at age 25, or perhaps Dec. 20, 1884, aged nearly 100? We don't even know her real name, but the Shoshone woman who accompanied Lewis, Clark and the Corps of Discovery has a fair claim to being the most celebrated woman of color...
JAPAN
May 16, 2004

SDF vs. NGO -- an Iraqi tale of cost-effectiveness

Self-Defense Forces troops are not the only ones using Japanese cash to provide humanitarian aid in southern Iraq.
Features
May 16, 2004

On the trail of manifest destiny

Two hundred years ago this week, Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and their Corps of Discovery set out to explore the American West. Sunday TIMEOUT asks what the expedition, its leaders and the Shoshone woman who was their guide still mean to us today
COMMENTARY / World
May 16, 2004

Iraq has thrown off Bush's game plan

LONDON -- When the legendary New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel left the dugout for the pitcher's mound, there was only one question. Would he stick with his pitcher or signal to the bullpen for a reliever? Sometimes there was a brief discussion and Casey would walk back to the dugout. Often, however,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 15, 2004

If it's cricket, it's TV Masala's Club Masala

What luck to pick up a promotional flier for Club Masala -- the first Indian subcontinent cable TV network operating in Japan -- in a branch of the curry chain Samrat. Interesting, I thought, and zipped off an e-mail. Now here I am with its president, Nofil Iqbal, who, it transpires, was born in Pakistan....
BUSINESS
May 15, 2004

NTT logs record profit; outlook seems less rosy

NTT Corp. said Friday its net profit jumped 2.8-fold to a record 643.86 billion yen for the year through March, helped by strong earnings at its mobile phone unit, NTT DoCoMo Inc.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 14, 2004

Yoshinoya finds U.S. beef for 'gyudon'

Yoshinoya D&C Co. on Thursday served "gyudon" beef-on-rice dishes at a food fair in Yokohama -- the first time it has served these dishes since it suspended them in February.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2004

Special farm subsidies face reduction or abolishment

The Finance Ministry wants to reduce or abolish the special subsidies paid to farmers who cultivate land deemed to be at a geographical disadvantage, ministry sources said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2004

Municipalities promoting own bonds

With national financial support decreasing and competition in the municipal bonds market intensifying, local governments are trying to enhance their creditworthiness.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2004

What's next as ASEAN+3 integrates?

MANILA -- As we watch with interest the expansion of the European Union, the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations plus Three (China, South Korea and Japan) continues to make its own progress toward regional economic integration. Needless to say, there is a long way to go. But the question...
COMMUNITY / Issues
May 11, 2004

Kidnap crisis poses a new risk

When five Japanese were taken hostage in Iraq last month, huge public concern for their safe return quickly gave way to hostility and a campaign of vilification. A disastrous public appeal by the families of three of the hostages for the withdrawal of SDF troops from Iraq encouraged the government to...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 9, 2004

Terrorism in its most serious form

WAR AND STATE TERRORISM: The U.S., Japan and the Asia-Pacific in the Long Twentieth Century, edited by Mark Selden and Alvin Y. So. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004, 293 pp., £22.95 (paper). This provocative examination of state terrorism asks readers to reconsider their assumptions about who are the "bad...
Features
May 9, 2004

Translators' icon with rhythm writ large in his lexicon

When people decide to read a book by a foreign author, they may be drawn by what they know of the writer, or by an intriguing title. But for many Japanese readers, the attraction is that a book was translated by Motoyuki Shibata -- and will therefore likely be to their taste as well as his.
COMMENTARY / World
May 9, 2004

Seat China at the top table

Can China successfully take the steam out of its overheating economy without causing a collapse, or more appropriately, given the steam metaphor, a meltdown? The question is not an academic one, but very real — and not just for the 1.3 billion people in China.

Longform

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