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EDITORIALS
May 2, 2000

Needed: a breath of fresh air

Urban traffic is far below its usual level during this holiday-filled Golden Week period. On good days with fair skies, the public has the chance, as welcome as it is unexpected, for a foretaste of the cleaner air that is promised by tough new control measures for diesel engine-exhaust pollution soon...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Discuss bases: Inamine urges Mori, Clinton

Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine said Monday that he strongly hopes Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will take up issues related to U.S. bases in Okinawa when he meets Friday with U.S. President Bill Clinton in Washington. "I assume that the major topic of the meeting will be issues concerning July's summit of...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

'Manga' role-playing draws date-seeking 'otaku' together

The model who goes by the alias Ai O-totsu, or Bumpy Love, is dressed in the crimson high school uniform of her video game personality today, but instead of acting out pubescent fantasies on the computer screen like her electronic double, she's posing for pictures, smiling bashfully and giving out name...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Daiichi Mutual ordered to shut down

The Financial Supervisory Agency ordered financially troubled Daiichi Mutual Fire & Marine Insurance Co. to suspend its operations Monday. It is the first bankruptcy in the nation's nonlife insurance sector.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Bedridden Takeshita to quit politics

Ailing former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, the behind-the-scenes kingmaker of the Liberal Democratic Party, announced through a recorded message Monday that he will retire from politics for health reasons.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Ticket-fixing suspect faces new charges

A former Niigata policeman arrested for allegedly tampering with traffic violation records may also have been covering up speeding violations committed by his colleagues and retired officers, investigative sources said Monday. The prefectural force has begun an internal probe into fresh suspicions surrounding...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Japanese tourist killed in Guatemala

Guatemalan police confirmed Sunday that a Japanese man and a local tour-bus driver were killed Saturday in the Central American country when villagers attacked a Japanese tour group after rumors spread that foreigners were in the area to abduct children. The Japanese victim was Tetsuo Yamahiro, 39, a...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

3.7 million yen donated to charities

The 1999 Japan Times Readers' Fund last month distributed 3,724,958 yen to seven organizations, including three new ones, to help finance projects for refugees and children and other non-Japanese in need.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Leader of cult denies causing the death of boy

The leader of a cult along with one of the group's senior members pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of abandonment resulting in the death of a 6-year-old boy, whose mummified body was found in Miyazaki in January. Junichiro Higashi, 56, head of Kaeda Juku, and Akemi Togashi, 49, the sect's supervising...
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Venture to guarantee e-payments

Itochu Corp., Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co., Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and others will establish a joint venture in June to provide payment guarantees for e-commerce transactions concluded between corporate clients, Itochu said Monday.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Taiwan's Chen urges Japan to back super-train project

Taiwan President-elect Chen Shui-bian indirectly urged Tokyo on Monday to politically support Taiwan's first high-speed railway project, which will use Japanese train technology but has been stalled by financial technicalities. "So far the Japanese government has not officially voiced cooperation for...
BASEBALL / MLB
May 2, 2000

Matsuzaka, five others named to Olympic team

Seibu pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka and Orix BlueWave outfielder So Taguchi were among six professionals formally announced by the Pacific League on Monday to take part in the baseball tournament of the Sydney Olympics.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Effects of reshuffle to linger

The 225-issue Nikkei average's recent reshuffle could continue to unsettle the Tokyo stock market for a while.
COMMENTARY / World
May 2, 2000

A quest for human rights

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has launched a drive to improve his country's human rights.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Mori hints June poll but keeps options open

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori hinted Monday that he may call a general election next month, saying calls for a June 25 poll from both the ruling and opposition camps would be "very helpful" in making a decision. However, Mori did not commit himself to the date because he wants to make sure that important...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
May 2, 2000

Stop this madness!

I'm currently reading Ichiro Ozawa's "Blueprint for a New Japan," his manifesto for giving the government and politicians of this country the kick up the backside they badly need.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Panel warns against early English study

An Education Ministry advisory panel has warned against introducing foreign language studies too early, arguing that concentrating on the study of Japanese until around age 10 is essential to master the mother tongue, it was learned Monday.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 2, 2000

Punkers united will never be divided

It's three in the morning at the livehouse Gig-Antic in Shibuya and as the girl band launches into the first song a skinhead leaps on stage, screams "Manchester United" into a mike and dives headfirst into the mosh pit. He's caught by a studded-leather-clad kid with a yellow mohawk, a skate-punk in baggy...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Asian Wall Street Journal goes bilingual

Competition in the newspaper industry is intensifying, and The Asian Wall Street Journal, as part of efforts to woo more readers in Japan, is addressing the challenge with a new look that started with its April 3 editions.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 2, 2000

Natural genki drink fuels aerial pollinators

For most of our planet's mind-numbingly long history of around 4.6 billion years, the most complex life form on Earth was the prokaryotic cell. The ghostly signatures of these simple cells without nuclei first appear in rocks dated to about 3.75 billion years ago. The length of their nearly 2-billion-year...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Labor chief a no-show at May Day fete

An estimated 1.7 million people took part in May Day rallies at some 1,070 locations nationwide Monday, calling on the government to alleviate the worsening employment situation and protect workers' rights, but the labor minister was conspicuously absent from the festivities.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Kin connect with long-lost mariner

When 94-year-old Californian John Ramsay was asked by his daughter-in-law if there was anything he wanted to do before he died, he said yes.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 2, 2000

Everything about Tanizaki

TANIZAKI IN WESTERN LANGUAGES: A Bibliography of Translations and Studies, by Adriana Boscaro, with a list of films based on Tanizaki's works compiled by Maria Roberta Novielli. Ann Arbor, MI: Center for Japanese Studies, The University of Michigan, 2000, 82 pp., $19.95. This fine bibliography is one...
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Norinchukin plotting 401(k) course

If farmers want to join Japan's equivalent of U.S. 401(k) pension plans, there is no reason why agricultural cooperatives should not provide related services.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Fukaya unveils Myanmar aid package

Trade minister Takashi Fukaya unveiled an assistance package Monday to help Myanmar develop its human resources and nurture small and medium-size firms. Fukaya unveiled the package in a meeting with Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt, first secretary of the State Peace and Development Council, the country's military...
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

New products on the market

Toyota Motor Corp. has unveiled a fuel-efficient, full-size luxury sedan that features a spacious interior and luggage area.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2000

Domestic auto sales down 0.4%

Domestic sales of new cars, trucks and buses decreased 0.4 percent in April from a year earlier to 268,259 units, down for the second consecutive month, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said Monday.
CULTURE / Books
May 2, 2000

'The gooks from Gardena' go to war

FROM PEARL HARBOR TO SAIGON: Japanese-American Soldiers and the Vietnam War, by Toshio Whelchel. London & New York: Verso, 1999, 203 pp., three maps, 12 photos, 16.20 British pounds (cloth). At last, a simple but moving book about the violent soul of America that almost any educated Japanese...
EDITORIALS
May 1, 2000

The prime minister's empty chair

Four weeks after former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi was hospitalized with a stroke on April 2, the administration headed by new Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, appears to be functioning in a business-as-usual manner. In the past month, however, government...
MORE SPORTS
May 1, 2000

Tanaka fires 67 for Chunichi victory

Hidemichi Tanaka broke away from overnight co-leader Mitsutaka Kusakabe with three birdies on the front nine of a 3-under-par 67 Sunday to win the 110 million yen Chunichi Crowns golf tournament by five strokes. Tanaka carded three birdies without a bogey on the front nine of the Nagoya Golf Club's par-70...

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