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JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 20, 2007

Were they teen-rape slaves or paid pros?

An international outcry has flared again after members of the U.S. House of Representatives submitted a resolution in January urging Japan to formally apologize for forcing young females across Asia into sexual slavery during the war.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2007

Abe should be looking forward, not back

HONOLULU -- What was he thinking? That is the question most Japan-watchers grappled with following Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's fumbled questions about the imperial Japanese government's role in recruiting "comfort women" during World War II. His responses came close to undoing the progress he...
EDITORIALS
Mar 17, 2007

A little more fruit for labor

Most of the nation's leading automakers and electronics firms have agreed to raise base wages and bonuses for their employees for the second consecutive year on the strength of improved earnings. But the wage raises are lower than the amounts demanded by the labor unions, and the difference in the margin...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2007

Statute used to overturn slave labor redress

responsibilities of the government and major companies," said Yuzuru Tamura, a law professor at Matsuyama University and an expert on the forced labor issue. "I believe the court forgot that it is the final fort to protect the victims' rights." According to a Foreign Ministry report, about 39,000 Chinese...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2007

Minister's reticence may backfire

It's turning into a hard week at the Diet for farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka, whose political funds report revealed suspiciously high utility expenditures at his rent-free government office.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 11, 2007

Female foreigners are OK in Japan, so long as they're not Asian

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's refusal to apologize anew for Japan's sex-slave policy during World War II has a different meaning in Japan than it does abroad. The issue has come around again because the U.S. Congress is considering a resolution to demand that Japan clearly accept responsibility for the...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 10, 2007

Many questions facing Wenger and underachieving Gunners

LONDON -- In France Arsene Wenger was known as the Nearly Man.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2007

Abe's sex slave stance darkens women's day

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent denial that the Imperial Japanese Army coerced women into sexual slavery during the 1930s and 1940s overshadowed an International Women's Day forum at the United Nation's University in Shibuya Ward.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2007

Abe endorses LDP probe into wartime sex slaves

The government will provide documents to aid a new investigation by the Liberal Democratic Party into Japan's wartime sexual slavery, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2007

China acknowledges a gap

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's announcement at the National People's Congress that gross domestic product is targeted to grow by about 8 percent in 2007, down from at least 10 percent during the four previous years, not only reflects an attempt to prevent economic overheating but also points to the Chinese...
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2007

Mr. Abe's trivial pursuit

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's recent statements on the Japanese military's use of "comfort women" during the war years trivializes the real issue. By focusing on whether Japanese soldiers used physical force to recruit young Asian women into a form of sex slavery, he shifts attention from the government...
EDITORIALS
Mar 7, 2007

Thailand's troubles continue

It was expected that any instability that followed last September's coup in Thailand would be short-lived. Supporters even hoped that the military-led government would lessen uncertainty, end corruption and soothe the tensions that fuel a Muslim insurgency in the country's southern provinces. Those hopes...
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Mar 6, 2007

The prime minister's official hub

Kantei, the Prime Minister's Official Residence, is always a center of attention, particularly in times of national crisis, including when a big earthquake struck Niigata Prefecture in October 2004 and when North Korea tested a nuclear weapon last October.
BUSINESS
Mar 6, 2007

Nonfinancial investment surges quarterly 16.8%

Capital investment by Japanese companies excluding the financial and insurance sectors rose a record 16.8 percent in the October-December quarter from the same period a year earlier, the Finance Ministry said Monday, signaling the corporate-led economic expansion remains strong.
COMMENTARY
Mar 5, 2007

To move without U.S. cues

In their talks Feb. 21, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and visiting U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney reaffirmed the "unwavering" Japan-U.S. security alliance. This raises a question: Why did Abe have to reaffirm an alliance that is said to have already benefited from the long honeymoon between former Prime...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 4, 2007

Opposition hasn't got a clue in battle against LDP

Last year was a bad one for the Democratic Party of Japan. Its troubles started when DPJ lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata implied that the son of Tsutomu Ta-kebe, a big shot in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was involved in a money-for-favors deal. Once it was revealed that Nagata's evidence was false,...
JAPAN
Mar 3, 2007

Negroponte cool to U.S. call for sex slave apology

Issues pertaining to Japan's wartime sexual slavery should be dealt between Tokyo and the affected parties, not a third country, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 1, 2007

Beating the Yamato drum

With health minister Hakuo Yanagisawa's gaffe remark that women are "childbearing machines" still fresh in people's memory, yet another Cabinet member has put his foot in his mouth. This time, education minister Bunmei Ibuki has voiced objectionable ideas on the general character of the Japanese state...

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