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JAPAN
Feb 2, 2000

Nago airport plan seen as dugong threat

Less playful than dolphins and not as awesomely powerful as whales, dugongs have somehow failed to capture the popular imagination like their more dynamic cetacean brethren.
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2000

Nago base plan threatens dugong habitat

Less playful than dolphins and not as awesomely powerful as whales, dugongs have somehow failed to capture the popular imagination like their more dynamic cetacean brethren. But this endangered creature, found off the east coast of Okinawa's main island, may soon steal the limelight.
COMMUNITY
Jan 30, 2000

Preaching the gospel of women's television

Those who watch the program "New Yorkers," broadcast weekly on NHK's satellite channel, will be familiar with the name Nancy Lee. But how many realize that this snappy, bright, Jewish-American from New Jersey is as much at home in Japanese as English?
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.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2000

Team attempts Khmer software to computerize Cambodia

Staff writer When you send e-mail, either in English or Japanese, you assume it can be read on the recipient's computer screen without any problems. But if the message is in Khmer, chances are that it will be turned into a series of symbols that make no sense. "What is common in Japan (and other industrialized...
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...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2000

Government to set up antihacker task force

The government Wednesday decided to establish a task force of specialists to prevent computer vandalism by hackers and make a manual at an early date. The decision was made at a meeting of section chiefs from all ministries and government agencies in charge of computer-related issues. Earlier in the...
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2000

Info-tech boom to stay hot

The Tokyo stock market is maintaining its upward trend amid expectations of a global economic recovery led by information technology-related investment and a favor- able supply-and-demand balance of stocks.
BUSINESS
Jan 21, 2000

Boom looming in investment trust funds

An investment trust fund boom appears in the offing.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2000

Fashion segueing into sound

A special guest at a Ryuichi Sakamoto concert summons a host of international possibilities -- David Sylvian or Bowie, perhaps? Instead, the audience at Sakamoto's recent Christmas concert got designer Yohji Yamamoto clutching an acoustic guitar. Yamamoto's foray into music (he has recorded with rootsy...
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2000

Internet convergence is changing the rules

In the current global market environment, where Internet-related business alliances are becoming the order of the day, one big-name firm after another is getting on the bandwagon.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2000

State plans bill to bolster technological competitiveness

The government will submit to the upcoming Diet session a bill to strengthen competitiveness in industrial technology through measures supporting collaboration among industry, academia and the government, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said Tuesday. "It is imperative for Japan to develop creative technology...
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 10, 2000

This is last chance to get straight with environment -- UNEP report

This is last chance to get straight with environment -- UNEP report ft,b For those of us who get a kick out of odometers hitting big round numbers, this is it, a new century. Environmentally speaking, though, 100-year blocks of time are almost irrelevant.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2000

Economics and the human perspective

Economics, it is sometimes useful to point out, can hardly be analyzed at all if divorced from some basic cultural parameters. A recent academic gathering in Japan reminded us of just that.
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2000

Smaller enterprises still need help: Inaba

1999 may prove to have been a pivotal year for small businesses.
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2000

Exec's reckoning: Small firms still need help, Inaba says

Last of three parts Staff writer 1999 may prove to have been a pivotal year for small businesses. Scores of small and medium-size enterprises collapsed amid the prolonged recession, but the severity of the situation attracted public attention to their plight, leading the government to map out a legal...
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.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2000

Public must face higher tax burden: Imai

Japan must act on its deteriorating financial health by launching discussions on fiscal reform and revealing the results to the public, said Takashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren).
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

Japan celebrates new year free of major Y2K problems

Japan ushered in the new year with various celebratory events Friday night that included fireworks, all-night dancing and concerts while much of the public harbored concerns over possible Y2K-related problems. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi addressed the nation from the Prime Minister's Official Residence...
CULTURE / Books
Dec 30, 1999

Explore high-tech versions of Japanese classics

GENJI MONOGATARI (THE TALE OF GENJI). Nihon Koten Bungaku Series 1. Released by Fujitsu Social Science Laboratory Ltd. Windows/Macintosh Hybrid CD-ROMs. Kawasaki, Japan and San Jose, CA: Fujitsu Software Corp., 1996. Bilingual Japanese-English. Two disks boxed separately. 6,000 yen or $68 each. HEIKE...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 23, 1999

Sake tools you can trust

Happy Holidays to all Japan Times readers.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 1999

Diet enacts nuclear readiness legislation

With Monday's Upper House approval, the Diet enacted two bills aimed at preventing and better dealing with accidents at nuclear power facilities. Now that the bills, which were submitted following the Sept. 30 accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, have cleared both...
JAPAN
Dec 13, 1999

Yasuda, Fukoku announce insurance alliance

Yasuda Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance Co. announced Monday that they will form a wide-ranging alliance to share costs for investment in computer systems and cooperate in other areas. The move by Yasuda, the sixth-largest life insurer in terms of assets, and Fukoku, which...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 1999

Shinagawa gives parents, pupils choice in education

Staff writer In an innovative attempt to make public schools more competitive, Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward has introduced a program through which parents can choose their children's elementary school from several in their area. The new program, which begins in April, will allow children who are ready to...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 8, 1999

Beyond coping

Certain products come in many shapes and sizes, and a reader must thank the Italian Trade Commission in Tokyo for the successful ending of her search. She was looking for a special kind of Italian support hose made by IBICI and she wondered where she could buy them in Japan. It could be an endless search,...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 1999

Beethoven concert to fete students' wartime sendoff

Staff writer
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Nov 27, 1999

Unwelcome companions

Thanks to e-mail, a vast assortment of unsolicited information comes my way. Some of it is even interesting and occasionally I share it with you. My amazement is not so much with the information I am sending your way today as it is with the person who noticed it and then did the necessary projection....
EDITORIALS
Nov 25, 1999

Racing toward the unwired world

I n 1990, there were 11 million mobile phones in the entire world. Today, there are 50 million in Japan alone. Nearly 400 million people around the globe carry the various makes and models of wireless phones; those ranks swell by about 1 million more every week. Experts predict that within five years,...
EDITORIALS
Nov 19, 1999

The challenge of jobs for graduates

Students graduating from the nation's universities, two-year junior colleges and high schools next March are not likely to agree with the optimistic pronouncements being made about signs of a long-delayed recovery for Japan's battered economy. Better days may indeed be ahead for the corporate world,...
JAPAN
Nov 18, 1999

Efforts afoot to woo foreign tourists

Staff writer

Longform

Atsuyoshi Koike, the president and CEO of Rapidus, says there is a “sense of urgency” when it comes to Japan’s efforts in manufacturing semiconductors. “We have to make sure we are successful,” he says.
Atsuyoshi Koike’s big game: Fourth down and 2 nanometers to go