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BUSINESS
Dec 5, 2000

Firm says air conditioners pose fire risk

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Monday that some of its air conditioners produced from 1988 to 1996 could malfunction and catch fire.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2000

Old guard may still deliver

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EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 2000

A ticket to ride -- at what price?

As of this week, long-suffering passengers on Japan's crowded local train lines are still awaiting a satisfactory explanation, rather than an excuse, for why they were overcharged if they followed the posted fare tables. In some cases, the overcharging has continued for more than three years. The reasons...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 5, 2000

Lions to let go of Fernande

The Seibu Lions will release infielder Tony Fernandez after having the services of the veteran major leaguer for only one season, Seibu officials said Monday.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 5, 2000

Audio Active beams down the space dub

Masa of Audio Active has gone AWOL. I'm at the new offices of his management company, Beatink, in Shibuya. Tae, who arranged the interview, is refilling my coffee cup and apologizing, telling me that the main man is not answering his keitai and nobody knows where the hell he is.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 5, 2000

Handful of history

COLUMBIA CHRONOLOGIES OF ASIAN HISTORY AND CULTURE, edited by John S. Bowman. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 752 pp., $85. Oh, "if men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 5, 2000

What is the weight of a fractured atom?

ATOMIC FRAGMENTS: A Daughter's Questions, by Mary Palevsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 272 pp., $24.95 (cloth). With the benefit of hindsight and a distant or nonexistent memory of World War II, we pass moral judgment on those who were directly involved with the invention and construction...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2000

Blues for the new millennium

The new CD puts a contemporary spin on classic blues-rock. "It's a ticket to the show." That's how Canadian band leader Robin Suchy describes the newly released CD he produced with his 10-man blues band, the Howling Loochie Brothers.
EDITORIALS
Dec 4, 2000

Prepare for bumps ahead

The U.S. economy is slowing down and that could mean trouble for the rest of the world. The United States has acted as consumer of last resort for many of the world's exporters. As the U.S. economic expansion brakes, those countries will have to find other markets for their goods or risk a slowdown of...
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2000

World's tallest building planned in South Korea

South Korea's Lotte Group is to construct the tallest building in the world -- nearly one-third as tall again as the highest building in Japan, the Landmark Tower in Yokohama -- at a cost of some 1.2 trillion won, over $1 billion.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Red Army kin could return by yearend

Prospects increased that five family members of the former Red Army Faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet in 1970 will return to Japan from North Korea as government sources said Japan plans to allow an agent to apply for visas for them.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Mori poised to turn to familiar old faces in Cabinet reshuffle

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori continued tinkering with the task of matching Cabinet portfolios with names Sunday, but many of his appointments in the reshuffle expected Tuesday are likely to be old hands retained from his present administration, political sources said.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Liberal Party wants SDF role spelled out in Constitution

The opposition Liberal Party has worked out a draft proposal for revising the Constitution to allow Japan's Self-Defense Forces to participate in all types of U.N. peacekeeping activities, party sources said Sunday.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2000

Hosei U. captures Kanto title

YONO, Saitama Pref. -- Yoshimoto Usugi rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns as the Hosei University Tomahawks cruised past the Nippon Sports Science University Golden Bears 65-23 Sunday in the Clash Bowl -- the Kanto Collegiate League final.
SOCCER / J. League
Dec 4, 2000

Reds to name Tita manager

URAWA -- Former Brazilian international and Vasco da Gama manager Tita said Sunday he is ready to take the helm at the Urawa Reds next season and will sign a contract with the J. League Division One bound club on Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Kosovo's meaning for Japan

NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia last year was illegal but legitimate. This was a conclusion at a recent conference on the "Implications of the Kosovo Conflict on International Law," sponsored by the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo. It was illegal because it did not have United...
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Miyake islanders may have long wait

Miyake Island, which was fully evacuated in September due to the volcanic activity of Mount Oyama, may not be safe enough to return to for another three months to a year, a leading expert said Sunday.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Turning a blind eye to Chinese proliferation

NEW DELHI -- It speaks volumes that just when the United States determined that China was engaged in clandestine missile trade with Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Iran, Washington announced that it was waiving a law requiring imposition of economic sanctions in such a situation. The unmistakable message...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 4, 2000

Ants find inheritance tax high

The maximum rate of inheritance tax in Japan is 70 percent, more than many people can afford to pay: If they inherit, they have to sell off land and property to pay the tax.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 4, 2000

Judging history's 'single most violent act'

At a midtown bar, Wolcott Wheeler, whom I call a historian without portfolio, tells me a story about Robert Oppenheimer: how the physicist, meeting President Harry Truman in the Oval Office, said, "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands."
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2000

Global economic factors paint gloomy picture for new year

Since the mid-1990s, the world economy has expanded remarkably, propelled mainly by the introduction of advanced information and communication technologies. In fact, according to the IMF's recent World Economic Outlook, global output grew 3.4 percent in 1999 and is expected to accelerate to 4.7 percent...
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Fight the spread of small arms

The United Nations General Assembly has decided to hold the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Aspects in New York in July 2001. The trade involves a broad range of hand-carried arms from automatic rifles to portable missiles.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2000

Al Hilal beats Shimizu S-Pulse in first leg of Asian Super Cup

SHIMIZU, Shizuoka Pref. -- Shimizu S-Pulse's hopes of joining Jubilo Iwata in the Club World Championship were dealt a severe blow after a 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabian team Al Hilal in the first leg of the Asian Super Cup at Nihondaira Stadium on Sunday.

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