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JAPAN
Mar 29, 1999

First Obuchi competition meeting yields promises

Government and industrial leaders agreed Monday to work together to restructure excess capacity, create new businesses and promote labor turnover to improve Japan's industrial competitiveness.
EDITORIALS
Mar 27, 1999

Vote local, think national

Campaigning has started for 12 gubernatorial elections, including the all-important race for Tokyo governor. These are part of a series of local elections to be held in April, the results of which will have a significant impact on national politics. As it enters the 21st century, Japan must implement...
JAPAN
Mar 26, 1999

New war hall said to sidestep nation's guilt

An exhibition hall in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward dedicated to victims of the wars fought by Japan in the 1930s and 1940s will not challenge visitors to think too deeply about how Japan waged those wars and its responsibility for them.
JAPAN
Mar 26, 1999

Daihatsu told to fix faulty cars promptly

Daihatsu Motor Co. received a Transport Ministry recommendation Friday to take prompt action on defective cars that should have been subject to a recall.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 1999

Local Elections '99: LDP tying up with opposition

and YOKO HANI Staff writers
JAPAN
Mar 25, 1999

$4.5 billion in aid pledged to Philippines

Aid donors to the Philippines concluded a two-day Consultative Group meeting Thursday in Tokyo, pledging $4.5 billion in economic aid for 1999 to help Manila combat its economic difficulties.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 1999

MSDF quits chase after boats flee to international waters

Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers early Wednesday gave up chasing two mystery trawlerlike vessels that had intruded into the nation's territorial waters in the Sea of Japan before fleeing toward North Korea, Defense Agency officials said.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 1999

Fund to assist sarin victims with free checkups

A fund initially set up mainly to compensate victims of nerve gas attacks attributed to Aum Shinrikyo will be utilized to cover medical checkups for monitoring victims' health conditions, a lawyer and representative of the fund operators told a news conference Friday.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 1999

Tokyo steps up wartime weapon disposal plan

The Cabinet adopted a plan Friday to reorganize the government office tasked with expediting the disposal of chemical weapons left behind in China by the Japanese military at the end of the war.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 1999

SDP plans delegation to North Korea in April

The Social Democratic Party will to try to send delegations to North Korea as early as April, SDP officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 16, 1999

Deterioration appears to be at halt: BOJ

The Bank of Japan revised its assessment of the economy slightly upward in its monthly report released Tuesday, saying things appear "to have stopped deteriorating."
JAPAN
Mar 15, 1999

Chiyoda, UNUM strengthen ties

Midsize insurer Chiyoda Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Maine-based disability insurance firm UNUM Corp. will strengthen business ties hoping to jointly develop and market products, the firms' officials announced Monday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 13, 1999

Is shorter always sweeter?

The U.S. publisher Viking recently hit on a bright idea. Biographies, always reliable sellers, were nevertheless getting too long, they thought. Lives of even minor luminaries were routinely checking in at 800 or more pages, sometimes in multiple volumes; there was no such thing as an incident trivial...
JAPAN
Mar 12, 1999

GDP contracted 0.8% in third quarter

The nation's economy shrank at an annualized rate of 3.2 percent in real terms during the October-December quarter of 1998, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of contraction, the Economic Planning Agency announced Friday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 12, 1999

Defensive about missile defense

China's relations with the United States are at their lowest point since the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996. Beijing has a lengthening list of grievances against Washington: harsh criticism in the State Department's annual human-rights report and the prospect of a resolution censoring Chinese behavior...
JAPAN
Mar 11, 1999

Defense guidelines fail to receive municipal sanction

Roughly 60 percent of the 107 municipal assemblies nationwide that have approved or adopted nonbinding statements regarding the revised Japan-U.S. defense cooperation guidelines and related bills have called for amendments or abolition, according to results of a survey released Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 1999

Ishihara enters Tokyo race, splits LDP further

Prize-winning novelist and former Transport Minister Shintaro Ishihara formally declared Wednesday that he will run as an independent in the April 11 Tokyo gubernatorial election.
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 1999

The limits of Hun Sen's power

Ta Mok, the infamous one-legged military leader of the Khmer Rouge, was arrested last weekend in Cambodia. "The Butcher," as he is known, was one of the last holdouts from the guerrilla group. An unrepentant hardliner, Ta Mok commanded the loyalty of a dwindling band of insurgents, who were troublesome,...
JAPAN
Mar 9, 1999

Candidate who can say 'no' expected to say 'yes' today

Former Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Shintaro Ishihara is determined to run in the April 11 Tokyo gubernatorial election and is expected to announce his candidacy today, political sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 1999

State willing to help plan Urasoe port, defense chief says

The central government is willing to help the Okinawa Prefectural Government map out the outlines of a multipurpose port in the prefecture's city of Urasoe, Defense Agency chief Hosei Norota said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 1999

LDP expels Kakizawa for entering governor race

The Liberal Democratic Party decided Monday to expel Koji Kakizawa, a Lower House member and former foreign minister, for entering the Tokyo gubernatorial election in defiance of party wishes.
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 1999

Old men and bad dreams

Two unrelated news stories that have been gathering momentum in the United States in the past few weeks have focused attention all over again on the touchy issue of old crimes and delayed punishments. The conflicts involved are not novel -- they surfaced as recently as last year, when Spain attempted...
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1999

Shevardnadze asks for infrastructure help

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze asked trade chief Kaoru Yosano on Friday to help the former Soviet Union state develop a port and other infrastructure by utilizing trade insurance and yen loans, an official of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 1999

Younger politicians demand firm stand on Pyongyang

Staff writer
COMMENTARY
Mar 3, 1999

Japan's other big Year 2000 problem

For over 40 years now, the ritual has been the same. Each new Japanese administration resolves firmly that it will solve Japan's festering territorial dispute with Moscow, once and for all. Delegations and prime ministers visit Moscow. And each time the results are zero.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1999

Myanmar couple seeks new heart for baby

Staff writer
JAPAN
Mar 2, 1999

Leaders of five parties call for Constitution review panel

The secretaries general of five political parties asked the Lower House on Tuesday to create a research panel to review the Constitution.
JAPAN
Mar 1, 1999

Transplant network apologizes to family

A Japan Organ Transplant Network executive offered an apology Monday to the family members of an organ donor in Kochi for the group's insufficient protection of their privacy.
EDITORIALS
Feb 27, 1999

A wakeup call to the nation

After six months of racking their brains, members of a prime ministerial advisory council have produced yet another blueprint designed to nurse the seriously ill Japanese economy back to health. The worthy work of the Economic Strategy Council should be commended. In their final report to Prime Minister...
JAPAN
Feb 24, 1999

Accept 'jusen' role, HLAC to tell banks

The government-backed firm tasked with collecting debts owed by borrowers of the failed "jusen" mortgage lenders will urge 10 banks to take legal responsibility for the jusen fiasco, Housing Loan Administration Corp. President Kohei Nakabo said Wednesday.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?