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JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Rail firms to beef up mobile-phone ban

A Tokyo subway operator and six major private railway firms plan to launch a joint campaign today to stress their ban on mobile-phone use in trains during rush hour, due to the danger of interference with pacemakers, the companies announced Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2000

Globalization proves a taxing issue

Listening to the bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and in other transnational organizations like the European Union, it appears that the most pressing issues about globalization is the impact upon governments' ability to collect taxes. Of course, these international...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 2000

Foot-cult followers file damages lawsuit

A group of 46 people filed a lawsuit Friday against the Honohana Sanpogyo foot-reading cult, demanding the sect pay around 400 million yen in compensation for allegedly swindling money from them.
EDITORIALS
Oct 13, 2000

Mr. Mori's misplaced priorities

Six months after an uncertain start, the administration of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is enjoying a period of stability, or so it seems. In contrast, immediately after the Liberal Democratic Party's defeat in June's Lower House election, the governing party was gripped by a feeling that it would not...
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2000

New law means marching orders for bad tenants

Motokazu Miyama's big fear is one probably shared by hundreds of thousands of other property-owners in Japan: What if unwelcome tenants refuse to leave after the apartment lease expires?
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 12, 2000

Bunny thrives in Predators' den

Yujiro Nakajimaya, captain of the Kokudo Bunnies and a member of Japan's national team, is not your average Japanese professional hockey player. In four teenage years spent at Notre Dame College, a high school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, the Hokkaido native gained more than just a fluent command of English....
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2000

Electronic dictionaries suit older eyes

Portable and handy electronic dictionaries have met with strong sales in recent years, particularly among those over 50.
JAPAN
Oct 11, 2000

HIV activist's mom files for by-election

Etsuko Kawada, mother of an HIV-infected crusader for justice, and three others filed candidacies Tuesday for an Oct. 22 by-election in Tokyo's No. 21 single-seat constituency to fill a House of Representatives seat left vacant by a disgraced lawmaker.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 9, 2000

Murofushi clinches sixth straight win at athletics championships

Japanese record holder Koji Murofushi won the men's hammer throw event for his sixth straight national championship crown Sunday as the all-Japan athletics meet at Miyagi Stadium came to a close.
COMMENTARY
Oct 9, 2000

The crystal balls grow opaque

All kinds of "self-confident" experts make predictions in the mass media about the economy and politics. In Japan, such experts are rarely held accountable if they err in their predictions. In the late 1980s, when the bubble economy peaked, Japanese experts expressed the following opinions that later...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2000

Tokyo poised to lift ban on exterior train ads

How can Tokyo buses and streetcars make more money without attracting more passengers? One answer: advertising.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 7, 2000

Catching up on Japanese baseball

With the Sydney Olympics now history, let's take a look at what happened in Japanese pro baseball while most of the sports world focused its attention on Australia and the Summer Games.
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2000

Lawyers defend axing charges against Asahara

Prosecutors on Thursday defended their decision to drop four drug-related charges against Shoko Asahara, saying the move is necessary to speed the Aum Shinrikyo founder's trial.
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 6, 2000

Troussier vows victory for Japan

"We'll get the Asian Cup back home," said Japan soccer manager Philippe Troussier on Thursday at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, only a few hours before his senior team's departure for the upcoming Asian Cup.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 6, 2000

Penguins, Predators ready to drop puck

The National Hockey League makes its third regular-season appearance in Japan this weekend as the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators square off for a two-game series Saturday and Sunday at the new Saitama Super Arena in Omiya.
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2000

Stymied by electoral reform

Confusion reigns in the current extraordinary Diet session, with the opposition forces boycotting debate to protest the ruling bloc's forcible move to revise the Upper House election system.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Mindan petitions lawmakers

The pro-Seoul Korean Residents Union in Japan (Mindan) petitioned Diet lawmakers Wednesday to pass a controversial bill to grant local-level suffrage to permanent foreign residents by the end of this year.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Ex-JICA chief volunteers for the trenches

Upon retiring after a 38-year career with the Foreign Ministry followed by six years as head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Kimio Fujita was naturally expected to accept an honorary post, such as on a government panel.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Activists find endangered birds for sale in shops

About 90 species of native wild birds are on sale in pet shops across the nation despite regulations forbidding their sale, the Wild Bird Society of Japan said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Support rate for Mori up marginally to 33.4%

The public approval rate for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's administration is up 1 percent to 33.4 percent but remains far below his disapproval rate of 58.2 percent, according to a Kyodo News poll released Wednesday.
OLYMPICS
Oct 4, 2000

Highs and lows of Sydney 2000

Citius, Altius, Fortius -- faster, higher, stronger.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2000

Experiments on humans outpacing ethics, WMA chief warns

The incoming head of an international physicians' association says excessive experiments involving human subjects should be curbed amid the growing range of experiments in this age of advanced medical science.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2000

'Indefinite' sentences lengthen

Prisoners in Japan serving "indefinite" sentences are locked up longer these days before they get paroled compared with 20 years ago, according to information the government released to the Diet on Tuesday.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Oct 4, 2000

Who's your buddy?

Last week, AOL and DoCoMo announced a major strategic alliance, but few techno-journos were blindsided by the news. Rumors had been floating since early summer, and the potential benefits were fairly easy to digest. Savvy scribes had probably already put together rough drafts. It was just a matter of...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 4, 2000

Why the Arabs are rallying to Baghdad

DUBAI -- International civilian flights into Baghdad are turning into a stampede as one Arab country after another announces, or carries out, its intention of joining France and Russia in breaking the 10-year aerial blockade. This may not breach the essence of U.N. sanctions -- the restrictions on trade...
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2000

Museum buffs image of newspapers

YOKOHAMA -- A museum visit is not likely to raise the pulse rates of children these days, and a museum dedicated to newspapers seems certain to draw only yawns.

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat