search

 
 
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

Obuchi defends aide accused of swindling stock

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi rejected allegations Thursday that his close aide swindled a man, now deceased, out of shares currently worth about 2.3 billion yen. "I understand that he did nothing wrong," Obuchi said during an Upper House plenary session , adding that he himself was not involved in the...
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 2000

Austria calls Europe's bluff

The formation of a coalition government in Austria that includes the rightwing Freedom Party headed by Mr. Joerg Haider is a potential nightmare for Europe. The prospect of an extremist party joining the Cabinet in Vienna has forced other members of the European Union to examine their own past. It has...
COMMUNITY
Feb 9, 2000

Down by the waterside in Mizumoto Park

Even in Tokyo there is such a place: a park with large open spaces, where a whole family can enjoy picnics, barbecues, camping, flowers and beautiful trees, catch fish and watch birds. Look no further than Mizumoto Park.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Tomita murder case opened at Shoko Asahara's trial

The trial of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara on Wednesday turned to the killing of follower Toshio Tomita, bringing the number of cases the court has dealt with to 10, out of the 17 for which Asahara stands accused. At the day's session before the Tokyo District Court, former follower Shigeo Sugimoto...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 9, 2000

Fresh and fragrant -- Kyushu's new spring sake

Kyushu may not be as famous for its sake as for shochu, but historical findings tell us it's probably been drunk here since the rule of Himiko -- around A.D. 300. While northern Japan is more famous for sake, Kyushu brewers too produce some fine labels, meeting changes in consumer tastes. Kyushu's sake...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Nuclear guideline draft defines what emergency is

A subcommittee of the Nuclear Safety Commission drew up guidelines Wednesday that include a requirement for operators of nuclear facilities to promptly inform local governments if monitors show gamma ray levels of 5 microsieverts per hour. Under the guidelines, the government would set up a task force...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 9, 2000

Making a start

Some time ago I wrote of the passing of Tokyo Theater for Children, an organization with a long history of exciting, well-staged performances for adults as well as children. My report, fortunately, was premature. It needed new people to take over, and they came, drawn by the enthusiasm of Jude Kaye who...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 9, 2000

New Zealand lunkers rise to flies

Few places in the world rival the South Island of New Zealand either for superb fly fishing or for stunning scenery, and the Ahuriri River in the Canterbury District is the sort of place every fly-fisherman who hasn't been wants to go to, and where those who have been long to return.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 9, 2000

Enemy of the corporate state

A few months ago while shopping for an iMac DV, I faced a dilemma. It wasn't the matter of sticking with Apple, but about whether I should buy it locally. Aside from issues of availability, price and OS language, there was the DVD bugaboo.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Kyoto business seminar kicks off with eye on reform

KYOTO -- The two-day Kansai Business Seminar opened here Wednesday with organizers calling on business leaders to reform Japan's business practices and to revitalize the Kansai economy in the face of global competition. Before about 380 business leaders, government officials and university professors,...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Sumo: the final gender frontier?

Staff writer With the nation's first female governor taking office in Osaka, an old question is re-emerging: Are women to remain banned from stepping into the sacred sumo ring? Fusae Ota, who won the Osaka gubernatorial election Sunday, is taking aim at that glass ceiling with her eagerness to personally...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 9, 2000

English food -- beyond shepherd's pie

People did some funny things during the bubble economy. An insurance firm paid $80 million for an incredibly ugly painting by van Gogh; other companies paid equally stupid sums for New York's Rockefeller Center and California's Pebble Beach golf course; Louis Vuitton's vastly overpriced handbags became...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Two Iranian families get special permission to stay

Justice Minister Hideo Usui granted special residence permission Wednesday to two Iranian families totaling nine members, who are part of a 21-member group of foreigners who overstayed their visas and appealed for residency in September. Wednesday's decision followed the first occasion on which the minister...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

NTT slowly rolling out ISDN offer

NTT group carriers will halve the fixed-rate Internet access for its ISDN users to around 4,000 yen a month in May, Junichiro Miyazu, president of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., said Wednesday. The proposal to lower the fixed-rate for Internet access is aimed at attracting Internet users because...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 9, 2000

No call for optimism on N. Korean move

Is North Korea really ready to take the plunge toward better relations with the United States and Japan, or is it a case of deja vu all over again, to quote the immortal New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra? Is the Berlin breakthrough agreeing "in principle" to a high-level North Korean visit to Washington...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 9, 2000

