search

 
 
EDITORIALS
Dec 20, 1999

Less-than-inspiring politics

The extraordinary Diet session that ended Thursday brought to the fore the simmering discord within the tripartite ruling coalition. The Liberal Party threatened to quit the coalition because a bill to slim down the Lower House, which was one of the conditions for the party's joining the coalition, was...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 1999

A diplomatic 'paper tiger'?

In recent years, we have seen active debate on Japan's sanctions-based diplomacy. Discussions focused on the justifications for and effects of sanctions, as well as changes in the balance of power resulting from the lifting of such measures. The lifting of sanctions against North Korea Dec. 14 renewed...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 1999

No shortage of challenges for Musharraf

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's new military regime led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf is eager to demonstrate that its decision to put former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on trial on charges of attempted murder and kidnapping is not necessarily driven by malicious intent. If convicted, Sharif could be sentenced to...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Nonutilities get guidelines for power retail

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry and the Fair Trade Commission released joint guidelines Monday to regulate nonutility firms as they enter the nation's electric power retail market. The move is in line with the revised Electricity Enterprise Act, which will take effect on March 21. Under...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

LDP mulls redress for Korean vets

The Liberal Democratic Party was to begin drawing up a plan Monday to compensate permanent South Korean residents of Japan who worked under the Imperial Japanese forces but are ineligible for pensions because they are no longer Japanese citizens. LDP sources said Sunday that the party was leaning toward...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Tiger trade crackdown set for OK

The Cabinet is poised to approve today a revision of the Law for the Conservation of Endangered Species to ban trade in tiger parts. Under pressure from domestic and international nongovernmental organizations over the large amount of tiger- derived products in Japan, the government inked a revision...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Man admits killing pilot in skyjacking

Yuji Nishizawa, 29, admitted Monday before the Tokyo District Court that he hijacked an All Nippon Airways jumbo jet and stabbed its captain to death in July. In his opening statements, Nishizawa's lawyer argued that Nishizawa could not be held accountable for the charges, claiming he was insane at the...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Sanwa to enter the consumer loan arena

Sanwa Bank announced Monday it will enter the consumer loan business by setting up a joint venture with two consumer finance firms, Promise Co. and Aplus Co. The joint venture, capitalized at 10 billion yen, will be set up April 1 and will start operations later in the year, Sanwa officials said. Sanwa...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 1999

European rule comes to an end in Asia

CANBERRA -- Macau presents the last outpost of European colonial empire remaining anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Apart from Hawaii, now a state of the United States, and leaving aside Australia and New Zealand, no other territory in the Asia-Pacific region will be held or ruled by a European state...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

'Zaito' funds slashed to 42.9 trillion yen

The Cabinet approved a draft Monday for a fiscal investment and loan program for fiscal 2000 worth 42.9 trillion yen, down 18.7 percent from the current year. The decrease in the scale of the so-called zaito program is the biggest ever. The drop is in preparation for the government's plan to overhaul...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

MITI mulls taking steel gripe to WTO

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry may pursue Japan's steel-trade dispute with the United States at the World Trade Organization, a MITI official Monday quoted trade chief Takashi Fukaya as telling the Japanese steel industry. During an hourlong meeting with representatives of the industry,...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

No-redress rulings upheld

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld lower court rulings that dismissed claims made by former Koreans imprisoned for war crimes after World War II and a relative of a Korean member executed after the war. The former members of the Imperial Japanese Army were tried by the Allied powers and classified as...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Citizens tout proof that U.S. base is trespassing

Citizens demanding the return of a U.S. base in central Tokyo cited a written agreement Monday that they claim proves the heliport section of the compound is trespassing on Japanese soil. The Executive Committee for the Removal of the Azabu Heliport released a statement on an agreement regarding the...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Yakult exec in tax dodge hid 140 million yen

The former vice president of lactic drink maker Yakult Honsha Co., arrested on suspicion of tax evasion, had some 140 million yen hidden in a bank account in Singapore as of the end of September, sources revealed. Last spring, Naoki Kumagai, 69, was ordered by tax authorities to pay about 100 million...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

LDP, state seeking 300 more bank inspectors

The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party plan to budget for 300 more banking inspectors in fiscal 2000, which begins next April. The expansion is planned in conformity with a shift, scheduled in April, of the inspection and supervision authorities of credit cooperatives from prefectural...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Juvenile offenses fall but serious crimes increase

