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JAPAN
Oct 30, 2005

Bureaucrat gets suspended term for insider trading

An official of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has been sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, for engaging in insider trading.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2005

Hijackers' kin in N. Korea plan to come to Japan

A group of Japanese airplane hijackers now living in North Korea have decided to return their wives and children to Japan in the light of deteriorating ties between Tokyo and Pyongyang, informed sources said Saturday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 30, 2005

Archimedes' mirror

A pparently the Japanese were not the only people in olden times utilizing exotic weapons to destroy invaders' fleets. Almost 1,500 years before the kamikaze, or divinely opportune typhoon winds, helped Japan rout a force sent by Kubla Khan, the ancient Greeks torched an invading Roman flotilla at Syracuse...
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2005

English test to gauge education level

About 1,000 junior high school students will be tested in November on their ability to speak English as part of the government's efforts to ascertain the situation of English education in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 30, 2005

Gun control loses yet again

LONDON -- Last Sunday in Brazil, a country with the second-highest rate of gun deaths on the planet, almost two-thirds of Brazilians voted against a total ban on the sale of firearms. Explain that.
EDITORIALS
Oct 30, 2005

A tale of two bears

Human beings are a cruelly fickle lot, especially when it comes to animals. Take two stories circulating on the Web last week, both out of Washington, D.C. and both concerning bears.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 30, 2005

A war of obstinacy and misery

BURMA: The Forgotten War, by Jon Latimer. London: John Murray: 2005. 610 pp., £9.99 (paper). The ambitions and fanaticism of officers all too often imperil the men they lead into battle. The story of Imperial Japan's invasion and occupation of colonial Burma in World War II reveals just how many soldiers...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 30, 2005

Akiyuki Nosaka's "Hotaru no Haka" dramatized in Nihon TV's "Drama Complex" and more

This week, Nihon TV launches a new series called "Drama Complex" with a three-hour adaptation of Akiyuki Kosaka's best-selling novel "Hotaru no Haka (Grave of Fireflies)" (Tuesday, 9 p.m.), which is set during World War II.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 30, 2005

Communing with wild animals in Japan's famous culture of cute

In the first of a series of recent articles about nonindigenous animal species in Japan, the Asahi Shimbun reported comments made at this year's annual meeting of the International Association of Falconry. The meeting, which took place earlier this month in Prague, saw the chairperson criticize the Japanese...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 30, 2005

The freedom found in anominity

A MAN WITH NO TALENTS: Memoirs of a Tokyo Day Laborer, by Shiro Oyama, translated by Edward Fowler. Ithica/London: Cornell University Press, 2005, 140 pp., $21.00 (cloth). Toward the end of his account of what life is like at the bottom of Japan's social structure, Shiro Oyama (a pseudonym) observes...
MULTIMEDIA
Oct 30, 2005

Speaking volumes

Kaori Shoji
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 30, 2005

What lies beneath the myth of middle-class consciousness

A friend sent me an email about some new people, all Japanese, she had met at a party. There was a young man who had worked in Africa for Medecins Sans Frontieres. One middle-age man had quit a stable job in broadcasting to study French in Paris. A female graduate student in marine biology was also there....
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 29, 2005

Kuwata pay cut

Yomiuri Giants veteran right-hander Masumi Kuwata took a 30 percent pay cut when he re-signed with the Central League club Friday for an estimated 150 million annual salary.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 29, 2005

Contrast in Liverpool's performance an ongoing mystery

LONDON -- There are many unanswered questions in the world.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Physician in line for Order of Culture honor

Noted terminal-care physician Shigeaki Hinohara is among the five people who will be awarded the Order of Culture next week, the government said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 29, 2005

Charter gives Iraq a new chance

Iraq has a new constitution. Iraqis approved the national charter by a narrow margin, prompting allegations of fraud by dissenters. While the outcome produced a document that is more democratic and representative than any other in Iraq's history, the referendum results highlighted the country's sharp...
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Nuclear carrier to replace Kitty Hawk

, said if the nuclear-powered carrier collides with other vessels, a possible scenario in Tokyo Bay where a great number of ships come and go, it could cause a great disaster.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Hot springs no longer limited to rural relaxation

The number of hot spring bathhouses is rising rapidly in Tokyo and Osaka, allowing more people to enjoy the relaxing baths that were once limited to the countryside.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Kadena F-15 drills to be transferred to five ASDF bases

Japan and the United States have agreed to move some of the F-15 fighter jets' flight exercises held at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa to five Air Self-Defense Force bases outside the prefecture, sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Nonpartisan panel established to study new war memorial

Senior lawmakers from the ruling coalition and the Democratic Party of Japan on Friday launched a nonpartisan panel to study the feasibility of establishing a new war memorial to bridge the rift between Japan and its neighbors over Yasukuni Shrine.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Ban urges Koizumi to end visits to Yasukuni

South Korea's foreign affairs and trade minister on Friday urged Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi not to visit contentious Yasukuni Shrine again, according to a Japanese official.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Japan may warm 3 degrees by 2100

Japan's average temperature is expected to rise 2 to 3 degrees by 2100, while the average global temperature will rise by about 2.5 degrees, the Meteorological Agency said Friday.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

FSA punishes Meiji Yasuda once again for unpaid claims

The Financial Services Agency on Friday ordered Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. to suspend part of its operations following the insurer's repeated failure to pay legitimate insurance claims.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2005

Koizumi's Cabinet picks shrouded in mystery

to appoint personnel to the three executive posts to the party and the Cabinet on Oct. 31," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda told a news conference later the same day. The special Diet session opened after the Sept. 11 Lower House election and ends Tuesday.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji