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SOCCER / J. League
Dec 20, 2000

Yokohama promoted

JFL champion Yokohama FC, formed by former Yokohama Flugels supporters two years ago, won official approval from the J. League on Tuesday for promotion to the J. League Division Two from the non-professional league.
EDITORIALS
Dec 19, 2000

Structural reform is still key

The Japanese economy seems to have hardly improved in the past three months and appears likely to slightly worsen in the next three. This dim picture is painted by the Bank of Japan's latest "tankan" survey, which sums up how business managers view their companies' performances. The economic perception...
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Female students faring poorly in job search

A record-low 52.2 percent of female high school students hoping to work after graduation in March had found a job as of the end of October, according to the results of an Education Ministry survey released Monday.
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

Pace of economic recovery slowing: BOJ

The Bank of Japan on Monday downgraded its assessment of Japan's economic performance and noted that the recovery is slowing down.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

TMD study worries Russian official

Russia is alarmed at the possible threat posed by the joint research between Japan and the United States on a theater missile defense system, Dmitry Rogozin, chairman of the Russian legislature's foreign affairs committee, said Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Global forest guardian gives up deforestation goal

The International Tropical Timber Organization has failed to meet its primary goal of having all tropical timber products traded internationally by its member states originate from sustainably managed forests by 2000, sources said Monday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 19, 2000

CL, PL name new presidents

Former Construction Ministry vice minister Hajime Toyokura was named the new president of the Central League on Monday to replace Sumiko Takahara, who decided earlier this month to resign because of an ongoing battle with cancer.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

2.5 trillion yen budgeted for outlying shinkansen

The government and the three ruling parties agreed Monday to begin construction of new sections of shinkansen tracks in the Hokuriku and Kyushu regions at a cost of 2.5 trillion yen to the central and local governments over roughly 12 years.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Cultured skin next high-tech goal

First in a three series Kyodo News Professor Hisashi Aoyama is certain of the future of cultured skin.
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

Economic panel to be disbanded lists failures

A soon-to-be-disbanded top government advisory panel issued a report Monday reflecting on its failure to quickly deal with major economic changes such as the information technology boom and the collapse of the asset-price bubble that depressed the economy through the 1990s.
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

Rising path seen ahead for growth stocks

The Tokyo stock market appears to have hit a recent bottom on Nov. 22 when the key 225-issue Nikkei average dropped to 14,301.31, its lowest closing reading since March 4, 1999.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Switch China's ODA terms to project basis, panel urges

Japan should start providing its official development assistance to China on a project basis and terminate its habit of multiyear disbursement programs, a report released Monday by a Foreign Ministry advisory panel says.
SOCCER / J. League
Dec 19, 2000

Okubo eyes Cerezo Osaka

Japan youth forward Yoshito Okubo looks set to join Cerezo Osaka after choosing the club ahead of a number of J. League sides chasing the schoolboy's signature, sources close to the first division team said Sunday.
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

18 of 41 applicants OK'd for CS digital broadcast licenses

An advisory panel to the posts and telecommunications minister on Monday selected 18 out of 41 companies and organizations that applied for licenses to begin next-generation interactive digital broadcasting services via so-called communications satellites.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

Shibuya attack meant to embarrass violent dad: boy

A 17-year-old high school boy arrested Saturday in the baseball bat bludgeoning of pedestrians in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward has told investigators that he carried out the attack because he had been beaten by his father and had wanted to embarrass him by attacking others, police said Monday.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2000

Making mush of Meadowlark

SHOPPING: A Novel, by Gavin Kramer. Soho Press, 2000, 216 pp., $22 (cloth). It's easy for a foreigner to feel like a freak in Japan -- tall, different, culturally unaware, linguistically tongue-tied. This wickedly clever novel of manners turns its lens on the foreign protagonist as spectacle, British...
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

Daiei names more stores for closure

Ailing supermarket chain operator Daiei Inc. said Monday it will shut down its stores in Chiba Prefecture's Narita and Kisarazu and four other outlets by the end of February as part of a rehabilitation program that will shutter a total of 32 shops.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 19, 2000

Rumbling with the jungle girls on tour in the U.K.

I'm a failed rock star and that's probably why I ended up writing about music.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2000

Eco-terrorism threatens Galapagos natural treasures, eco-tourism

The Galapagos Islands, the world's second-largest marine reserve, are under attack from fishermen spurred by Asian markets for marine products. The Ecuadorean government has done nothing to halt the eco-terrorism in what only recently was a paradise for eco-tourism.
JAPAN
Dec 19, 2000

120 nations sign treaty targeting top toxic threats

In a recent set of marathon talks that went down to -- and past -- the wire, delegates from more than 120 countries hashed out the first international treaty designed to eliminate some of the world's most toxic chemicals.

Longform

Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep