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 Eric Johnston

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Eric Johnston
JAPAN
May 4, 2000
Location of leader's summit hinges on the whim of nature
OSAKA — It's billed as the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit, but if Mother Nature turns capricious, then this year's Group of Eight gathering may be forced to a different venue.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2000
Monju ruling infuriates plaintiffs
OSAKA -- Antinuclear activists expressed shock and outrage Wednesday over the Fukui District Court's ruling against local residents' efforts to permanently close the Monju fast-breeder reactor, and both plaintiffs and their lawyers vowed their nearly 15-year battle was not over.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2000
Breaking down the doors of Japan's discriminatory press clubs
In May 1993, David Butts, then Tokyo bureau chief of Bloomberg Business News, was fed up. After years of unsuccessful efforts to penetrate Japan's press clubs through polite negotiation, the tall Texan chose a more direct approach. On the day annual company reports were released, Butts, with other foreign...
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2000
Telephone club firebombing sparks fear intergang warfare is flaring up
KOBE -- The fatal firebombing of one of Kobe's largest telephone dating clubs has led to fears of a renewed intergang war among rival affiliates of the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2000
Thousands turn out for Flora 2000
AWAJI ISLAND, Hyogo Pref. -- Under a bright sunny sky and with a cool breeze blowing off the bay, the Japan Flora 2000 international flower, gardening and landscape exhibition opened Saturday morning on Awaji Island.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2000
MOX OK with Kepco, scandal or no
...
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2000
IOC wining-dining ban puts Games bid in bind
OSAKA -- Enthusiasm for Osaka's 2008 Olympic bid continues to fade after the International Olympic Committee announced strict conditions on candidate cities.
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2000
Dutch war display given no place to go
Staff writer OSAKA -- One month after an Osaka International Peace Center symposium denying the Nanjing Massacre took place, another controversy over Japan's wartime past is brewing after the center and a Tokyo nursing home rejected an exhibition on the occupation of the Dutch East Indies. The Osaka...
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2000
Berlin panel looks at Japan economy, management
...
COMMUNITY
Feb 19, 2000
Fukuoka heats up with Iberoamerican festival
OSAKA -- Fukuoka is the place to be this weekend for those who love all things Latin, as Ianimate 2000, a celebration of Latin American dance, music and art, takes place on Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000
Business minds look for bright spots at Kansai seminar
Staff writer KYOTO -- The fear of losing out to the U.S. in economic globalization will be among the topics raised at the 38th annual Kansai Economic Seminar, which opens today in Kyoto. Sponsored by the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives, the seminar brings together the region's top business...
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2000
British visit aims to restore public trust in MOX fuel
Staff writer OSAKA -- In an effort to restore trust in Britain's mixed oxide uranium plutonium fuel program, high ranking British officials will visit Japan next week to meet with Ministry of International Trade and Industry officials, executives of Kansai Electric Power Co. and an antinuclear group....
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000
Britain steps up scrutiny of BNFL-Kepco links
Staff writer OSAKA -- The British Parliament is stepping up calls for an investigation into the relationship between a British utilities company and Kansai Electric Power Co. following the company's admission that it falsified nuclear fuel data for Kepco's nuclear power plants in Fukui Prefecture. On...
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2000
Nanking Massacre biggest lie, unverifiable: group
Staff writer OSAKA -- Claims by Chinese and Western historians that hundreds of thousands of people were raped and murdered by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing are undocumented and exaggerated, participants in symposium here Sunday claimed as protesters rallied outside. "There is no proof of large-scale...
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2000
Kobe closes last quake shelter
Staff writer KOBE -- Local government officials marked the fifth anniversary of the Kobe earthquake by announcing that the last temporary shelter has been closed and that it was time to move on and take stock of the lessons learned. But while much of Kobe and the surrounding area has recovered, many...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000
Protesters step up Kobe airport campaign
Staff writer KOBE -- The continuing saga of Kobe airport enters its next phase later this month as citizens opposed to the project begin a campaign to recall the mayor, and foreign firms step up pressure to be included in construction work. For nearly a year following the December 1998 rejection of a...
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2000
Ring funneling cash to China busted
OSAKA -- Police here recently announced that after a yearlong investigation, they have broken up an underground banking operation that funneled an estimated 20 billion yen a year to China through an elaborate network of falsified accounts in Tokyo and Osaka.
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2000
Police bust Chinese money-laundering ring
Staff writer OSAKA -- Police here recently announced that after a yearlong investigation, they have broken up an underground banking operation that funneled an estimated 20 billion yen a year to China through an elaborate network of falsified accounts in Tokyo and Osaka. Since early 1999, 10 Chinese...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2000
'Super Osaka' bureaucracy floated
OSAKA -- Should the municipal boundaries of Osaka Prefecture be redrawn so that the city of Osaka is a ward of the prefecture? Or should the prefecture be scrapped entirely, leaving a "Super City Osaka"?
JAPAN
Dec 17, 1999
Kepco may cut off MOX supplier
Staff writer OSAKA -- Kansai Electric Power Co. said Friday that it may end its relationship with the British company that manufactures mixed plutonium-uranium fuel (MOX) following revelations the firm falsified data for a batch of it due to have been burned early next year in Kepco's No. 4 reactor in...

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