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BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2005

JEC defends defensive stock split

Japan Engineering Consultants Co. on Thursday defended its stock split against a hostile bid by construction engineering firm Yumeshin Holdings Co. as an appropriate measure during its general shareholders meeting in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Sep 26, 2005

China should face its own unsavory past

NEW DELHI -- The new foreign-policy subtleness that China has displayed in recent years is a far cry from the coarse image its earlier Communist rulers presented, especially when they set out, in then-Premier Zhou Enlai's words, to "teach India a lesson" in 1962, or when, to quote strongman Deng Xiaoping,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 26, 2005

Underwhelmed in Okinawa

Most of the Japanese political community is all agog over the overwhelming victory of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party in the Sept. 11 Lower House election. Okinawa Prefecture is the exception.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 26, 2005

Constitutional debate welcome

NEW YORK -- I was recently intrigued by the constitutional debate -- not in Iraq, but in Japan -- when I read a book on the art of writing, "Bungei Tokuhon," that Yukio Mishima dictated in 1958.
Japan Times
Sep 22, 2005

Firms betting on Russia amid political poker

A screen up front read "Welcome to St. Petersburg!" as top officials of Russia's second-largest city gave a presentation in Tokyo to lure Japanese investment.
COMMENTARY
Sep 21, 2005

System's flaws help keep Koizumi on top

From the start of the recent Lower House election campaign it was predictable that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's theatrics -- his constant references to magic "kaikaku" (reform) and the alleged benefits from postal-service privatization -- would have its inevitable mesmerizing effect on Japan's...
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 20, 2005

Brought to heel

The watchdog role of journalists in Japan is on trial in several cases with enormous implications for freedom of the press here
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 19, 2005

Junichiro Koizumi's great leap forward

HONOLULU -- The stunning electoral victory engineered by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan last week ought to make leaders in Washington, Beijing, Pyongyang, Seoul, and at the United Nations sit up and take note because it marks a great leap forward in Japan's emergence from the passive and pacifist...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 17, 2005

Kingsley-Rowe Potter

MADELEY, England -- As many retired English people like to do, June Kingsley-Rowe Potter lives in the countryside. She takes her dog on long-distance walks around Madeley. She cares for her garden. She volunteers for charity work, and enjoys traveling. For her research into local history, she reads ancient...
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2005

Koizumi must now master global politics

LOS ANGELES -- I met Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi two years ago for a fascinating interview. I recall slightly pressing him on the touchy question of whether Japan would actually overcome its restrictive pacifist Constitution (a significant legacy of the U.S. Occupation) and dispatch troops to Iraq,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 13, 2005

Back to the original balanced diet

When Kit Kitatani was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1986, he went through the usual procedure of having the tumor surgically removed and starting chemotherapy treatments. But his white blood-cell count was too low to continue the chemo. His doctor said he had less than six months to live.
COMMUNITY
Sep 13, 2005

Readers Write Back

Readers respond to recent topics on the Community Page
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Sep 13, 2005

Counseling, insurance and prints

TELL counseling Tokyo English Life Line (TELL) is accepting applications for the Telephone Counselors Training Program, that begins in September.
Japan Times
Features
Sep 11, 2005

What's the Point?

Fabrice Blocteur may not be as well known as Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, Ferdinand Magellan or Sir Francis Drake. But like explorers of old, this French-Canadian resident of a rural Kyoto village is on a quest to rewrite the maps through new discoveries.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Sep 10, 2005

Just 14 more mountains to climb for jackpot 100

Some long-term visitors to Japan choose to count the days. Others make the decision to suck every drop of juice out of the opportunity. Take Ginger Vaughn, for example. She falls most definitely into the latter category -- and all power to her facial and calf muscles!
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2005

Thai FTA defers sticking points

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his visiting Thai counterpart, Thaksin Shinawatra, agreed Thursday on a basic accord to lower mutual trade barriers that left key decisions on high tariffs on Japanese cars and Thai rice unresolved.
COMMENTARY
Sep 2, 2005

Commemorating a mistake

Chaos theorists like to speculate how a butterfly flapping wings in Beijing might cause an earthquake in Latin America. But history could have something even more chaotic to say -- how a Japanese soldier's toilet stop near Beijing in 1937 plunged Japan into an eight-year war with China, rescued Europe...
JAPAN
Aug 31, 2005

It's now a case of what clicks with voters

As campaigning officially kicked off Tuesday for the Sept. 11 election, attention is focused on voters and their priorities.
COMMENTARY
Aug 31, 2005

The meaning behind Koizumi's moves

On the surface, most elections are about personalities, false promises and special interests. But Japan's general election Sept. 11 is about a deeper historical reconciliation -- the effort to resolve differences between the country's cultural and behavioral preferences, and the organizational practices...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2005

Southeast Asia watches Koizumi's gamble

SINGAPORE -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took an unprecedented political gamble in dissolving the Lower House and calling a snap general election for Sept. 11 -- after the Upper House rejected his postal privatization bills Aug. 8. The privatization of Japan Post symbolizes Koizumi's reform plans...
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2005

Know when not to apologize

LONDON -- Here is a telling statistic about Japan's foreign policy that is little known in the West, and may not be widely known even in Japan itself.
COMMENTARY
Aug 22, 2005

Victor's logic in hindsight

Every August Japan is filled with prayers for the 3.1 million Japanese who died in the Pacific War and feelings of resentment against the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This August, which marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the war, Japanese media have done intensive reporting to...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Aug 21, 2005

Cartoon duo leads the way in a version of history that's no joke

The phrase "textbook row" has become a regular sighting in Japanese newspapers of late, as newly authorized history books for schools are accused, both at home and abroad, of "glossing over" the bloodier aspects of this country's warmongering, Imperialist past.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 21, 2005

Rallying round home-grown sounds

It's the final day of this year's Rock in Japan festival, which took place Aug. 5-7. Holding court in the HMV DJ booth is entertainer Yoshiaki Umegaki. He's a late fortysomething transvestite sporting a tall blue wig and playing with his plastic breasts under a fetching blue sequined number while pouring...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 21, 2005

All together now, as yesterday's no-no becomes the status quo

When I first arrived in Japan in the 1960s, I was friends with a Western sociologist who was genuinely frustrated. When he went around surveying public opinion, he said that he found Japanese people to be stubbornly reserved and conservative. Apparently, those who responded to his questions about social...
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2005

Postal reform bills still top LDP agenda

The Liberal Democratic Party pledged Friday to resubmit Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's defeated postal privatization bills for passage in the next Diet session.

Longform

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