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COMMENTARY
Aug 6, 2001

Voodoo economics rule the day

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's oft-repeated slogan, "There will be no economic recovery without structural reforms," sounds familiar to most Japanese.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 2001

Lies and consequences

Considering how consumed the media are with both death and dying, you might think a brief news item about someone's impending demise wouldn't cause much of a stir. But, of course, it all depends who the someone is.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Aug 5, 2001

The perfect shape for sake

The question of what vessel to use when drinking sake is an important one. Not only do the shape and size affect how flavor and fragrance are presented and emphasized, but the appearance and feel of a vessel also influences the overall experience.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 5, 2001

Japan's Rugby squad to play President XV

Japan will play against a President XV on Sept. 7 (kickoff at 7 p.m.) at Tokyo's National Stadium, the Japan Rugby Football Union announced recently.
LIFE / Food & Drink / BEST BAR NONE
Aug 5, 2001

Passion burning on the dance floor

Lamont Raymond is better known simply as Monty to thousands of Japanese clubbers. After arriving in Tokyo on an English-teaching gig more than a decade ago, he ended up working as the sales manager for Tokyo Classified (the free paper now known as Metropolis). For many years, if you had picked up a copy,...
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2001

Economic panel floats budget limits

The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy proposed Friday earmarking some 2 trillion yen for seven key areas under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reform blueprint when the panel draws up budgetary ceilings for fiscal 2002 next week.
BUSINESS
Aug 4, 2001

APEC to hold talks in Kumamoto

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum will hold a four-day ministerial conference in Kyushu Prefecture beginning Sept. 27 to discuss how to improve workers' abilities amid rapid advances in information technology, the labor ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2001

A-bomb survivor spreads peace message

HIGASHI-HIROSHIMA, Hiroshima Pref. -- When a doctor told Hitoshi Takayama in 1962 that a lump removed from his abdomen was malignant, the then 32-year-old thought he would share the fate of the 200,000 whose lives were lost in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
JAPAN
Aug 4, 2001

Osaka's 10-year reform plan aims to avoid state intervention

OSAKA -- In an attempt to avoid bankruptcy or fiscal intervention from the central government, the Osaka Prefectural Government submitted a 10-year reform program Friday that includes cutting 3,000 jobs and abolishing its Bureau of Public Enterprise.
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2001

Togetherness with calisthenics

School is out for the summer but still, remarkably, kids in this fitness-savvy society turn out -- at 6:30 a.m., no less -- at parks, shrines and quiet streets across Japan for NHK's daily "Radio Taiso" workout, a 15-minute live broadcast of morning calisthenics.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

DoCoMo ups expectations for demand

NTT DoCoMo Inc. has revised upward its projection for domestic demand for mobile phones in 2010 in a sign that it is pinning high hopes on the popularity of phone functions in digital cameras, TV sets and refrigerators, company officials said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

Nikkeiren calls on government to implement jobless aid fund

FUJIYOSHIDA, Yamanashi Pref. -- The Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) called on the central government Thursday to implement a 1 trillion yen emergency employment scheme to help cope with rising unemployment.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

JETRO says trade in IT decelerating

The Japan External Trade Organization said Thursday that global trade in products related to information technology, which has supported growth in world trade since 1999, has been slowing rapidly since the beginning of this year.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

LDP policymakers push PFI merits

Several policymakers of the Liberal Democratic Party said at a meeting Thursday that private finance initiatives should be deployed to improve the nation's infrastructure and boost the ailing economy.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2001

Major Indian software services firm turns gaze toward Japan

The economic slowdown in the United States is pushing a major Indian software services company to diversify into the Japanese market, said Vivek Paul, president of Wipro Technologies.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Aug 2, 2001

From old Edo to South Park

www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/flashback/0009/ National Geographic has been running a flashback series highlighting its rich photographic history. Here's the September 2000 peek-to-the-past: a Hadaka Matsui feat at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama just after World War II. The photographer's flash provided...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 1, 2001

American talking the talk down in Hiroshima

Most interpreters working for Japanese baseball teams are Japanese. Though there has been a need for translators in a variety of languages in recent years as the suketto (foreign "helpers") hired by Central and Pacific League teams have come from various countries, most of the men hired to change Nihongo...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Shiokawa set to cut public works 10%

Five Cabinet members spoke out Tuesday on economic matters, with two, including Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa, calling for a reduction in public works for fiscal 2002, and the others discussing the need for a supplemental budget for the current fiscal year.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsuo admits embezzlement

The Foreign Ministry's former head of logistics for VIP trips abroad pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to defrauding the government out of some 161 million yen by padding expenses of overseas visits by two former prime ministers between 1997 and 1999.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

NEC to eliminate 4,000 jobs amid global IT shrinkage

NEC Corp. announced Tuesday it will cut 4,000 personnel in Japan and abroad by April and withdraw from DRAM chip operations in 2004 amid a global shrinkage in information-technology markets.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsushita posts first group loss

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. posted its first quarterly group operating loss in 30 years, because of a global slump in demand for technology, the electronics giant said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 31, 2001

Dammed by the state: Displaced Chinese fight for their rights

JIANGSU, China -- Last August, the great Chang river (formerly known as the Yangtze) washed a modern day Noah's Ark from the heart of southwest China to the mouth of the Yellow Sea. Crowded aboard the ferry were 800 peasant farmers, nursing children, animals and seedlings on their three-day voyage to...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2001

Budget test for sacred cows

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reforms with no sacred cows" received a boost from the G7 economic summit in Genoa, Italy.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2001

A nasty taste of things to come

LONDON — Conventional wisdom has it that the future is impossible to predict, or at least to predict with any accuracy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 24, 2001

Visiting educators find confidence lacking

Japan should make greater efforts to instill a sense of self-confidence in its children and help them to develop the ability to express themselves, according to foreign educators invited to speak at a recent discussion session in Tokyo.
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

When we had heroes

They were voices in the silence, stars in the night they showed the way and they showed what was right
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 2001

Gifts from the 'god of sake'

Throughout the history of sake brewing, there has been a handful of individuals who have had a huge impact on the craft in the form of technical developments or discoveries. One such benefactor of brewing was Professor Kin'ichi Noshiro of Kumamoto.

Longform

It's back to the classroom for some residents as municipal governments across the country conduct lessons to learn how to use new technologies.
Can aging Japan go digital without leaving anyone behind?