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JAPAN
May 25, 2006

Education bill won't promote militarism: Koizumi

heavy importance on an education suitable to a new era and is aimed at nurturing admirable manpower for the benefit of Japan," he told a special parliamentary committee. The bill -- drafted by the ruling coalition and approved by the Cabinet on April 28 -- is a longtime goal of the conservatives, who...
BUSINESS
May 24, 2006

One-time gains lift major banks but long-term strategies still needed

Buoyed by a wide-ranging business recovery and a massive one-time gain caused by reductions in loan-loss reserves, the nation's top banking groups have reported record-breaking profits for the 2005 business year ended in March.
BUSINESS
May 24, 2006

Banks OK for now but long-term strategy needed

Buoyed by a wide-ranging recovery and a massive one-time gain caused by reductions in loan-loss reserves, the nation's top banking groups have reported record-breaking profits for the 2005 business year ended in March.
EDITORIALS
May 23, 2006

U.S. beef imports to resume

Japan and the United States have reached a general agreement on the conditions to resume the importing of American beef to Japan. Beef imports have been suspended since the Japanese government imposed a ban on Jan. 20 after discovering that a U.S. meatpacker had violated safety rules. If everything goes...
JAPAN
May 21, 2006

Coalition to move ahead on 'Defense Ministry' bill

The government is expected to submit a bill to the Diet this legislative session on upgrading the Defense Agency to ministry status, political sources said Saturday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 20, 2006

How sweet it is -- or isn't

My wife bakes in flurries and when the storm hits hardest, our kitchen becomes a virtual hurricane of flour and dough, not to mention Category 5 aromas.
BUSINESS
May 20, 2006

Japan will raise oil reserves to 95 days amid instabilities

Japan's national oil reserve will be raised to 95 from the current 90 days supply for the time being, Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai said Friday.
JAPAN
May 20, 2006

Young killers at heart of capital punishment fight

it just did it right there." His flippant attitude at the time and during his trial outraged Yayoi's husband, Hiroshi, and prosecutors, who appealed the life sentence, demanding the death penalty.
JAPAN
May 19, 2006

Japan fishes for skilled foreign workers

Japan hopes to import more foreign white-collar workers by adopting more flexible immigration policies, the government said Thursday in a bid to spruce up its international leadership.
JAPAN
May 19, 2006

Fukui library pulls books on gender issues on complaint

OSAKA -- A library in Fukui Prefecture has become the latest flash point in the struggle over gender equality after it was learned that 150 books on women's issues and gender studies were removed from the shelves.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 18, 2006

Bilateral beef talks resume

Japan and the United States started two days of talks Wednesday in Tokyo to discuss terms for resuming imports of U.S. beef.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2006

Revising the Organ Transplant Law

The Organ Transplant Law went into effect in 1997. Between February 1999 and March 2006, organs from 44 brain-dead people were used for 167 transplants, which involved hearts, lungs, livers, pancreases, kidneys and small intestines. But the number is extremely small compared with the United States, where...
JAPAN
May 17, 2006

Aso says change needed in war-dead system

Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Tuesday he sees problems in the current method of honoring the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine and suggested that having a single religious institution in charge of the system needs changing.
COMMENTARY
May 17, 2006

Taro Aso has a history problem with Australia

When Foreign Minister Taro Aso visited Australia recently, did he know that the father of the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, had been a Japanese prisoner of war in the notorious Changi jail in Singapore? And if Alexander Downer Sr. had been sent to a certain camp in Kyushu, as some 200...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 17, 2006

Bid to address Congress has Yasukuni proviso

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's contentious visits to Yasukuni Shrine are a matter of religious freedom, the government said Tuesday, rejecting criticism leveled by a powerful U.S. congressman.
BUSINESS
May 17, 2006

Economic expansion 'fragile' but the second longest since the war

Japan marked its 52nd straight month of expansion since February 2002, making this the second-longest period of growth of the postwar era, according to a government report released Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 16, 2006

Crime reporting turns murky as cops clam up

Police are increasingly opting not to release names of crime victims, giving rise to fears that criminal cases will become opaque, facts will become obscure and the validity of evidence in doubt.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2006

U.S. push to lift beef ban won't work: Abe

Japan will not be pressured by the United States into speeding up a review of its ban on U.S. beef, the top government spokesman said Friday, ahead of discussions between the two countries on the trade spat scheduled for next week.
JAPAN
May 11, 2006

Referendum bill set back by surprise DPJ snub

discussions (among the three parties). I hope the parties will continue discussions, based on this process," Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a regular news conference Wednesday, responding to Ozawa's comments. The Constitution states that amendments must be approved by referendum. However, the...
JAPAN
May 11, 2006

Fukuda to meet with U.S. officials

Former Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda left for Washington on Wednesday for talks with influential current and former U.S. officials.
COMMENTARY
May 11, 2006

It's crying time for Labour

LONDON -- In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has clearly announced the time when he will depart from office. In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has left the time of his departure wide open. Therein lies the difference, and the core, of the deep problems currently besetting...
BUSINESS
May 11, 2006

March key index dives, not fretted

A key gauge of the current state of the economy plunged below the boom-or-bust threshold of 50 percent in March for the first time in eight months, but it should be viewed as a temporary fall, the government said Wednesday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 7, 2006

So what did Yokota's trip to the United States really achieve?

National interest is in the eye of the beholder. For example, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to Ethiopia and Ghana last week to offer aid, but also to reinvigorate the African Union's support for reform of the U.N. Security Council, of which Japan still hopes to become a permanent member....
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 7, 2006

Japanese being ensnared in ill-suited U.S. trappings

Back in the 1960s and '70s, the Japanese people were being raked over the coals from West Virginia to the Ruhr Valley and beyond for, chiefly, two things.
JAPAN
May 3, 2006

Part-time work OK to achieve dreams: students

Forty percent of university freshmen say they would become "freeters," or part-time workers, to achieve their dreams, while nearly half of their parents don't like the idea, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 2, 2006

Abe encouraged by effort of abductees' kin

Relatives of Japanese abducted by North Korea sent a strong message to the world on Pyongyang's human rights abuses when they visited Washington last week, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Monday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
May 2, 2006

Fingerprint fears and TELL news

Immigration law Michael asks how the new immigration law for foreign arrivals will affect those with re-entry visas. "Can we still use the Japanese national line, or will we have to go to the foreigners line? Japanese nationals are not being photographed or fingerprinted."
JAPAN
May 1, 2006

Nukaga, Aso head for U.S. to finalize troop realignment plan

Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga and Foreign Minister Taro Aso left Sunday for Washington where Japan and the United States hope to strike a final agreement on plans to realign American troops stationed in Japan.

Longform

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