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BUSINESS
Apr 26, 2001

G7 finance meeting to test caliber of Koizumi's reforms

New Liberal Democratic Party President Junichiro Koizumi, set to become prime minister today, will see his resolve toward fiscal and economic structural reforms tested this weekend in Washington by the world's major economic powers.
JAPAN
Apr 18, 2001

1,900 join spring bash with Imperial Couple

About 1,900 people, including Olympic judo gold medalist Ryoko Tamura and Nobel Prize winner Hideki Shirakawa, on Tuesday attended a spring garden party hosted by the Emperor and Empress.
EDITORIALS
Apr 6, 2001

Asia dusts off some bad habits

Storm clouds are gathering over Asian economies. Although the region has recovered from the worst of the 1997 financial crisis, the slowdown in the United States will give Asia a jolt. The region can overcome those difficulties if Asian economies continue their corporate and financial reforms, but unfortunately,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 4, 2001

A dangerous game of cat and mouse

The timing of the midair collision between a Chinese fighter jet and a U.S. Navy spy plane could not be worse. The handling of the incident seems designed to inflame tensions. The governments in Beijing and Washington must focus on the big picture. Give U.S. diplomatic personnel immediate access to the...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 3, 2001

Burying the Dover dead

As Dutch and British courts try suspects for the manslaughter of 58 illegal Chinese immigrants last June, Calum MacLeod meets the families chasing snakehead shadows. FUJIAN, China -- Winter days are quiet for the people of Lianfeng, a small village on a finger of land poking into the East China Sea....
EDITORIALS
Apr 2, 2001

Allies need to clear the air

It is one thing -- but no less a bad thing -- for U.S. President George W. Bush to turn his back on pledges to protect the environment that he made during last year's campaign. It is quite another for him to do so in a manner that upsets U.S. allies and undermines his credibility. His abrupt decision...
JAPAN
Mar 30, 2001

Economy, ecology out of sync: environmentalist

SEIKA, Kyoto Pref. -- Collapsing fisheries, shrinking farmland and rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are symptoms of severe stress put on the environment by a world whose population is spinning out of control, according to Lester Brown, chairman and founder of the prestigious Worldwatch...
EDITORIALS
Mar 28, 2001

Mr. Bush's 'new thinking'

The U.S. decision to expel 50 Russians for "activities incompatible with their status as diplomats" -- spying to the layman -- is being roundly decried as a sign of the Cold War mentality that dominates the administration of President George W. Bush. But it is far from it. The suspicions of those days...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2001

An African win in the war against AIDS

LONDON -- Half of all teenage boys in South Africa will eventually die of AIDS, predicted a United Nations report last year. "The world has never before experienced death rates of this magnitude across young adults of both sexes across all social strata," it added -- and noted that 70 percent of all...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 17, 2001

Taliban fanaticism is not typical of Islam

LONDON -- The problem is that the world is actually a very provincial place. Most people in the non-Muslim parts of the world have never been in any Muslim country, so if Muslims anywhere in the world do something really stupid, they will readily believe that those actions are typical of Islam -- and...
EDITORIALS
Mar 15, 2001

Making sense of the slide

The blood-letting in international stock markets continues. The U.S. Nasdaq index plunged below the 2,000 level for the first time in 27 months. The S&P 500 lopped 20 percent of its peak, officially becoming a "bear market." The U.S. free fall triggered a domino effect, pushing Asian and European markets...
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2001

Foreign investors remain net stock buyers

Foreign investors were net buyers of Japanese stocks for the eighth consecutive week last week.
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2001

Cabinet set to approve two bills on PCB disposal

The Cabinet is expected to approve two government-drafted bills today that will encourage the processing of polychlorinated biphenyls with an eye to destroying known stockpiles in around a decade.
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2001

Net users falling prey to overseas call charges

Complaints regarding bloated phone bills from Internet users who are charged for overseas calls or fee-charging services made without their knowledge have shot up, according to the National Consumer Affairs Center.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Feb 8, 2001

All good wines must converge

For winemakers in the Southern Hemisphere (specifically in South Africa, South America, Australia and New Zealand), February is a very important month -- just before the harvest in March, half a year or more before harvest time in the Northern Hemisphere.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Police announce date club crackdown

In an effort to crack down on telephone dating clubs that enable users to engage in sex with minors and child prostitution, the National Police Agency is planning to submit a bill to revise a law controlling the adult entertainment business, NPA officials said.
BUSINESS
Jan 27, 2001

Foreigners net buyers for fourth week

Foreign investors were net buyers of Japanese stocks for the fourth straight week last week, with their buying excess hitting the highest level in more than a year.
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2001

Help China to help itself

China promises to become an economic superpower in the 21st century, but it faces formidable environmental problems, such as acid rain, air and water pollution, desertification and soil erosion. According to a recent report from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, the world's most populous nation could...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2001

Tokyo, Seoul plan antidisaster steps

The government is planning to suggest strengthening cooperation between Japan and South Korea in the area of disaster prevention, including an exchange of officials between the two countries, government sources said Friday.
BUSINESS
Dec 27, 2000

Wholesalers outdo retailers

Combined sales by Japanese retailers and wholesalers rose 0.9 percent in November from a year before to 45.919 trillion yen to mark the second consecutive month of growth, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2000

World fisheries collapsing as technology and demand soar

As this is the season of giving, here is a gift, a riddle:
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2000

Flexibility the key to success of alliance

Foreign policy focuses on change. New leaders, new technologies, new conditions -- all create the need for new policies. Experts are always planning for contingencies -- the crisis to come -- and when they hit it's usually because governments failed to recognize the new realities that created them. ...
JAPAN
Dec 18, 2000

Societal barriers facing disabled may prove the most formidable

As deputy chief of the Japanese delegation at the Sydney Paralympic Games this summer, Tsunenobu Wakana was impressed with the handicapped-friendly facilities and transportation system.
EDITORIALS
Nov 27, 2000

Europe chokes on its beef

Fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, mad cow disease, are spreading across Europe. New incidents of the disease have been identified in herds across the continent. Several suspected cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of BSE, have been reported as well. European governments must...
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

1 billion yen in ODA wasted on failed Indonesia project

A roughly 1 billion yen technical assistance project in Indonesia launched in the late 1980s, in which dairy cows were bred using artificial insemination, faltered after six seed bulls sent from Japan died, it was learned Wednesday through a report by the Board of Audit.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2000

Japan to promote commercial use of space station

The Space Activities Commission on Monday compiled a draft report that includes the promotion of commercial use as well as scientific and technological research at a Japanese laboratory to be built within the International Space Station, commission officials said.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo