Search - 2000

 
 
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2001

'Gyudon,' PCs, phone fees tossed into new CPI mix

The government will soon add mobile phone fees, personal computers and "gyudon" beef bowls to items monitored when compiling monthly consumer price indexes as part of a reshuffle of the gauges' components, government officials said Wednesday. The new items will be used to calculate the CPIs starting...
BUSINESS
Apr 14, 2001

Bankruptcies increase 12.1%

Corporate bankruptcies in Japan rose 12.1 percent in fiscal 2000 from a year earlier to 18,926 cases, while debts left behind surged 130.7 percent to 25.98 trillion yen, a record postwar high, a private research institute said Friday.
JAPAN
Apr 4, 2001

10% of seniors need external care

About 10 percent of all seniors have been recognized as in great need of external assistance under the public nursing-care insurance system a year after its launch, according to the Health Ministry.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 27, 2001

Poetry for every mood and season

RYOKAN: Selected Tanka, Haiku, translated by Sanford Goldstein, Shigeo Mizuguchi & Fujisato Kitajima. Kokodo, 2000, pp. 218, 2 ,000 yen. LOVE HAIKU: Masajo Suzuki's Lifetime of Love: Translations by Lee Gurga & Emiko Miyashita. Brooks Books, 2000, pp. 112, 1,600 yen. UTSUMUKU SEINEN /LOOKING DOWN:...
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2001

Daiwa 8 billion yen short as Tokyo Mutual fails

OSAKA -- Daiwa Bank said Friday that it expects to post unconsolidated net losses of 8 billion yen for fiscal 2000, which ends March 31, due to unrecoverable funds extended to the failed Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 22, 2001

I'll see your spell and raise a goblin

Akira Kan wipes away the beads of sweat rapidly gathering on his forehead. The 15,000 yen that Pavel Matousek is asking for Juzam Djinn is beyond his budget. But the alternative -- trade in his Mox Pearl and Island of Wak-Wak -- seems like a bum deal.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2001

Labor dispute lawsuits topped 2,000 last year

The number of labor dispute lawsuits filed across the country in 2000 topped the 2,000 mark for the first time, the Supreme Court revealed in a recent report.
LIFE / Travel
Mar 21, 2001

Where there's a spark, there's green tourism

If the thought of an entire mountaintop in flames sounds like a nightmare or a Dali painting, you'll be surprised to learn that noyaki, a land conservation technique in Kumamoto Prefecture's Aso county, looks exactly like that from a distance. Local environmental group Aso Greenstock has been teaching...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 18, 2001

Corey Paul: King of the Eastern League

Hoping to make the Seibu Lions' opening day roster is Corey Paul, a third-year-in-Japan American outfielder who also happens to be the third foreign position player on the team's roster. He's competing with teammates Alex Cabrera and Scott McClain in a system where non-Japanese player quotas allow each...
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2001

Hedges, rooftop gardens grow in Tokyo

While you won't find any virgin forests in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward, you will find hedges -- nearly 30 km of them. Ironically, these strips of greenery were planted to combat the problem of the ward's dearth of other vegetation. These verdant stripes, bordering roads and buildings, are part of a ward-engineered...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 6, 2001

Two perspectives on a gray tomorrow

CARING FOR THE ELDERLY IN JAPAN AND THE U.S.: Practices and Policies, edited by Susan Orpett Long. Routledge: London, 2000. 358 pp., $100. By the year 2025, some 26 percent of Japan's population will be over 65 years old, meaning that society and families will need to cope with the various needs of...
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Exxon unit set to absorb subsidiary

TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K., a Japanese unit of the Exxon Mobile Corp. group, said Wednesday it will absorb its wholly owned subsidiary Kygnus Sekiyu Seisei K.K. on July 1.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

French firms profiting from Japan

For many Japanese, France has long represented wine and fashion. That image, however, is changing with French companies in other business fields increasing their presence in Japan.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2001

