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JAPAN
Jul 22, 2006

JAXA to replace expensive M-5 rockets in fiscal 2007

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will stop producing M-5 solid-fuel rockets and replace them with cheaper ones in the next fiscal year, JAXA officials said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Jul 22, 2006

Funding scandal shakes ivory tower

It came as a shock last year when former Seoul National University professor Hwang Woo Suk's claims that he had created stem cells by cloning human embryos turned out to be fraudulent. A recent case at Waseda University in Tokyo is no less surprising, although it mainly concerns the irregular use of...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2006

Magic touch in East Timor

Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta, 56, is the $14 billion man. During 2005, while serving as foreign minister, he is credited with playing a crucial behind-the-scenes role in rescuing Timor Sea resource negotiations between Australia and East Timor. Talks had hit an impasse, partly owing to the abrasive style of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2006

Ex-additive salesman warns of hidden dangers

A one-time food-additives salesman and chemist is using his insider information to warn people about the dangers lurking in the prepared-food sections at supermarkets and convenience stores.
COMMENTARY
Jul 20, 2006

Good people, poor leaders

NEW YORK -- So bad has been recent publicity for the United States and its foreign policies that the visitor arriving in the U.S. nowadays has come to expect a grim reception and a nation of inward-turning people who care nothing for the world beyond America's shores.
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2006

Japanese win gold at global math contest

Two Japanese high school students have won gold medals at this year's International Mathematical Olympiad in Slovenia, while four other Japanese contestants took silver and bronze, education ministry officials said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2006

Bombings demonstrate what Bombay is made of

MADRAS, India -- A day after maximum terror struck India's financial capital, Bombay, the city of 17 million people was back on its feet. Even London took four days after last July's explosions to get over the shock and trauma.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2006

Ministry looks to forecast storms 30 years ahead

The government said Wednesday it will launch a project in the next fiscal year to develop a 20- to 30-year forecast for typhoons, heavy snowfalls and other potential disasters likely to affect Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jul 13, 2006

'Individualist' achievements

When Joe Price visited New York at the age of 24 with renowned architect Frank Lloyd Wright -- his father's friend and the designer of the famous Price Tower in Bartlesville, Okla. -- it had never crossed his mind to join the art world. But there in an antique shop, captivated by deft brushwork on an...
JAPAN
Jul 12, 2006

Art award system faces change

The government will revise the selection system of its annual art prizes after the revocation last month of the 2006 award to painter Yoshihiko Wada, whose works were found to be plagiarisms, education minister Kenji Kosaka said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 11, 2006

Porn 'anime' boasts big U.S. beachhead

recognizable among anime fans worldwide. Hentai is now used overseas to describe anime with strong sexual content. While Mandarake capitalizes on the kinky boom, other retailers are reluctant to export such products.
EDITORIALS
Jul 11, 2006

Japanese icon to leave the field

Mr. Hidetoshi Nakata, a key playmaker for Japan's national soccer team, has announced that he will retire from the sport as a professional. This international midfielder and national superstar has contributed much to the upsurge in popularity of soccer among Japanese since the mid-1990s.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 9, 2006

Looking at Westerners' accounts of the salaryman blues

THE BLUE-EYED SALARYMAN by Niall Murtagh. Profile Books, 2006, 228 pp., £7.99 (paper). The phenomenon didn't start with Lafcadio Hearn, but in his day he became best known for it -- the foreigner who comes to Japan and writes a book about his experiences. His female contemporary, Isabella Bird, was...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2006

Boycott against civil conduct

LONDON -- "It could happen here" is the shorthand phrase frequently used for a variety of alarming hypothetical scenarios. "How could this happen here?" was the question more pertinently asked in Britain recently, as its universities witnessed the unfolding of an all-too-real and perplexing action.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 7, 2006

Deejay U-Roy's still-righteous chat

"Wake the town and tell the people" rings the trademark battle cry of Jamaican deejay extraordinaire U-Roy, who plays three live dates in Japan this weekend.
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2006

A new team in Vietnam

Vietnam has overhauled its leadership. The country's National Assembly last week affirmed the individuals selected by the congress of the Vietnam Communist Party. Members of the new team are considerably younger than their predecessors, and their common characteristic is a commitment to economic reform....
EDITORIALS
Jul 2, 2006

Touching base before stepping down

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and U.S. President George W. Bush have reaffirmed not only their five-year "very friendly relationship" but also the strong ties between the two nations in a meeting at the White House, their 13th summit -- which may be their last.
EDITORIALS
Jul 1, 2006

Revitalizing Japanese agriculture

The fiscal 2005 white paper on agriculture, made public last month, covers the first year of the implementation of the nation's basic plan for food, agriculture and agricultural communities that was adopted in March 2005. The plan is based on the 1999 basic law, which spells out four fundamental goals:...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 1, 2006

A mite louder than mice: city gaijin vs. country gaijin

OK, so it's not the greatest conflict of all time. It's not Pepsi vs. Coke, Tom vs. Jerry or even Freddy vs. Jason. Plus it's not Japan-specific. The following swords of debate can be crossed in any nation at any time by anyone.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 1, 2006

Palestinians need a book as good as 'The Israelis'

Donna Rosenthal heads the pack across Shibuya's famed pedestrian crossing, grinning from ear to ear and arms waving hello. In Tokyo to meet with her agent about a possible Japanese edition of her book "The Israelis," she's more than happy to meet up in old territory.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2006

Koizumi-Bush friendship one for the ages

What has been touted as the best Japan-U.S. relationship in the postwar era started with a cowboy movie and will end with an Elvis Presley museum.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2006

WTO: a call for 'enlightened negotiators'

The current multilateral trade negotiations under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are approaching the moment of truth. The major gridlock among key players, such as Japan, the United States, the European Union and Brazil seems, however, difficult to be unlocked at the series of ministerial...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2006

Women in China falling victim to gender violence

NEW YORK -- Although it is under-recognized and underreported, it is one of the most significant epidemics in China today. It is gender violence, manifested essentially as violence against women. This kind of violence occurs in all regions in China. It affects families of all ethnic backgrounds and social...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 28, 2006

Marine management is all at sea

Our oceans and seas are in deep trouble, and if the Japanese government is to be believed, part of the blame rests with the whales.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 27, 2006

Tadanobu Tsunoda

Tadanobu Tsunoda, MD, 79, is the author of "The Japanese Brain" (now in its 38th Japanese edition), and the inventor of the Tsunoda Key Tapping Machine. He developed this simple analog system in the 1960s, and claims it is still the most accurate machine in the world for measuring the brainstem's switch...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 25, 2006

What's in it for them to return us to 'prewar values'?

The leaders of many countries evoke their nation's history as if it were an idyll of virtue and civility. They gaze into the mirror of the past and see no dark blemish, only purity, goodness and light.
Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 25, 2006

Lives in their hands

Uniformed officials of East Japan Railway Co. are solemnly but methodically at work. Their train has just made an emergency stop after running over a middle-age man, who is either unconscious or dead. The driver radios the control office in central Tokyo, from where police and an ambulance are alerted....

Longform

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