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Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 16, 2006

Defiant Koizumi visits Yasukuni

Defying repeated warnings from China and South Korea, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday, the 61st anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, paying his respects at the Shinto site that honors the nation's 2.5 million war dead and 14 Class-A war criminals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 16, 2006

'Stubborn maverick' makes good on promise

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday took his last opportunity while in office to visit Yasukuni Shrine on the anniversary of Japan's wartime surrender, finally following through on a campaign pledge he made before his April 2001 inauguration to break the diplomatic taboo by making the contentious...
EDITORIALS
Aug 15, 2006

A time to learn from the past

Japan marks the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II even as its politicians send signals that lead other peoples in the world to question its true inclinations. One such signal was the prediction that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi would visit Yasukuni Shrine on Tuesday, the very day of the...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 13, 2006

Shifting relations with China

JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA: Facing a Rising Power, edited by Lam Peng Er. London: Routledge, 2006, 242 pp., £65 (cloth). Sino-Japanese relations are of critical importance to the future development of the two countries as well as wider East Asia. At the present time these relations are characterized...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 13, 2006

Arguing over history, memory and politics

THE MAKING OF THE "RAPE OF NANKING": History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States, by Takashi Yoshida. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006, 265 pp., $55 (cloth). Since Iris Chang published "The Rape of Nanking" (1997), the Japanese have taken a beating about their alleged collective amnesia...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 13, 2006

Iwo Jima: 'A futile battle' fought without surrender

August 15 is the 61st anniversary of Emperor Hirohito's capitulation speech that ended World War II. Yet even in a world assailed ever since with ghastly images of conflicts, few rank with the ferocity both sides showed in the battle for a remote Pacific islet in the spring of 1945. That islet's name...
JAPAN / History
Aug 12, 2006

Yasukuni gripes still dog nation

everyone (in the association) avoided," Kishimoto said. But this all changed several years ago, when the group's chairman, LDP House of Representative lawmaker Makoto Koga, and other association members started to speak publicly about removing the war criminals from Yasukuni, Kishimoto said.
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 12, 2006

China weapons cleanup requires five more years

Efforts to recover and dispose of hundreds of thousands of chemical weapons abandoned in China by the Imperial army at the end of World War II will take five years longer than planned, a Japanese official said Friday.
BUSINESS
Aug 12, 2006

GDP grows at lower than expected 0.2% in quarter

Japan's economy is on the road to a sane recovery at a slower than expected 0.8 percent annualized rate seen in the April-June period, the Cabinet Office said Friday.
SOCCER / World cup
Aug 10, 2006

Boys in Blue give Osim first win as new coach

Ivica Osim's reign as coach of Japan got off to a winning start as Alex Santos scored both goals in a 2-0 victory over Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday evening.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 10, 2006

Facing the past, embracing the future

To communicate the truths of history is an act of hope for the future. We thus owe it to the youthful generations of the 21st century to communicate the hatred of war, the commitment to peace, that was engraved in so many lives on Aug. 15, 1945.
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2006

Center gives refugees reason for hope

has been commissioned by the government to provide followup (to refugees who have been recognized)," said Shin Ohara of RHQ. "I think all foreigners living in Japan face hurdles, but for refugees it is especially hard to be adopted into Japanese society for various reasons, including the language barrier." The...
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2006

An opportunity to mend ties

Intensive debate is under way ahead of the governing Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election next month to choose the successor to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. At issue is how to assess the reform policies of Koizumi -- now the third-longest reigning prime minister in the postwar years...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 30, 2006

Working for and beyond the call of hospitality

WELCOME TO SAWANOYA, Welcome to Japan, by Isao Sawa. Omega-Com Inc., 2006, 203 pp., 1,200 yen (paper). It seems at times as if, by common consent for the other's altering tastes, that East and West are exchanging positions. The West's love of the subtle side and back lighting, in the spirit of Junichiro...
JAPAN
Jul 29, 2006

Koreans want answers to slave laborers' fates

and two other South Koreans seeking information on relatives who were slave laborers in Japan during the war take part in a ceremony Friday in Tokyo as others hold photos of three North Koreans who were denied visas. SATOKO KAWASAKI PHOTO
JAPAN
Jul 28, 2006

Missile defense plans have their skeptics

North Korea has become Japan's main security concern in the post-Cold War era, as underscored by Pyongyang's July 5 test-firing of seven ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.
JAPAN
Jul 27, 2006

Ethanol latest bid to boost Okinawa

OSAKA -- In May, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met with Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga and trade minister Toshihiro Nikai to discuss Okinawa's future.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2006

Fitting memorial for war dead

With the governing Liberal Democratic Party set to elect its new leader in September -- when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi step downs as LDP president (and hence as prime minister) some LDP lawmakers are proposing ways to solve the ongoing row over Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine. Visits...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 25, 2006

Lesbian mothers' twin tasks

Motherhood can be daunting under even the best of circumstances, but, as a lesbian, considering starting a family brings with it a whole new set of difficulties.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 20, 2006

Korean-Japanese bridges the gap for movie crew

Born in 1978 as a third-generation Korean in Japan, Chung Ji Hye used to hesitate about revealing her family background to her friends.
EDITORIALS
Jul 18, 2006

Our very own preemptive option

After North Korea test-fired seven missiles July 5, arguments suddenly began flying within the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that Japan should consider developing the capability to strike a foreign missile base if there is an imminent threat of an attack on Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 18, 2006

Preventing suicide and axing overtime pay is a risky mix

More than 30,000 people kill themselves each year in Japan, bestowing the country with the shameful honor of the highest suicide rate in the developed world. To deal with this reality, a group of lawmakers from across the political spectrum pushed an antisuicide bill through the Diet last month to force...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 16, 2006

Up close . . . and virtually personal

When the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan characters fell in love via the virtual world of Web chat in the 1998 movie "You've Got Mail," it seemed a classic case of something that could only happen in the movies, not in the real world.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 15, 2006

Britain to get new Japanese studies center in September

Efforts by Japan experts in Britain to boost Japanese studies in the country will bear fruit this September with the opening of the National Institute of Japanese Studies in the new White Rose East Asia Center.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 15, 2006

Matchmaker looks to cash in on population woes

For the government, the declining birthrate and delayed marriages are its biggest headaches as the graying of Japan accelerates.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 15, 2006

BOJ terminates zero-rate policy

The Bank of Japan ended nearly six years of rock-bottom interest rates Friday, abandoning its "zero-interest-rate policy" and hiking the unsecured overnight call rate to 0.25 percent on the strength of Japan's steadily improving economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2006

'Comfort women' issue far from closed

NEW YORK -- V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women and girls, is putting the "comfort women's" crusade for reparations in its spotlight for 2006. As part of the activities, in the summer of 2006 the Global Campaign will include celebrity benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues"...
JAPAN
Jul 14, 2006

Abe denies upholding pre-emptive strike as defensive right

is being attacked with missiles" from that base. He added that an overseas first strike would fall within the legal parameters of self-defense "if there is no way to defend against an attack on Japan." Those comments, which followed North Korea's test-launching of seven ballistic missiles that fell into...

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