Nukaga to answer to KSD query on Feb. 26

Former Cabinet Minister Fukushiro Nukaga agreed Monday to give unsworn testimony to a closed-door Diet ethics panel over money he received from the scandal-hit mutual-aid insurance group KSD, Liberal Democratic Party officials said.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2001

Bankruptcies down but liabilities rise

Corporate bankruptcies declined 5.8 percent in January from a year earlier to 1,358 for the first decrease in 15 months, but the failed firms' liabilities jumped 60.6 percent to 969.65 billion yen, a private research institute said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2001

Bankruptcies down but liabilities rise

Corporate bankruptcies declined 5.8 percent in January from a year earlier to 1,358 for the first decrease in 15 months, but the failed firms' liabilities jumped 60.6 percent to 969.65 billion yen, a private research institute said Thursday.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 11, 2001

Israeli contemporary art: The endless game

With the election Wednesday of hardliner Ariel Sharon as prime minister, Israel is once again in the news. This can only help focus interest on the excellent exhibition featuring contemporary Israeli art at the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, and the complementary exhibition featuring older Israeli modern...
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2001

The accidental ambassadors

Less than six months after bathing in the international attention that came with hosting the Olympic Games, Australians are celebrating their nation's 100th birthday.
BUSINESS
Feb 8, 2001

Government to rely on bonds for 41% of all revenue by 2004

Rising social security costs will force the government to issue bonds worth 41.1 percent of its total revenue in fiscal 2004, up from 38.5 percent in fiscal 2000, the Finance Ministry says in a simulation report released Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2001

Koyama served fresh arrest warrant in KSD bribes case

Former House of Councilors member Takao Koyama was served another arrest warrant by public prosecutors on Tuesday on suspicion of having an affiliate of scandal-hit mutual-aid foundation KSD pay the salaries of his two secretaries.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2001

Index shows brighter outlook in December after bleak November showing

The diffusion index of coincident economic indicators, a key gauge of Japan's economic activity, topped the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent in December, after falling below the line in November, the government said Monday.
BUSINESS
Feb 6, 2001

Index shows brighter outlook in December after bleak November showing

The diffusion index of coincident economic indicators, a key gauge of Japan's economic activity, topped the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent in December, after falling below the line in November, the government said Monday.
BUSINESS
Feb 3, 2001

Banks incur 2.3 trillion yen loan-loss charge

Japan's 136 commercial banks incurred a combined loan-loss charge of 2.28 trillion yen in the first half of fiscal 2000, the Financial Services Agency has said.
COMMUNITY
Feb 1, 2001

Sophistication with a poignant twist

There is nothing quite like Cosmic Wonder. Since its inception in 1994, the Osaka-based fashion label has gone from being a cult name that only a few aficionados could identify to a sell-out collection at Ray Beams, the most directional of the Beams clothing stores in Tokyo. The company's clothes even...
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

Jobless rate unchanged at 4.8% for December

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 4.8 percent in December, unchanged from November and keeping the monthly average jobless rate for 2000 at the annual record high of 4.7 percent logged in 1999, the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry said Tuesday....
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2001

Household spending continues to fall

The nation's monthly household spending in 2000 dropped 0.6 percent from the previous year to an average of 340,977 yen, marking the third consecutive annual downswing, the government said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2001

Wholesaler, retailer sales slip for ninth year in row

Combined sales by Japanese retailers and wholesalers slid 0.7 percent in 2000 from the previous year to 553.17 trillion yen, making it the ninth straight year of decline, the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Academics indicted over exam leak

Prosecutors indicted two academics Friday on charges of leaking questions from last year's national dentistry examination in violation of the Dental Practitioners' Law.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2001

Plagued by scandal yet again

Fukushiro Nukaga was forced to resign Tuesday as minister for economic and fiscal policy over allegations that he received 15 million yen from the mutual-aid organization KSD in return for favors. Nukaga denied accepting the money himself but admitted that one of his secretaries had received it. He said...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan