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BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Bills passed for spinoff firms, upholding of labor accords

The Diet on Wednesday enacted revisions to the Commercial Code aimed at facilitating corporate spinoffs as well as a law to protect workers and detailing the succession of labor contracts at the time of a spinoff.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 25, 2000

You say Fusaichi, I say Fusaichi

Whenever a Japanese name enters the sporting world's lexicon, all sorts of problems arise. Take the Nagano Olympics for example. Is it pronounced NA-ga-no or Na-GA-no? The foreign media wrestled with this question for two straight weeks during the winter of 1998. The confusion trickled down to the masses...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Hazama to seek debt forgiveness

Midsize general contractor Hazama Corp. plans to ask its major creditor banks to forgive some 110 billion yen in loans, industry sources said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

April trade surplus climbs 10.3% on year

The nation's trade surplus rose 10.3 percent in April from a year earlier to 1.14 trillion yen as exports outpaced imports, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

Just 29.6% back Mori's Cabinet

A mere 29.6 percent of voters support Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's Cabinet, according to a Kyodo News public opinion poll released Wednesday, the second worst initial support rate for a Cabinet since 1974.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

NTT DoCoMo logs 19.3% sales increase

Boosted by the soaring number of mobile phone users, cellular operator NTT DoCoMo Inc. announced Wednesday that it posted consolidated sales of 3.72 trillion yen for fiscal 1999, which ended in March, up 19.3 percent from the previous year.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Firms to offer cell-phone shopping

Fujitsu Ltd., DDI Corp. and Citigroup of the United States jointly announced Wednesday in Tokyo that they have developed what they claim is the world's first shopping settlement system for smart cellular phones.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

Top court asked to rule on Nepalese's plight

Lawyers have lodged an appeal with the Supreme Court against a high court judge's decision to detain a Nepalese man who was cleared of murder and robbery charges by a lower court.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Nikkei tests under 16,000 as techs slide

The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark 225-issue Nikkei average briefly slipped below 16,000 for the first time in almost a year on Wednesday morning.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Suzuki '99 sales set record but group pretax profits fall

Suzuki Motor Corp. scored record sales on a consolidated basis for fiscal 1999, but its group pretax profits fell due the strengthening of the yen, company executives announced Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

U.S. urges Japan to get tough on bribes abroad

The United States is ratcheting up pressure on Japan to toughen its penalties for bribing foreign government officials, in an apparent bid to ensure a level playing-field for American companies in the global marketplace.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

No end in sight for treadmill of bad loans

It has been the same story for years. When banks release their earnings reports in May, bank officials say they have written off their bad loans "pre-emptively." Since they have written off huge portions of their problem loans, their future costs for bad-loan disposal will be marginal, they say.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 25, 2000

Drags' streak ends at 10

Jason Hardtke nailed a "sayonara" RBI single in the bottom of the 14th inning as the Hanshin Tigers blanked Chunichi 1-0 at Koshien Stadium on Tuesday, snapping the Dragons' winning streak at 10.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

Children's diet suffers as more eat alone

More than half of Japan's schoolchildren have breakfast alone or without the presence of adults, and only about a third eat supper with their whole family.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Any recovery of the euro will be limited

There are two main reasons for the current weakness of the euro. One is the interest rate differential between the dollar and the euro, a gap that was temporarily contracting but is now widening again based on the extraordinary strength of the U.S. economy.
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Three shipbuilding firms in talks on 350 billion yen alliance

is planning comprehensive talks with Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. and Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co. on a major shipbuilding tieup, industry sources said Wednesday. The alliance, which would have some 350 billion yen in combined sales, would be Japan's largest shipbuilding union, outperforming...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

Bank deposit, insurance policy safety nets enacted

The Diet passed a bill Wednesday to create a new mechanism to safeguard deposits in the event of bank failures after the current blanket deposit protection system is lifted in April 2002.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

Locals face eviction from dump site

A garbage-disposal association filed a request with Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara on Wednesday calling for the city to order residents of Hinodemachi, western Tokyo, to vacate land allocated to expand a garbage dump.
JAPAN
May 25, 2000

NPA official held for allegedly buying drugs on Net

OSAKA -- Health and Welfare Ministry narcotics agents have arrested a technical official with the National Police Agency on suspicion of buying amphetamines via the Internet, an Osaka office of the ministry said Wednesday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
May 25, 2000

Winding down the vine along Austria's Danube

Can't you just see yourself, on a ship cruising the Danube from one charming Austrian wine town to another, sipping their world-class wines while wondering how you ever got so lucky? This is a possible dream, the more so because the Danube and many wine towns it connects -- Krems, Spitz, etc. -- are...
BUSINESS
May 25, 2000

ISP subscribers soar 44.6% in '99

The number of subscribers to Internet service providers in Japan soared 44.6 percent from a year earlier to 16.88 million as of March 31, a private research institute said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2000

Japan's national security policy ignores public sentiment

The impression that one gets when looking at the evolution of Japan's security policy in recent years is that the Japanese public has consented to steps taken by Tokyo. After all, that is the fundamental expectation that democracies nurture. Following this reasoning, Tokyo should be developing a security...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
May 25, 2000

Strong traditions flow through Iwate sake

Talk about a late bloomer. From its location in the northeastern corner of Honshu, Iwate Prefecture exerts a tremendous influence on the sake world. Yet, sake was not even produced there on any real scale until well after 1678, long after Nada, Itami and Kyoto were well into their sake-brewing heyday....
CULTURE / Art
May 25, 2000

Draw the bow, ride and speak the truth

You could argue that in this age, we look to movies to preserve our traditions. But it begs the chicken and egg question: Where does the filmmaker go to authenticate the details?
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 25, 2000

On a culinary cruise in Akasaka

We have numerous restaurants which bear the name of their chefs, owners or svengalis. But Denis Allemand is perhaps the first to proudly boast the name of the man responsible for its interior design -- whose main work in Japan up to now has been producing deli-diners in airport departure lobbies for...
COMMENTARY
May 25, 2000

One currency, 11 masters

LONDON -- Many commentators seem genuinely surprised at the miserable performance of the euro. How, they ask, can it be that the new currency for most of Western Europe, which was billed to be the rival of the dollar and the world's alternative reserve currency, is now trading against the dollar at 25...
EDITORIALS
May 24, 2000

Caught in a legal nightmare

The belief that the law should be applied fairly to all, regardless of nationality, received a setback last week from Japan's judiciary. That is the reaction of people of good will to the rejection by the Tokyo High Court of the appeal filed over its earlier decision to allow continued police detention...

Longform

The students at Mitaka Municipal No. 7 Junior High School have access to various cooling devices for when they play sports.
Japan's extreme heat is causing a rethink of school sports