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COMMENTARY
May 29, 2003

Help Kuwait bring its POWs back home

UM QASR, Iraq -- The men line up, dirty but happy. They carry a variety of boxes, cheap suitcases and plastic bags. Some have wrapped towels around their heads like traditional Arab headdresses; one incongruously sports a straw hat.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 29, 2003

Tigers keep BayStars winless at Koshien

Tomoaki Kanemoto connected for a two-run homer with two out in the bottom of the second inning Wednesday as the Central League-leading Hanshin Tigers downed the Yokohama BayStars 10-9 at Koshien Stadium.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
May 29, 2003

Bush tax package passes but will it buoy the economy?

WASHINGTON -- You cannot say he did not work for it. U.S. President George W. Bush saw his beloved tax package pass Congress last Friday, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the deciding vote in the Senate. The president had been working coast to coast the last few weeks to drum up support for his...
EDITORIALS
May 29, 2003

Heroes with asterisks

The world's attention was briefly diverted from Iraq, SARS, the economy and other rolling crises this past month by the deeds, both old and new, of three men obsessed with icy worlds that most of us will never see.
MORE SPORTS
May 29, 2003

Ailing Taniguchi to miss Memorial golf tourney

Toru Taniguchi, last season's top golfer on the Japanese men's circuit, has pulled out of this week's Memorial Tournament on the U.S. PGA tour due to illness, his management company said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Defect found in FOMA cell phones

NTT DoCoMo Inc. will repair free of charge two of its FOMA mobile phone models on demand due to a software defect, company officials said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Aozora sheds bad loans, ups profit

Aozora Bank said Wednesday it posted a group net profit of 23.4 billion yen in fiscal 2002, up 25 percent from the previous year, by shedding many bad loans from its portfolio and increasing its loans to good borrowers.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 29, 2003

Don't count out Nets in matchup against Spurs

SAN ANTONIO -- So, here we are, just one more run-of-the-mill Texas execution away from the first All ABA-NBA Finals. Somewhere, Dave DeBusschere, George Mikan and the rest of the red, white and blue revue are beaming.
COMMENTARY
May 29, 2003

Change hasn't halted decline

LONDON -- I was invited recently to Japan to speak to two Japanese audiences about the Japanese economy as seen from London and what should be done to ensure Japanese economic recovery. I prepared a speech that was pessimistic. This was inevitable as British reporting on the Japanese economy is full...
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Domestic vehicle production falls again

Domestic production of cars, trucks and buses fell 0.4 percent in April from the same month last year to 774,261 units, down for the second straight month, due to sluggish domestic car sales, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Toei studio group profit up 87.7%

Major film studio Toei Co. on Wednesday reported an 87.7 percent jump in its group net profit for the year to March 31, due largely to improved profitability in its mainstay movie business.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Sony unveils massive restructuring plans

Sony Corp. said Wednesday it will place more emphasis on flat TVs and DVD recorders and spend 300 billion yen on a massive restructuring drive over the next three years.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 29, 2003

Confessions of a Tokyo shojo

You can take the girl out of Tokyo but you can't take Tokyo out of the girl . . .
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 29, 2003

Best to remember this

A couple of years ago the British artist Damien Hirst explained why he now lays off alcohol: "Blackouts. I used never to get blackouts. . . . I was walking around in the morning, and they'd be going, 'You did this.' Did I? I couldn't even remember the violence."
LIFE / Digital / NETWISE
May 29, 2003

IP telephony: Let your modem do the talking

Like me, you may have noticed a recent noisy addition to Tokyo's otherwise drab urban landscape. Clad in garish red or brilliant white, teams of Yahoo BB "parasol troopers" have suddenly landed everywhere, and trying to locate a station exit or street corner free of their hawking antics is like trying...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 29, 2003

Targeting nature on a Texas shootout

Texas summons up images of cowboys and longhorn cattle, Western boots and horses, Stetsons, vast ranches, oil and gas -- and that Texan drawl.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 29, 2003

Bitfone offers remote program to fix software

Bitfone Corp. of the United States is negotiating with several major Japanese phone makers to sell them its wireless software-repair program, Bitfone Chairman Gene Wang said in a recent interview with Kyodo News.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
May 29, 2003

"Power and Stone," "Rome"

"Power and Stone," Alice Leader, Puffin Books; May 2003; 249 pp. There's so much more to history than memorizing dates.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 28, 2003

Tigers edge BayStars

Osamu Hamanaka nailed a go-ahead RBI single in the bottom of the seventh inning to lift the Hanshin Tigers over the Yokohama BayStars 4-3 at Koshien Stadium on Tuesday night.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 28, 2003

Giants' Latham finds it rough adjusting to Japanese baseball

Chris Latham's entrance to Japan and the world of Japanese pro baseball was supposed to go smoothly.
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2003

Once a dove, Roh has now grown talons

CAMBRIDGE, England -- The recent summit meeting in Washington between President George W. Bush and President Roh Moo Hyun of South Korea has been hailed as a success. Not by me. The word success is being used by "experts," American experts that is, to describe a process of driving a wedge between North...
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

BOJ net income suffers sharp drop

The Bank of Japan said Tuesday it posted a net income of 594.4 billion yen in fiscal 2002, down 869.1 billion yen from the previous year.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

No retirement bonus for Seibu execs

Seibu Department Stores Ltd., set to integrate operations with the Sogo retail group next month, will not pay retirement bonuses to Chairman Kotaro Matsumoto and seven other departing top executives, company officials said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Takenaka salutes bad-loan disposal efforts

Financial Services Minister Heizo Takenaka on Tuesday hailed efforts by major banks to dispose of bad loans in the year that ended March 31.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Net overseas assets off slightly on stronger yen

The outstanding balance of Japan's net overseas assets stood at 175.31 trillion yen at the end of last year, down 2.2 percent from a record high marked a year earlier and the first drop in three years, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2003

Why not a parliamentary faction?

The Democratic Party of Japan and the Liberal Party see each other as partners in a future government. Yet their on-and-off merger talks, which began half a year ago, seem to have produced no meaningful progress. Prospects for their unification receded further into the background Monday when Liberal...
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Shiokawa aiming to keep tight rein on 2004 budget

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa voiced hope Tuesday that the fiscal 2004 budget won't be bigger than that of the current fiscal year.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Coalition task force approves bill to bolster stock-purchasing body

A coalition task force scrutinizing financial policies on Tuesday approved a legal amendment aimed at reinforcing the functions of a stock-purchasing body, lawmakers said.
BUSINESS
May 28, 2003

Citizen Watch recovers to post profit

Citizen Watch Co. reported Tuesday a group net profit of 5.82 billion yen for the year that ended March 31, a turnaround from a loss of 12.61 billion yen the previous year.

Longform

The volunteer lifesavers of Nishihama Surf Lifesaving Club never know what's in store at the start of their day.
It's no simple day at the beach for Japan's volunteer lifesavers