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BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2000

Complimentary consoles to link Dreamcast retailers

Major Japanese video-game maker Sega Enterprises Ltd. said Thursday it is planning to use the Dreamcast game console to link some 5,000 retailers online by this spring to provide marketing information quickly.
BUSINESS
Feb 22, 2000

Stock market on hold until weather clears

The Tokyo stock market has entered a consolidation phase since the key Nikkei average climbed past the 20,000 level early this month.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2000

Tertiary industrial activity rose 1% in 1999

The nation's tertiary industry activity grew 1 percent in 1999, marking the first rise in two years, according to a preliminary report issued Monday by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The index of activity in the tertiary industry for the year stood at 103.2 against a base of 100 in...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Hearings on 2000 budget bumped up

The Lower House Budget Committee voted Friday to hold hearings on the record 84.98 trillion yen state budget for fiscal 2000 on Thursday, paving the way for its passage through the lower chamber by the end of the month. Despite the opposition's call for more deliberation, the Budget Committee approved...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2000

DDI cuts cash flow to bankrupt Iridium

DDI Corp. President Yusai Okuyama said Thursday that the company would not make an additional investment in Iridium LLC, the financially troubled U.S. satellite telecommunications company. Okuyama also told a regular news conference that Nippon Iridium Corp., which provides satellite phone services...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 16, 2000

Rambling after migrating bramblings

The many seed-bearing plants of the temperate region, the grasses and the herbs, the trees and the shrubs, produce an enormous volume of seed each year. Typically of the natural world, a vast amount of effort is rewarded by very few successes. In the game of chance that is life, relatively few seeds...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

Obuchi defends aide accused of swindling stock

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi rejected allegations Thursday that his close aide swindled a man, now deceased, out of shares currently worth about 2.3 billion yen. "I understand that he did nothing wrong," Obuchi said during an Upper House plenary session , adding that he himself was not involved in the...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 9, 2000

Making a start

Some time ago I wrote of the passing of Tokyo Theater for Children, an organization with a long history of exciting, well-staged performances for adults as well as children. My report, fortunately, was premature. It needed new people to take over, and they came, drawn by the enthusiasm of Jude Kaye who...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 4, 2000

Rescuing abandoned electones from a grim fate

The electone, better known as the home organ, might recall memories of drunken uncles playing shambolic versions of Christmas songs, or upwardly mobile parents forcing a bit of culture down junior's throat. In many family homes, it is a dust-gathering fixture, a hulking monument to the musically dasai....
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2000

DCI unveils programming for digital data broadcasts

Digital Cast International Ltd. on Thursday unveiled programs it plans to deliver on a digital data broadcasting service it is planning to launch Dec. 1. The Tokyo-based broadcaster will offer a 24-hour schedule of news, weather forecasts, local government bulletins, sales programs for books, regional...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2000

High-tech juggernaut is a dangerous ride

Apparently, sales of dog food by the U.S. shopping giant Wal-Mart were bigger than the worldwide sales chalked up by e-commerce last year. Even if that is true, the current media frenzy about e-commerce makes it hard to countenance. There is a danger that this current fashion for one particular technology...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2000

Can hard industry spike the Net bubble?

Time Warner's one-two megamerger punch, first with America Online then with British music giant EMI Group, followed last week by shares of Yahoo Japan Corp. exceeding 100 million yen, sent many investors and observers searching for a psychological safety blanket.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 26, 2000

Memories can't wait

This year's New Year's cleaning was quick: Pull out the file of Y2K clippings and dump all the doom and gloom in the trash with nary a backward glance. That got me digging through other files, and I spent a merry half hour reliving the Internet's infancy: the prospect of genuinely mobile computing (shades...
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2000

China's gray peril

BEIJING -- Xue Aiying, a 65-year-old retired worker from Nanjing, used to go to Bailuzhou Park every morning to practice Falun Gong before the sect was outlawed in July last year. "I didn't know what to do with myself after I retired," she explains. "I felt lonely and empty before I joined Falun Gong."...
LIFE / Digital
Jan 3, 2000

