Search - 2004

 
 
JAPAN
Jul 10, 2007

Are SIA workers the pension scapegoat?

Naoyuki Haga, chief secretary of the Social Insurance Agency employee union, fears he and many of his coworkers will lose their jobs when a new government-backed corporation begins handling pension payments in 2010 and the SIA is closed down.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 10, 2007

Pro-Taiwan, not anti-China

TAIPEI — In 2003, while still serving as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia, I was asked by Taiwanese reporters what the U.S. view would be on the proposal for Taiwan to hold a national referendum with the 2004 election. My convoluted answer could have been summarized more concisely...
Japan Times
LIFE / REFUGEES AND JAPAN
Jul 8, 2007

Sit-ins win new home, in Canada!

All Kurdish asylum-seeker Erdal Dogan wanted was a peaceful home for himself and his family.
BUSINESS
Jun 27, 2007

Ministry shuffles out key advocate of the weak yen

The Finance Ministry's top currency bureaucrat, widely considered an advocate of a weak, yen will step down in a regular reshuffle, a ministry official said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jun 19, 2007

Spurned by Japan, Kurds find refuge in Canada

A Kurdish man and his family who staged a sit-in in front of United Nations University in 2004 while they were seeking refugee status announced Monday they have been accepted in Canada.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jun 12, 2007

Japan's green strides belie spotty record

Last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought a leading role in the fight against climate change when he proposed a global initiative to halve greenhouse gas emis sions by 2050.
EDITORIALS
Jun 9, 2007

Surveillance of citizens

The Japanese Communist Party has made public copies of two documents it says were prepared by the Ground Self-Defense Force's information security units during a period when grassroots opposition to the dispatch of the GSDF unit to Iraq was strong. The documents are said to show detailed surveillance...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 2007

JCP: GSDF unit illegally monitored dispatch foes

The Ground Self-Defense Force's information security unit conducted detailed surveillance on journalists and citizen and religious groups opposing the GSDF's operation in Iraq, the Japanese Communist Party alleged Wednesday when revealing what it claims are GSDF internal documents.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 31, 2007

Photography now

The borderline between photojournalism and travel photography is hard to define.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
May 29, 2007

'Amakudari' too entrenched to curb?

The Diet began deliberating a bill this month aimed at curbing "amakudari," the practice of giving retiring top bureaucrats lucrative jobs in private-sector firms and quasi-government entities in the business sectors they oversee.
LIFE / QUEUING
May 27, 2007

Patience pays off for firms on standby to queue for you

With queuing playing such an important role in Japanese life — just watch any breathlessly excitable TV magazine program fearlessly reporting any day of the week on long lines outside noodle shops or dog groomers — there are even those who cash in on the phenomenon directly.
EDITORIALS
May 15, 2007

Mr. Blair sets his departure date

After months of anticipation, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced that he will leave office June 27. Mr. Blair, who had kept his country on tenterhooks since revealing in 2004 that he would not complete his third term, leaves a mixed legacy. He transformed the Labour Party, which had been...
BUSINESS
May 8, 2007

Corruption issue gets short shrift

KYOTO — The four-day Asian Development Bank meeting addressed a host of general issues related to the bank's future. But one that got little in the way of detailed discussion is also one of the most politically contentious: corruption.
MORE SPORTS
May 6, 2007

One eye good enough for one brave horse in Kentucky Derby

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Cover your right eye.
BUSINESS
Apr 25, 2007

Nikko Cordial's fraud sends 2006 profits down

Profits of Nikko Cordial Corp. plunged in the 2006 business year, according to the firm's financial statements released Tuesday, affected by the brokerage's involvement in an accounting scandal.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Apr 17, 2007

Automated External Defibrillator

Dear Alice,
EDITORIALS
Apr 17, 2007

Minamata disease still an issue

Niigata's municipal government has recently recognized two men as victims of Minamata disease, the mercury-poisoning disease symbolizing postwar industrial pollution, for the first time since March 1985. The Kumamoto prefectural government has also recognized a man as a Minamata disease victim; its first...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.