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Features / LIFE OR DEATH
Apr 25, 2004

Debate heats up over legal reform

The maximum legal penalty in Japan is death. Locked alone in their tiny cells, 56 death-row prisoners are now awaiting their fate. Last year, one person was executed. No one knows how many will be this year.
BUSINESS
Apr 24, 2004

Bank bill seen unlikely to stabilize financial system

A government-sponsored bill to prop up struggling financial institutions with public funds is apparently designed to boost investor confidence.
JAPAN
Apr 24, 2004

Kawaguchi spends the day in bed

Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi remained at home Friday after leaving early from a Diet session a day earlier and canceling appointments due to fatigue, ministry spokesman Hatsuhisa Takashima said.
JAPAN
Apr 23, 2004

Beltway ruling backs residents

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday backed claims by residents in western Tokyo that the expropriation of their land for the construction of a new expressway was illegal, ruling that the project will not generate the public benefits touted by the government.
BUSINESS
Apr 23, 2004

Japan, U.S. plot fresh round of talks over ongoing dispute on beef imports

Japan and the United States will hold working-level talks Saturday aimed at settling a bilateral beef trade dispute, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday.
JAPAN
Apr 21, 2004

SDF troops staying in Iraq, vows Tokyo

Japan on Tuesday downplayed plans by Spain and Honduras to withdraw their troops from Iraq in the coming months, insisting that its own Self-Defense Forces units will remain in the Mideast country.
EDITORIALS
Apr 21, 2004

Wanted: an honest broker

An Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement is looking more like a will-o'-the-wisp as a cycle of retaliatory violence continues unabated. Last week's assassination by the Israeli military of the new Hamas leader, Mr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi -- less than a month after the killing of the Hamas founder and spiritual...
BUSINESS
Apr 21, 2004

Help Japan by using more homegrown wood: report

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry released an annual forestry report Tuesday calling for greater use of domestically produced lumber to help Japan's ailing forestry industry.
COMMENTARY
Apr 19, 2004

Push Japan's good intentions

The lesson from the abduction and subsequent release of five Japanese civilians in Iraq is that the government should send a strong message to the Arab world that it is actively pushing humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in the war-torn country.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 18, 2004

Media favors Al-Jazeera over government

In his new book, "The Unconquerable World," Jonathan Schell explains how "people's war" came to be the dominant form of international conflict in the nuclear age. People's war subordinates all aspects of warfare to politics, because only through politics can the strength of the people be harnessed to...
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2004

April economic assessment left unchanged from March

The government left unchanged its upbeat economic assessment in April, stating that bright corporate sentiment is extending to wider sectors.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2004

Hostage drama highlights SDF's tough role in Iraq

The hostage crisis involving three Japanese civilians highlighted the worsening security situation in Iraq.
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2004

Japan wholesale prices post first rise since 2000

Wholesale prices nationwide edged up in March from a year earlier for the first increase in three years and eight months, the Bank of Japan said Tuesday in a preliminary report.
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2004

Kondo OK'd to head highway body

The Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday endorsed the reappointment of Takeshi Kondo as president of the state-run Japan Highway Public Corp.
JAPAN
Apr 14, 2004

Government slaps media gag on hostage crisis staffers

The government on Tuesday effectively imposed a media gag on staffers working at its headquarters dealing with the Iraq hostage crisis.
EDITORIALS
Apr 13, 2004

Little hope for Sri Lanka

Thirty years of civil war have done irreparable harm to Sri Lanka. The fight by the island's Tamils to secure a homeland has claimed more than 60,000 lives and deeply fractured the nation. A peace process appeared to be making progress, but divisions among Sri Lanka's Sinhalese majority derailed those...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 2004

Nightmare continues for captives' kin as Japan tries to verify info, negotiate

Japan continued desperate efforts Monday to contact and negotiate with the group holding three Japanese hostage in Iraq.
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2004

Nonresidents buy stocks at record level

Nonresident investors were net buyers of Japanese stocks in fiscal 2003, with purchases exceeding sales by a record 14.041 trillion yen.
BUSINESS
Apr 13, 2004

Private-sector deregulation panel launched

A newly launched government panel on deregulation held its first meeting Monday and selected Yoshihiko Miyauchi, chairman of Orix Corp., as chairman.
JAPAN
Apr 11, 2004

52% of young adults uninterested in science, survey shows

More than half of Japanese between the ages of 18 and 29 are not interested in science, and the percentage is growing despite an increased exposure to information technology products, according to a government poll.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 11, 2004

On a High with Teens

Friday, March 19: There's an explosion of noise and color in the heart of the Ten-jin district in Fukuoka City and the locals don't know what has hit them.
EDITORIALS
Apr 10, 2004

Stay the course in Iraq

Iraq is in chaos. A widespread uprising against the coalition forces has resulted in hundreds of casualties and the targeting of civilians in a desperate attempt to equalize strength through asymmetrical warfare. Kidnapping is the latest outrage, and among the hostages are three Japanese civilians.
JAPAN
Apr 10, 2004

Japan hit over lack of crisis-response measures

Thursday's kidnapping of three Japanese civilians in Iraq has exposed the government's ill-preparedness for crises, especially those involving terrorists.
COMMENTARY
Apr 10, 2004

A fight that does not finish

Tokyo's angry reaction to the threatened retaliatory killing by Iraqi militants of three young Japanese civilians taken hostage this week reminds one of how much the impasse in Iraq parallels the 1960s quagmire in Vietnam.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 9, 2004

Japanese trio held hostage in Iraq

Three Japanese civilians have been taken hostage in Iraq by a terrorist-related group that has threatened to kill them if Japan does not withdraw its troops from the country in three days.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 8, 2004

Prime minister pledges Yasukuni return

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Wednesday that he will keep visiting Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine despite a Fukuoka District Court ruling that his August 2001 trip there, the first of four, violated the Constitution.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.