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JAPAN
May 15, 2004

Koizumi to visit Pyongyang on May 22

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit Pyongyang on May 22 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in an effort to secure the passage to Japan of eight family members of five repatriated abductees, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Friday.
JAPAN
May 15, 2004

Koizumi to visit Pyongyang on May 22

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit Pyongyang on May 22 for talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in an effort to secure the passage to Japan of eight family members of five repatriated abductees, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Friday.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2004

More than just making ends meet

There is something fuzzy about Tuesday's Lower House vote on the pension reform bills. The package was supported by the ruling parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. But the opposition Democratic Party of Japan approved only a proviso that calls for the integration of the complex pension...
BUSINESS
May 14, 2004

Machinery orders down 3.2% in March

Core private-sector machinery orders dropped a seasonally adjusted 3.2 percent in March from February, the government said Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 13, 2004

Consumer sentiment up in April

Consumer sentiment in Japan improved in April from the previous month, with a nationwide consumer confidence index climbing to the highest level in more than seven years, the government said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2004

90 lawmakers join nonpayment list

Fifty-four of the Diet's 725 members have admitted failing to pay some of their mandatory pension premiums since 1986, when a reform measure obliging lawmakers to join the national pension scheme was put in place, according to a Kyodo News survey released Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2004

Officials call for increased security in Samawah

Government leaders said security measures need to be bolstered for Ground Self-Defense Force personnel in Samawah following the death of a Dutch soldier there, but denied that the southern Iraqi city is no longer safe enough for the Japanese troops to operate.
Japan Times
JAPAN / POLITICS IN FOCUS
May 11, 2004

Lawmakers now looking to make laws

Liberal Democratic Party member Ichita Yamamoto felt he had done his job when the Diet enacted legislation earlier this year to allow Japan to impose unilateral economic sanctions on North Korea.
Japan Times
JAPAN / POLITICS IN FOCUS
May 11, 2004

Lawmakers now looking to make laws

Liberal Democratic Party member Ichita Yamamoto felt he had done his job when the Diet enacted legislation earlier this year to allow Japan to impose unilateral economic sanctions on North Korea.
BUSINESS
May 11, 2004

Interest-rate rise would cut profits

A 1 percentage point increase in interest rates on loans outstanding to companies would eat into their combined pretax profit by up to 4 trillion yen, according to estimates released Monday by the Cabinet Office.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2004

Taiwan opposition must swallow loss to live

NEW YORK -- On March 20 the governing Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) ticket of Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu won re-election over the pan-blue ticket of Kuomintang (KMT) chairman Lien Chan and the People First Party (PFP) chairman James Soong by a narrow margin of...
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Freed abductees 'willing to revisit' North

Five repatriated Japanese abductees are willing to accompany Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to North Korea to pick up their families if such a visit is realized, one of their relatives in Japan said Friday.
JAPAN
May 8, 2004

Freed abductees 'willing to revisit' North

Five repatriated Japanese abductees are willing to accompany Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to North Korea to pick up their families if such a visit is realized, one of their relatives in Japan said Friday.
JAPAN
May 7, 2004

Koizumi lauds abductions progress; second Pyongyang visit not ruled out

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday that Japan and North Korea have made progress in talks over the abduction issue, and indicated he might visit Pyongyang again to resolve the deadlock.
JAPAN
May 7, 2004

Koizumi lauds abductions progress; second Pyongyang visit not ruled out

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Thursday that Japan and North Korea have made progress in talks over the abduction issue, and indicated he might visit Pyongyang again to resolve the deadlock.
COMMENTARY
May 4, 2004

Blair's hard sell of a new EU

LONDON -- "It's ghastly," Chris Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, said with a shudder. He was speaking of the referendum -- that Prime Minister Tony Blair has declared, after no consultation with his Cabinet, will now be held -- on the draft EU constitution. Why is a referendum ghastly? Because,...
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2004

EU constitution no shoo-in

PARIS -- Now 78, former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing managed at the end of last year to achieve two major successes: He was elected to the Academie Francaise, which for more than three centuries has been France's most prestigious intellectual institution; and the Convention of the Future...
JAPAN
May 1, 2004

Hatoyama, others in DPJ didn't pay pension premiums

Yukio Hatoyama, former president of the Democratic Party of Japan, and three other DPJ lawmakers have admitted they failed to pay into the national pension program during certain periods.
JAPAN
May 1, 2004

Listed companies replacing regular staff with part-timers

Listed firms cut the number of employees on their regular payrolls by an annual 3.4 percent on average during the three-year period through fiscal 2003, according to a Cabinet Office survey.
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2004

Worrisome low voter turnout

In Sunday's Lower House by-elections, which had been billed as a prelude to July's Upper House election, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party won all three seats at stake. Thus the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, having suffered defeat, will need to rethink its campaign strategy if it is to succeed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 28, 2004

Selling oneself short in the South

Sonny Rating: * * (out of 5) Director: Nicholas Cage Running time: 110 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] There was a time when one could relish seeing Nicholas Cage's name in a film's credits, a fertile period that encompassed 1991's "Wild at...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2004

State, mining firm ordered to pay sickened workers

The Supreme Court ended a 19-year legal battle Tuesday by endorsing a lower court decision ordering the state and a mining company to compensate former coal miners in Fukuoka Prefecture who contracted pneumoconiosis by inhaling mine dust.
JAPAN
Apr 28, 2004

Hostage blames state for backlash

The harsh criticism that has been aimed at Japanese civilians taken hostage in Iraq stems from government resentment over their relatives' calls for Tokyo to withdraw its troops from the country, one of the hostages said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Apr 27, 2004

Government relieved as LDP wins all Lower House by-elections

Government and ruling coalition leaders breathed a sigh of relief Monday after the Liberal Democratic Party won all three House of Representatives by-elections held Sunday in a possible prelude to July's House of Councilors poll.
JAPAN
Apr 27, 2004

LDP veteran Mitsuzuka dies

Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, a former senior lawmaker from the Liberal Democratic Party and an ex-finance minister, died of illness Sunday at a Tokyo hospital, an LDP executive said. He was 76.
JAPAN
Apr 25, 2004

Half of women here feel they're fat, poll

Nearly half of the female respondents to a Cabinet Office survey released Saturday believe they are overweight, up 6.1 percentage points from the previous survey taken in October 2000.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 25, 2004

Shame lies with government and media over Iraq hostage crisis

Last week, the Asahi Shimbun ran an opinion piece by writer Genichiro Takahashi that was in the form of an advice column. The anonymous advice-seeker professed to having suffered the same fate as the three Japanese hostages who returned from Iraq to a chorus of derision. After all I went through, said...

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Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
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