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Japan Times
Sep 12, 2005

'Assassin' Koike bests 'rebel' Kobayashi

Environment Minister Yuriko Koike wrested the Tokyo No. 10 district seat in Sunday's election from former Liberal Democratic Party member Koki Kobayashi.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 11, 2005

CL may hold playoffs sooner than you think

The Central League has decided to consider instituting a playoff system beginning in 2007, but we may be seeing postseason play between two CL teams a lot sooner.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2005

SDF to upgrade, deploy new radar to detect missiles

The Defense Agency will improve its missile surveillance network by deploying four new radar units and upgrading seven others by fiscal 2009 to detect ballistic missile launches in North Korea, agency officials said Saturday.
EDITORIALS
Sep 11, 2005

The unfriendly skies

A s the vacation season fades into fall, travelers have wended their weary way home from far-flung destinations such as Hawaii, Queensland, Europe and beyond. The problem is, the farther-flung the destination, the wearier the returnees are likely to be -- and the angrier. Not because they didn't enjoy...
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2005

Four LDP rebels say they will back postal bills after election

Four ruling party lawmakers who did not back Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's postal privatization bills have decided to support the legislation if the ruling coalition wins a majority in the general election, LDP lawmakers said Saturday.
JAPAN
Sep 11, 2005

Predict election winners and get a reward

An Internet site has been offering rewards of up to 100,000 yen for predicting the winners in Sunday's House of Representatives election.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2005

Pyongyang palliative is Bush's bitter pill

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Although buried by headlines from Iraq and Hurricane Katrina-devastated U.S. Gulf Coast region, the fourth round of six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program, about to resume in Beijing, presents the best chance yet to resolve diplomatically the simmering crisis on the...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 11, 2005

What price social equality since the ventriloquists' putsch?

On the fourth anniversary of the 9/11 atrocity, is it too early to talk of a Bush legacy? What vision has the administration of President George W. Bush bestowed on the United States as a result of the terrorist attacks that day?
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2005

Aussies adjust the moorings

BRISBANE, Australia -- While the historical origins and cultural roots of Australia lie in Europe, its primary strategic alliance is with the United States, its pri- mary security focus is on Southeast Asia, and its major trading partners are in Northeast Asia.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Sep 11, 2005

TV Tokyo's "Dawn of Gaia" tackles the 2007 problem and more

Japanese industry is now gearing up for what's being called the 2007 Problem. In that year, the huge mass of humanity known as the baby-boom generation will start to retire, and when they leave their companies they will take with them many of the skills and knowhow that built those companies and, in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Sep 11, 2005

The Evens

Have you hugged your local independent record store lately? It might need it, what with all those kids downloading songs and pumping them into their iPods. Whatever happened to long, lazy afternoons picking through used record stacks and cutout bins, hoping to find that deleted 13th Floor Elevator comp...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 11, 2005

The curious Mr. Longfellow

LONGFELLOW'S TATTOOS: Tourism, Collecting, and Japan, by Christine M.E. Guth. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2004, 256 pp., 123 illustrations, $29.95 (paper). After the new Japanese government was officially installed in 1868, only a decade or so after the country had been, more or less, forcibly...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Sep 11, 2005

Assemblywoman puts sex on the agenda

In April 2003, 28-year-old Kanako Otsuji became the youngest person ever elected to the Osaka prefectural assembly when she won the seat for Sakai City. It was a distinction made more special by the fact that there were only six other women in the 110-member assembly at the time. However, another distinction...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 11, 2005

Desperate drones are content to be 'conned' into buying a condo

As long as I've lived in Tokyo I've received phone calls from condominium salespeople. In the past, these solicitations seemed accidental, as if the salespeople had dialed my number at random. But in the last five years the calls have been more deliberate. The salespeople know where I live -- not just...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 11, 2005

Has risk of nuclear proliferation risen?

HONOLULU -- The nuclear cooperation agreement announced between U.S. President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on July 18 marked a major shift in U.S. policies aimed at stopping and reversing proliferation. If implemented, it would result in new rules of global nuclear commerce...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Sep 11, 2005

Here comes the naughty and the nice

Antony and the Johnsons (who?, I hear you say) may have won the Mercury Music Prize last Tuesday, but when the far more prestigious Fuzzy Logic awards are announced at the end of this year then the two bands profiled here are going to be in the running to get at least a gong apiece. Falsies on Heat must...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 11, 2005

Views from Asia suggest that 'Team Bush' is playing poorly for all sides

CONFRONTING THE BUSH DOCTRINE: Critical Views From the Asia-Pacific, edited by Mel Gurtov and Peter Van Ness. London: Routledge Curzon, 2004, 277 pp., £20.99 (cloth). Characterizing the Bush administration's foreign policy of zigzagging, dysfunctional initiatives and self-inflicted wounds a "doctrine"...
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
CULTURE / Music
Sep 11, 2005

Lew Tabackin International Trio

A jazzman for those in the know, Lew Tabackin helped redefine the big band solo, contributed to classic sessions and has toured worldwide continuously, giving workshops and playing venues large and small. His work collaborating, writing and arranging with his wife, Toshiko Akiyoshi, created one of the...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Sep 10, 2005

In the eye of a media storm, the Swede won't be uprooted

LONDON -- The campaign to get rid of England head coach Sven-Goran Eriksson is in overdrive following the inept, as bad as it gets 1-0 defeat in Northern Ireland on Wednesday. The English media has never been Eriksson's greatest ally, even when the national team was winning, so the first loss at Windsor...
SUMO
Sep 10, 2005

Asashoryu shoots for sixth straight

In the final analysis, sumo is a sport determined by a wrestler's desire to achieve greatness. Though enemies lurk, the fight with oneself becomes the real challenge.

Longform

A store clerk tries to cool things down in front of their shop by spraying a hose.
Is extreme weather changing the way Japan shops?