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Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 12, 2004

Sensitive science in the race for glory in athletic pursuits

With the 28th Olympic Games about to start, who would put a bet on a white athlete winning the 100 meters? Certainly not the American writer Jon Entine. "The complete domination of the 100 meters by people of West African origin means no white man will ever again win the event. It simply won't happen,"...
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2004

JFE Steel plans blast furnace at China venture

JFE Steel Corp. plans to construct a blast furnace in China in a joint project with a local company to build an integrated steelworks that could exceed 100 billion yen in value, company sources said Wednesday.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2004

Used airline, cop uniforms given new lease on life

An airline and several police departments are recycling employee uniforms -- but workers aren't getting hand-me-downs.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2004

Nuclear fuel plant not biz as usual

ROKKASHO, Aomori Pref. -- Despite safety concerns and local anger over allegations raised in July that the government hid a report showing that reprocessing spent atomic fuel costs more than burying it, officials at Rokkasho say they hope to begin uranium testing soon in preparation for the opening of...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2004

Nuclear fuel plant not biz as usual

ROKKASHO, Aomori Pref. -- Despite safety concerns and local anger over allegations raised in July that the government hid a report showing that reprocessing spent atomic fuel costs more than burying it, officials at Rokkasho say they hope to begin uranium testing soon in preparation for the opening of...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 8, 2004

The art of seeing

Photographer Jun Akiyama is taking ostrich strides down a Tokyo sidewalk, snapping pictures on a flimsy-looking tourist camera. Click! A child's curious glance is frozen in grainy black-and-white. Click! Akiyama catches a moment of anxiety on an old woman's face.
EDITORIALS
Aug 7, 2004

Rationale for denuclearization

Fifty-nine years after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is a disturbing sense that the world could be headed for more, not less, nuclear weapons. As the world's first and only atom-bombed nation, Japan is destined to do everything in its power to strive for the nonproliferation and...
BUSINESS
Aug 5, 2004

Large companies to lift capital spending by 7%

Large Japanese companies plan to boost capital spending by 6.9 percent in fiscal 2004 from the previous year, the first investment expansion in four years, the Development Bank of Japan said in a report released Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2004

Greenhouse gas emissions trade market set for '05

The Environment Ministry will set up a market in fiscal 2005 so companies can engage in transactions of greenhouse gas emissions as a way to attain Japan's emissions cut obligation under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2004

Ensure collusion doesn't pay

Japan's antitrust legislation needs upgrading. The Fair Trade Commission is preparing a revision bill to bring the Antimonopoly Law more into line with international standards by tightening the penalties for business-restricting practices. Nippon Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, has already...
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2004

Global warming remains the deadliest foe

LONDON -- Perhaps philosophers have a name for it -- this modern phenomenon of continuing to enjoy life in a way that we know is leading to destruction because we feel that there is nothing we can do about it anyway.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2004

1950s-era plutonium showing up near Japan

Plutonium particles scattered by a series of nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll in the 1950s have been accumulating in seas close to Japan, a research team has found.
Japan Times
Features
Aug 1, 2004

Violin maestro with many strings toher bow

Violinist Midori Goto was only 14 when, in 1986, she played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of the late maestro Leonard Bernstein at the annual Summer Festival at Tanglewood in rural Massachusetts. That was remarkable enough, but what made Goto world-famous was not simply that she...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 1, 2004

Koizumi: Robot? Dummy? Dictator? All three?

A comedy troupe called The Newspaper has recently been lampooning Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's performance at the last G-8 summit. According to the weekly magazine Aera, in one skit, a member dressed as Koizumi explains why he committed Japanese troops to a multinational force without first consulting...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 31, 2004

Hashimoto to quit faction over shady dental donation

Former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said Friday that he will resign as chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's largest faction because of a political donation scandal.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 31, 2004

Some don't like it hot

My idea of hell is to be trapped for eternity in a tiny room with two women with one-track minds. All they want to do is talk, and their sole topic is this:
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 30, 2004

How green is my Happy Valley

While Tokyo is unbearably hot and humid in the heat of the summer, in Karuizawa verdant grass and moss carpet the floors of forests and the mountain air is perfumed with the scent of larch leaves and wild flowers. The area is a little over a one-hour train ride from Tokyo, enabling visitors to quickly...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jul 30, 2004

The kids are all right at these spots

The heat is most definitely on. And with the mercury so high, so are the expectations among the wee ones that you haul them off somewhere that little bit different. Here are a few ideas for Tokyo places where you and they might find some respite during the dog days.
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2004

Making the farm sector competitive

The government's economic and fiscal report for 2004, which was released last week, has a subtitle that sounds only too familiar: "No growth without reform." Yet the report deserves attention for two reasons. First, it focuses on the regional economy, a subject that has been more or less overlooked in...
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2004

U.S. withdraws bulk of realignment of armed forces proposals

The United States has withdrawn most of its specific proposals for the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, Japanese government officials said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 24, 2004

Labor threatens golden FTA

SYDNEY -- Ah, such dilemmas in power politics. At last, after years of both sides giving concessions, Australia has gotten America to agree to a free trade agreement. And what does the Australian Labor Party do? Threaten to kill it before birth.
BUSINESS
Jul 23, 2004

Exports, imports hit record highs in first half

Japan's exports and imports hit record highs in the first half of 2004, underscoring solid growth in the Japanese and world economies, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2004

Dream of wind power flags

LONDON -- Is Britain about to reverse its policy on civil nuclear power? Could the British policymakers be reluctantly coming to accept that while the official energy policy is to keep only one nuclear power station going after 2020 it may in practice be necessary to build some more in order to ensure...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 17, 2004

Benjamin Lee

Six years ago when the Chen Kaige movie "First Emperor" was being made in China, celebrity photographer Benjamin Lee went along from Tokyo for the filming. "I had the chance to meet the producer, and in an interesting way followed the crew around," he said. He did more than look on. He spent six months...
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2004

A functional defense and more

Japan's Self-Defense Forces, which came into existence 50 years ago, was described at the time as "armed forces with no war potential." Although that remains essentially true, the SDF is no longer a "passive" organization devoted only to national defense. As this year's defense report, issued earlier...
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2004

Worker wins 50,000 yen over passive smoke

In the nation's first such ruling, the Tokyo District Court on Monday awarded 50,000 yen in damages to a municipal employee who was a victim of passive smoking in the workplace.

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