Wearable PCs set to liberate employees from keyboards

Xybernaut Corp. of Fairfax, Va. has begun enlisting some of Japan's top universities to help further its research and development of so-called "wearable computers," the worldwide market for which is expected to be worth around $2 billion by 2003.
COMMUNITY
Jan 3, 2000

Picture-book village looks to the children

Once upon a time, sometime in 1992, there were two communities, Kijo-cho and Ishikawauchi, nestled high in the mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture. As in many such rural communities, the sound of children's voices was becoming a rarity as young families left to find their fortune in the city of Miyazaki,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 1999

Happy in the Gucci nation

What kind of country will Japan be in the 21st century? The millennial forecast is in and it looks like this: Japan's cultural elite is quickly converging around the notion that Japan should be the first boutique state of the 21st century -- distinctive, well designed and expensive.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

0.7% service sector fall

Activity in the nation's service sector slipped 0.7 percent in October from the previous month, due to a temporary slump in mobile telecommunications as well as sluggishness in the transportation and power industries caused by a drop in industrial production, according to a preliminary report issued...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 1999

Airline heads vow to boost, develop Asia-Pacific region

Top officials of international airlines in the Asia-Pacific region adopted a package of resolutions Friday to develop the area's civil aviation industry and provide better services to passengers.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 26, 1999

Salon Music goes back to basics, but still way ahead of the curve

One of the great curiosities of the Japanese music scene is the tendency to eat up the latest indie rock innovations from the U.K. or U.S., leaving home-grown talent unknown and uncelebrated.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 1999

26-year-old aims to be online ad king

Staff writer
JAPAN
Nov 2, 1999

NTT pair held over suspected data leak to leftists

Two NTT employees were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of helping members of a leftist extremist group illegally obtain information on members of a rival faction, police officials said.
JAPAN
Sep 29, 1999

Industrial output rose 4.6% in August

Industrial output rose 4.6 percent in August from July, marking the first increase in two months and the biggest rise since January 1997, due to strong demand for electronics, automobiles and electricity, according to a preliminary report issued Wednesday by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry....
JAPAN
Sep 17, 1999

Nail salons ringing up cell phone profits

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 5, 1999

Ultranationalist groups: aliens with sunglasses

It's another Sunday in Japan as rightwing organizations in black buses the size of semi-trailer trucks roll through the city streets spewing nationalist slogans. These military-style buses are driven by men who are usually described by others as "wearing sunglasses." Japanese people hardly notice when...
JAPAN
Aug 31, 1999

Industrial output slid 0.6% in July on monthly basis

Industrial output slipped 0.6 percent in July from the previous month, following a 3.2 percent rise in June, according to a preliminary report released Tuesday by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry.
JAPAN
Aug 11, 1999

BT touts venture as 'family of alliances'

British Telecommunications PLC's recent agreement on capital participation in Japan Telecom Co. is part of its strategy to form a "family of alliances" that will help it become the most successful carrier in the global market, BT chief executive Sir Peter Bonfield said Wednesday in Tokyo.
EDITORIALS
Aug 5, 1999

China's East Wind blows ill

Earlier this week, China test-fired a ballistic missile. The practical significance of the test is minimal; it does little, if anything, to change the regional balance of power. Its timing, on the other hand, could not be worse. The launch sends the wrong message to every government with interests in...
JAPAN
Aug 5, 1999

More cell phone antennas planned for tunnels, highways

The Construction Ministry said Thursday it will set up antennas in more than 200 tunnels on highways and national roads nationwide over the next five years to enable transmission for cellular phone use.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 1999

Nissan to unload stake in nine Tu-Ka firms

Nissan Motor Co. announced Monday that it will sell all its shares in nine Tu-Ka and Digital Tu-Ka cellular phone companies to DDI Corp. and Japan Telecom Co. in a move that will likely accelerate the ongoing realignment of cellular phone operators into three major groups -- DDI, Japan Telecom and NTT...

Longform

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