search

 
 
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Ruling parties eye bill to curb bribes

The ruling coalition has drafted a bill designed to stiffen political penalties against lawmakers who abuse their government connections to receive bribes.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Kumagai seeks waiver of 450 billion yen in debts

The debt-ridden construction company Kumagai Gumi Co. will ask its five major creditors, including Sumitomo Bank and Shinsei Bank, to forgive debts totaling 450 billion yen as part of the firm's rehabilitation plan, company sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

GPS satellites enlisted to help predict earthquakes, eruptions

In their quest to accurately predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, Japanese scientists have discovered that the satellite-based system that helps motorists navigate is an invaluable -- though as yet imperfect -- aid.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Summer heat helps boost consumer spending 0.4%

Hotter-than-usual weather this summer is estimated to have pushed up overall consumer spending by a real 0.3 to 0.4 percent from June to August, a private think tank said Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Auto sales up 4.1% in August

Domestic sales of cars, trucks and buses -- but excluding minivehicles with engine displacements smaller than 660cc -- rose 4.1 percent year-on-year in August to 243,088 units, the first increase in two months, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Friday.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Investment execs held for bilking elderly

OSAKA -- Police arrested the president of an investment-advice company and five of its employees Friday on suspicion of swindling 323 mainly elderly people out of 1.3 billion yen in cash and stocks.
EDITORIALS
Sep 2, 2000

A fragile outpost in space

There are three kinds of people in the world: those who are intrigued by and optimistic about the International Space Station; those who are outraged by and skeptical of it; and those who look blank and say, "What International Space Station?"
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Mori, Putin unlikely to solve island row

Russian President Vladimir Putin will sit down with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday, and while the two will try to settle a territorial dispute over a group of tiny islands north of Hokkaido, they are expected to end up in a decades-old deadlock.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Mori's house has odd occupants

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is less than happy about the state of his official residence, saying the many mice that scurry through the dwelling are not the aging residence's only unwanted visitors -- "Some say there are ghosts as well," he said.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Daimler to dispatch MMC's next chief

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will ask DaimlerChrysler AG to dispatch a top manager to replace its president, Katsuhiko Kawasoe, who is resigning over a scandal involving coverups of customer complaints over defective vehicles, industry sources said Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

Ripplewood, consulting firm join in e-commerce

U.S. investors Ripplewood Holdings LLC will set up an e-commerce joint venture in industrial materials with Andersen Consulting, Ripplewood officials said Friday.
BUSINESS
Sep 2, 2000

State finalizes sale of NCB to Softbank

The government said Friday it completed the sale of the nationalized Nippon Credit Bank to a consortium led by Internet investor Softbank Corp., ending 21 months of state control of the bank.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Absence of U.S. from U.N. confab said unfortunate

Environment Agency head Yoriko Kawaguchi on Friday called the absence of the United States at a United Nations' environment ministerial meeting in Kitakyushu unfortunate and urged both countries to address the whaling issue causing the rift rationally.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

Emperor Showa took 'active' role in war, author says

The late Emperor Showa was anything but the military-manipulated pacifist he has been portrayed as in the United States since the end of World War II.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Sep 2, 2000

Historic Sogakudo still a home for music

At the edge of Ueno Park sits an elegant Victorian-style building. Designed by the pioneer Japanese architect Hanroku Yamaguchi, who studied at the Ecole Politechnique in Paris, the Sogakudo was constructed in 1890 as the first hall for the performance of Western music in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2000

Myanmar's accidental tourist

The town of Dala is "a small but scenic and charming town which is a 10-minute boat ride down the Rangoon River from Yangon," reports the military junta that runs Myanmar. Maybe, but it is unlikely that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and opposition leader, is enjoying her stay in Dala....
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2000

Reward up in search for U.K. woman

A mystery British benefactor has added 100,000 British pounds (16.5 million yen) to the reward money put forward for information leading to the return of missing hostess Lucie Blackman.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2000

Group explores cross-cultural links

This summer, the usual revelers in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward encountered a group of apparently out-of-place people who were on a mission to explore the nocturnal life of this multicultural town.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Hayami defends interest rate

OSAKA -- Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Thursday that the BOJ's decision Aug. 11 to abandon its "zero-interest-rate" policy was made after fully taking into account local economic conditions across the country.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Structural reform plan due by yearend: Mori

The government will draw up a concrete action plan on economic structural reform by the end of the year to steer the nation toward the new challenges presented by information technology, a graying society and the environment, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori indicated Thursday.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2000

Tokyo disaster drill features SDF in big way

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's annual major disaster-relief drill Sunday will feature the participation of Self-Defense Forces troops on an unprecedented scale -- 7,100 service members, 1,090 vehicles, 80 aircraft and five ships -- at 10 venues throughout the capital.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Banks have written off 60% of bad loans since March: BOJ

The Bank of Japan said Thursday that Japanese commercial banks have written off about 60 percent of the bad loans that were on their books at the end of March this year. The central bank said in a nationwide survey that they have removed a combined 42 trillion yen worth of nonperforming loans from their...
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Tokyo stocks should keep on trucking up

The uptrend in Tokyo share prices appears likely to gather momentum in the coming weeks amid growing opti- mism about economic prospects.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2000

Evacuees put on happy face

The children carried clean clothes, some snacks, textbooks and video games -- all hastily packed under the shadow of an 8,000-meter pillar of smoke rising above Mount Oyama on Miyake Island.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

NTT firms announce rate cut

Two regional call firms under Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. said Thursday that they will reduce charges for calls within prefectures by an average 40 percent starting Oct. 1, when the government will introduce a new price cap system.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Reborn NCB to reach for the skies as Aozora Bank

The new buyers of Nippon Credit Bank plan to rename the lender Aozora Bank, sources close to the consortium said Thursday.
JAPAN
Sep 1, 2000

Mission to retrieve weapons in China

Japan will send a mission to China in mid-September to excavate and retrieve chemical weapons the Imperial Japanese Army abandoned during the war, according to the government's Abandoned Chemical Weapons Office.
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2000

A shameful concession

The Millennium World Peace Summit convenes this week at the United Nations. More than 1,000 religious leaders representing over 75 faiths from around the world are attending, but there is one conspicuous absentee: the Dalai Lama. The interfaith coalition that organized the conference admitted that he...

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