The number of offenses committed by juveniles between January and November decreased for the first time in four years, but the number of youngsters involved in felonies increased slightly to more than 2,000 from the same period last year, according to a National Police Agency report released Monday. The...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Pachinko manager stabbed in heist

Investigators are looking for two men who allegedly broke into a pachinko parlor office in Tokyo's Taito Ward on Monday morning and stabbed the manager before making off with about 20 million yen in cash, police said. According to police, the pair broke into the office, located in a building near JR...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Time running out for 'Knock' as opinion turns against him

Staff writer OSAKA -- The game may finally be up for Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama. Monday's search of his offices by the Osaka District Public Prosecutor's Office in connection with a criminal complaint filed against the governor by a 21-year-old female university student, who accused Yokoyama of groping...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Site for new capital cut to three

After three years of deliberations, a government panel on Monday handed Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi a list of three areas for further consideration as sites for the relocation of the Diet and government offices from Tokyo. The Council for Relocation of the Diet and Other Organizations identified an area...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Calls for overhaul of judge system mount

First of three parts Staff writer Discontent with the judicial system among lawyers, politicians and businesspeople has prompted a Cabinet advisory panel to launch discussions aimed at giving the system its first overhaul of the postwar era. Hiroshi Saito of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Prison eyed for Nichiei worker

Prosecutors on Monday demanded an 18-month prison term for a former employee of nonbank moneylender Nichiei Co. for suggesting that a customer sell body parts to repay a loan. Earlier in the hearing, at the Tokyo District Court, Eisuke Arai, 25, pleaded guilty to the charges and tearfully apologized...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Asia archive with LDP spin in works

Japan will open an Asian history archive inside the National Archives in April 2001, as proposed in 1995 by the Cabinet of then-Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama. The archive will include documents on the war Japan fought from 1926 to 1945 and records of its colonial rule in Asia that are now scattered...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 1999

In the aftermath of the WTO debacle

WASHINGTON -- In the aftermath of the failed WTO meeting in Seattle last month, the big question is, "What now?"
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

Miyazawa unveils 85 trillion yen budget

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa on Monday proposed a draft general-account budget for fiscal 2000 worth 84.99 trillion yen intended as the "final push" for economic recovery. The budget, featuring massive public works spending and expanded funds to handle bank failures, is the largest-ever and 3.8 percent...
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 1999

The need for policing the police

It is a sad commentary on the times when the nation's police forces, which must rely on the public's trust to be effective, find themselves under a cloud of suspicion over repeated incidents of questionable, even criminal, behavior by their members. Yet that is the situation confronting Japan's law-enforcement...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Dec 18, 1999

A banquet of deities and genres

In January 1993, a group of like-minded young and mid-career performers of traditional Japanese music and dance got together and created Tokiza. Their aim was to create new group venues and markets for their music and dance, while maintaining their individually high standards of excellence.
CULTURE / Art / ARTS AND ARTISANS
Dec 18, 1999

Thickly lacquered with tradition

As foreign merchants once linked products and countries (china from China, for example), the term "japanning" first appeared in a 1688 text by John Stalker and George Parker that described the superiority of Japanese lacquerware. However, the technique of applying lacquer on various objects as a protective...
COMMUNITY
Dec 18, 1999

An era passes on with the foreigner who saved kabuki

Faubion Bowers, the theater expert credited with saving kabuki after World War II, died in New York of heart failure Nov. 16, aged 82.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 1999

Seattle art world meets on Gallery Walk

SEATTLE -- Eric Painter is a potter. Actually, he was a biologist before he quit his research job with National Marine Fisheries and bought a pottery school and gallery in downtown Seattle's historic Pioneer Square.
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 1999

The dust settles, temporarily

The United States and China continue to put their relationship to rights. This week, the two countries agreed to a deal that would provide compensation for the damage caused by the NATO missile attack last May on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the angry demonstrations that followed in Beijing. The...

Longform

Traditional folk rituals like Mizudome-no-mai (dance to stop the rain) provide a sense of agency to a population that feels largely powerless in the face of the climate crisis.
As climate extremes intensify, Japan embraces ancient weather rituals