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BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2001

Taiwan-Japan IT confab set for next week

A symposium on information technology will be held Feb. 8 and Feb. 9 in Tokyo, gathering academics and industry officials from Taiwan and Japan, the Taipei Economic and Culture Representative Office in Japan said Friday.
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2001

Indian IT experts to get three-year visas for Japan

The government decided Friday to expand its visa issuance to Indian nationals involved in the information technology industry as a means of promoting exchanges between Japanese and Indian IT experts, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2001

Mori wants Japanese out of efforts to clone humans

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori instructed two Cabinet ministers Friday to ensure that Japanese doctors and researchers do not participate in an international project to clone humans, government officials said.
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2001

Panel takes up rescue of private sector

The Financial Services Agency will begin a joint liaison meeting with two other ministries in an attempt to resolve the financial sector's bad-loans and other sectors' overborrowing, Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2001

Year in prison sought for accused MSDF spy

Prosecutors demanded Thursday a one-year prison term for former Maritime Self-Defense Force Lt. Cmdr. Shigehiro Hagisaki, 38, who is charged with passing defense secrets to a Russian military attache in exchange for cash.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Dirt-cheap Internet calls stun phone firms

The information technology revolution is beginning to rock major telephone companies with the successive debut of unprecedented services such as free international phone calls and flat-rate domestic out-of-town calls.
BUSINESS
Feb 1, 2001

Seminar promotes Chugoku to investors

Given that it is closer to South Korea than Tokyo, the Chugoku region is the area to lead Japan's globalization drive in the 21st century, according to officials of the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry at a business incentive seminar in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Colleges brace as fewer apply

Tadataka Koide, president of Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya, is awaiting this month's entrance exams with anticipation and anxiety.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Mori apologizes for ministry scandal

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori opened this year's regular Diet session Wednesday by apologizing for recent scandals that have rocked his administration.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Mori apologizes for ministry scandal

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori opened this year's regular Diet session Wednesday by apologizing for recent scandals that have rocked his administration.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2001

Otaku loose in a noirish world

Dark future movies are, by now, as established an SF subgenre as creature features or space operas. Their world view is usually a cross between an Orwellian nightmare and a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show: grim, oppressive and dangerous but sexy, radical and cool. In other words, you wouldn't mind visiting,...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

People facing retirement seen increasingly looking overseas

More middle-aged and elderly Japanese are going abroad for long stays or permanent residence to seek a new life after mandatory or early retirement.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 30, 2001

Tokyo Stadium opening to public

The brand-new 50,000-seat Tokyo Stadium in Chofu City will be open to the general public on Feb. 10-12 ahead of its curtain-raiser with a J. League season-opening game.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Koyama quits Upper House over KSD

Upper House lawmaker Takao Koyama, arrested earlier this month on suspicion of taking bribes from the mutual aid foundation KSD, tendered his resignation from the Diet Monday, a senior in the chamber from the Liberal Democratic Party said.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2001

Mori's Diet-opening remarks to touch on restoring trust

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will pledge to strive to restore public trust in politics in his policy speech to be delivered at the outset of the 150-day regular Diet session convening Wednesday, government sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 29, 2001

Banks untouched by evolution

After three years here, I believe the essence of the difference between Japan and India can be summed up thus: In India, nothing works, but everything can be arranged (for a consideration, of course); in Japan, everything works, but nothing can be arranged. One of the surprising aspects of life in Japan...
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2001

Time to rethink today's accepted economic principles

The beginning of a period, be it a week or a month, can spur people to reflect on the past and contemplate the future, leading them to reconsider matters long taken for granted. Thus, at the beginning of a new century, we may be justified in re-examining some of the accepted wisdom, common sense and...
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2001

Kids want young criminals treated strictly

Many high school students believe offenders aged 14 and up should face the same penalties that adult criminals face, according to the results of a private survey released Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 28, 2001

Challenges for South Korean democracy

SEOUL -- Nov. 28 was a black day for local autonomy in South Korea. On that date a group of lawmakers introduced a bill in the National Assembly, aimed at abolishing the democratic election of lower-level mayors. The 42 lawmakers from different political parties who presented the bill argued that the...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 28, 2001

American Kenneth Jones

"Walk in, you'll be in Kyoto," proclaims the brochure of Kyoto-Kan, Akasaka.
COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2001

KSD places Mori in peril

Dark clouds hang over Japanese politics. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been jolted by allegations that some of its leading members took payoffs from the mutual-aid organization KSD. The scandal came after Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori reshuffled his Cabinet last month and the restructured central...
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2001

Tokyo Mutual to receive 30 billion yen in capital aid

Mid-tier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. will receive 30 billion yen worth of capital assistance from Daiwa Bank and other corporations at the end of March, Tokyo Mutual officials said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Council steps up disaster preparations

The government decided Friday to strengthen monitoring systems in preparation for the likelihood of major earthquakes, especially in the Tokai region, government officials said.
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2001

RCC adviser quits in debt scandal

Kohei Nakabo, adviser to Resolution and Collection Corp., has resigned and a senior managing director and four others of the debt-collection vehicle have been punished over an improper collection deal in 1998, RCC chief Akio Kioi said Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

Japan's banking system still shaky despite 'reforms'

Japan's banking system can still be described as "fragile" or even "precarious" despite nearly a decade of supposed reforms and a wave of industry realignment, according to Benn Steil, New York-based senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Tokyo Sowa buyer to restore bank's niche role

Officials of Tokyo Sowa Bank's new owner-to-be said Thursday they intend to rebuild the failed regional bank's "niche retail" functions by targeting small firms and individuals left behind in the era of megabank mergers.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Mapping of lethal E. coli bacteria gene completed

OSAKA -- Researchers at Osaka University say they have succeeded in reading all the gene information on the O-157 strain of E. coli bacteria that caused a massive, and deadly, outbreak of food-poisoning in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, in 1996.

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake