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CULTURE / Music
Sep 30, 2000

Koto player has tales to tell

Elizabeth Falconer, a former Japan Times hogaku columnist, lives in Seattle now, but in the many years she spent in Japan she steeped herself in Japanese culture, including winning a koto teacher's certificate from the late Tadao Sawai, one of the greatest koto masters of the 20th century. Since her...
BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2000

NTV and others consider tying up in digital satellites

Nippon Television Network Corp. and three other concerns are considering jointly entering communications satellite digital broadcasting services due to start next year, company officials said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

U.S. should drain strategic oil reserves dry

With gasoline and home heating-oil prices continuing to shoot skyward, U.S. President Bill Clinton decided late last week to flood the market with federally stockpiled oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR holds 582 million barrels of unrefined crude oil, a stock large enough to replace 37...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 30, 2000

Historic statue gets rare display

Kiyomizu Temple, one of Kyoto's top tourist attractions, is dedicated to Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Infinite Mercy. This year the temple is holding gokaicho, a special showing of the temple's honzon (main Buddhist image) through Dec. 3.
COMMENTARY
Sep 30, 2000

Russian contempt for Japan nothing new

I have never been able to feel any sense of affinity with the political leaders of Russia, let alone those of the former Soviet Union. The reason why may be illustrated by the following incident, which occurred when Nikita Khrushchev was the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party and head of...
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2000

Jobless rate eased to 4.6% in August

Japan's unemployment rate eased to 4.6 percent in August, down 0.1 percentage point from July, marking its first monthly downturn in three months, the Management and Coordination Agency said Friday.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 30, 2000

Korean folk traditions come alive on porcelain

Folk art motifs on the painted plates of Kim So Sun In our contemporary world, where art is commissioned for anything from airplanes to automobiles, the transposition of 17th-century Korean folk art to modern porcelain dishes should not prove too surprising. In a wonderful burst of innovation, artistKim...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

Time to reassess the nuclear-energy option

Safety and cost competitiveness: These two factors are clearly incompatible when it comes to nuclear energy. Yet these were some of the key words used by the government and the nuclear industry to promote nuclear energy.
OLYMPICS
Sep 30, 2000

Okamoto boots her way to bronze

SYDNEY -- Martial arts superstar Jackie Chan had best take cover if he ever runs into Sydney Olympic taekwondo bronze-medalist Yoriko Okamoto.
CULTURE / Stage
Sep 30, 2000

Puppetry for the people

In Western countries puppetry is a form of entertainment aimed at children. From Punch and Judy to the Muppets, Western puppet theater has been small scale, emphasizing broad, slapstick humor and simple, if any, plots.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

Vietnam proves a reluctant reformer

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Foreign investors have not been showing any confidence in Vietnam's Doi Moi (liberalization) program recently. Socialist market economics, Vietnamese-style, have not proved as attractive as the Chinese version. After the initial euphoria of the early 1990s, when foreign companies...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

A final act for Milosevic?

LONDON -- "We are talking about political fraud and blatant stealing of votes," said Yugoslav opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica Sept. 26, after it was announced that he had not defeated Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic in the first round of the presidential election on Sunday. "The victory is...
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

UNSC must change before Japan, Germany join

OSAKA -- The U.N. Security Council is not adequately dealing with global problems, according to former German President Richard von Weizsaecker, and the entry of Japan and Germany into the body as permanent members should only take place after major U.N. reforms.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Honda's updated fuel cell-powered vehicle unveiled

Honda Motor Co. on Thursday unveiled a new fuel cell-powered vehicle that has a quicker startup time, more sophisticated control systems and a smaller drive motor -- improvements that take the high-tech car one step closer to commercial viability.
EDITORIALS
Sep 29, 2000

Mr. Mori's missing road map

Six months after he took office, what is Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori aiming to achieve? Equally important, what does the opposition have to say about his policy -- or the lack thereof? These questions went largely unanswered during the Lower House debates that took place this week. The exchanges proved...
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Matsushita to join Toray in plasma display panels

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toray Industries Inc. announced Thursday that the two companies have agreed to set up a joint venture next month by integrating their plasma display panel businesses.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

Government takes steps to stop the drop in rice prices

The government adopted a package of measures Thursday that are designed to put a halt to declining prices of rice.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

Sogo urged to seek redress from execs for bad loans

OSAKA -- A citizens' group representing individual investors on Thursday called on Sogo Co. to seek damages from its former executives to recover losses stemming from irrecoverable loans to fur dealers, the group said.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

Nakajima's sentence cut by six months

The Tokyo High Court on Thursday cut six months off former Lower House member Yojiro Nakajima's 21/2-year prison sentence but upheld the 10 million yen fine imposed by the lower court following his conviction for bribe-taking, vote-buying and other charges.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2000

LDP's bill for foreigners' suffrage opposed within party

The Liberal Democratic Party began full-fledged debate Thursday on a bill to grant local-level suffrage to foreign residents of Japan, but some 80 percent of the lawmakers involved in the debate oppose the legislation.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Sanwa set to control ailing Senshu Bank

OSAKA -- Senshu Bank, an ailing regional bank based in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, said Thursday that it will become a subsidiary of Sanwa Bank, a major commercial bank.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Stability, surge may be in store for stocks

The Tokyo stock market has remained in a corrective phase through much of this month, sending the key Nikkei average slumping to its year-to-date low.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

Swissotel plans to up Asian presence

Swiss-based hotel group Swissotel Hotels & Resorts will reinforce its operations to cultivate the growing Asian market, an executive of the group said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2000

RCC's debt forgiveness reaches 60.5 billion yen

The government's Resolution and Collection Corp. has forgiven 60.5 billion yen in corporate and individual debt since it was launched in April last year, RCC President Akio Kioi said Thursday.

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