Getting away from the skiers in Kyushu and Kyoto winter

When snow falls and the chill winds blow, skiers are happy but others are inclined to stay home. To lure people away from their warm hearths, the tourism industry offers special winter prices and attractions. This is an excellent time to explore areas of Japan that are on your travel list.
JAPAN
Feb 9, 2000

Opposition returns, bashes Obuchi's pork-barrel politics

Opposition lawmakers ended an 11-day Diet boycott Wednesday and bashed Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi for causing parliamentary confusion and compiling an expanded, bond-dependent 85 trillion yen budget for fiscal 2000. During the day's Lower House plenary session, Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2000

Osaka sends a message to the coalition

Mrs. Fusae Ota, a former official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, won in Sunday's gubernatorial election of Osaka Prefecture, riding on the strength of the joint support of major political parties. The media have highlighted the fact that she is the nation's first female prefectural...
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2000

Tech rally not enough to hit 30,000 target

Market players were elated to see the benchmark Nikkei average climb past the 20,000 level briefly Friday, a formidable rising resistance line since 1992.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Banks quick to slam Ishihara tax proposal

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's surprise proposal to impose a 3 percent tax on gross profits of large banks in the metropolis drew a flurry of protest from the nation's financial institutions Tuesday. "The plan is at odds with national policy," Michio Ochi, chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission,...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Boeing 737 nearly collides with fighter jet

An Air Nippon jetliner and an unidentified fighter jet passed within close proximity of each other Friday over the sea around 65 km northwest of Naha, Okinawa Prefecture, the Transport Ministry said Tuesday. At the point where the two craft were closest, there was only a 60-meter altitude difference...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Bulletin Board

Youth scholarships aimed at fostering worldly mind-set> The Japan National Committee for United World Colleges, a nongovernmental corporate body, is offering high school students scholarships to study at its institutions around the world to encourage young people to acquire an international way of thinking....
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2000

Life during wartime through a child's clear eyes

A BOY CALLED H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, by Kappa Senoh, translated by John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1999, 528 pp., 3,200 yen (cloth). In Roddy Doyle's "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha," and again in Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes," we are told of life in poverty-ridden back streets of Ireland's cities...
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...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 8, 2000

Music of An-Chang Project best-kept secret of Okiniwa

The new album by Jun Yasuba's A-Chang Project, "Harara Rude," should be heralded as a major new album of Okinawan music. However, Yasuba is at present unknown to even Okinawan music aficionados. It took her two years to sell 500 of the first An-Chang Project albums, "Yarayo-Uta no Sahanji," and at present,...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 8, 2000

Indonesia tempted by authoritarianism

Does the recent crisis in Indonesia indicate that democratizing a nation too rapidly will lead to disorder? The crux of the issue involves the effectiveness and limitations of authoritarian and military control that guarantee stability.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Diet boycott resolved

After 11 days of turmoil under an opposition boycott, the Diet is ready to return to normal today after the ruling triumvirate and the Democratic Party of Japan on Tuesday agreed on an arbitrated proposal from the Lower House speaker. Executives of the six main parties met with Speaker Soichiro Ito in...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2000

The cat in the hat goes to war like that

DR. SEUSS GOES TO WAR: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel, by Richard Minear, introduction by Art Spiegelman. The New Press, 1999, 272 pp. To most Americans who grew up with Dr. Seuss' oddly, endearingly drawn critters and facile rhymes ("And then he ran out. / And, then, fast...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Myanmar citizens see dual taxation as incentive to overstay

Staff writer The Feb. 18 revision of the Immigration Control Law has prompted many undocumented foreigners to return home, but some Myanmar citizens are unable even to go through deportation procedures because they find it hard to pay overdue taxes to their government. The Myanmar citizens said they...
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2000

Foreigner sues bank over loan rejection

An American journalist filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Asahi Bank after it refused his application for a housing loan because he does not have permanent residence status. The suit, filed with the Tokyo District Court, seeks 11 million yen in damages for the mental anguish inflicted by the bank's refusal. According...

Longform

Dul Saroth (left) and Soeum Samrach, deminers with the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority, practice using the Advanced Landmine Imaging System in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in August.
The Japanese tech that could one day make Southeast Asia landmine-free