Search - 2000

 
 
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Fast Retailing takes top income

Fast Retailing Co., operator of the rapidly growing Uniqlo chain of clothing stores, recorded the largest declared income among companies closing their books in August 2000, replacing Hikari Tsushin Inc., which slipped to second, Teikoku Databank said Thursday.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2001

ATDI: scary monsters and super afros

If there's any doubt as to how beholden Rolling Stone magazine is to the record industry (or, for that matter, Hollywood), all one has to do is take a look at their Best Album list for 2000 and note that there isn't an indie release in the whole batch. What's more, the best new band is At the Drive-In,...
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2001

Automakers zero in on Thailand

BANGKOK -- As Thailand gradually recovers from the financial crisis of 1997, Japanese automakers will likely see whether their effort to cut costs over the past few years has given them the strength to tackle intensifying competition in the market they have dominated for so long.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Sega may kill off Dreamcast hardware

Sega Corp. said Wednesday it is considering stopping production of hardware for its loss-making Dreamcast video game consoles, pulling out of the home-use game console business and instead supplying game software to its rivals.
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2001

Yen remains second-best currency for doing business

The yen remains a secondary currency in Japan's trade with its major partners, with the U.S. dollar still the most frequently used currency in both imports and exports, data released by the Finance Ministry showed Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Kamei implicated in KSD scandal

Shizuka Kamei, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council, asked the former Labor Ministry to increase government subsidies for a technology institute affiliated with the scandal-hit mutual aid foundation KSD, an official of the ministry said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Tokyo general budget to increase by 0.3%

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's fiscal 2001 budget released Wednesday underscores that belt-tightening options have been exhausted, with the general expenditure portion of the package rising 0.3 percent from the initial budget for the current year.
LIFE / Digital
Jan 24, 2001

Internet reincarnations

www.geocities.com/lilgreen91/ Photographic evidence that an alien/human hybrid is among us. Or at least in someone's kitchen.
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2001

Prudential to pay 23 billion yen for Orico Life

Prudential Corporation Holdings Ltd. will purchase a full stake in Orico Life Insurance Co. for 23 billion yen on Feb. 13 from its parent company Orient Corp., Prudential and Orient said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2001

New century fails to lift stock market gloom

The decline in the Tokyo stock market continues despite the fanfare of entering the new century.
SUMO
Jan 23, 2001

Injuries force Akebono into retirement

Yokozuna Akebono, sumo's first foreign-born grand champion, indicated Monday at a meeting with Japan Sumo Association Chairman Tokitsukaze that he will retire from the ring.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2001

Official spent 170 million yen on racehorses

A senior Foreign Ministry official who is suspected of embezzling money from a special state fund spent about 170 million yen to buy 14 racehorses and keep them since 1997, sources said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2001

Nukaga informs LDP he quits over scandal

Scandal-tainted Cabinet minister Fukushiro Nukaga informed senior officials of his Liberal Democratic Party on Monday that he will step down to take responsibility for his involvement in a scandal that has already claimed two lawmakers.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2001

Sumitomo Trust to liquidate London unit

Sumitomo Trust & Banking Co. said Monday it will liquidate its London subsidiary, which deals mainly in the underwriting and selling of Eurobonds, as part of the group's restructuring plan.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2001

Family may sue hospital over fatal jaw-bone operation

The family of a young woman who died in 1997 after surgery on a broken jawbone is considering filing a damages suit against a Tokyo hospital, claiming she died from a mistake on the operating table, sources close to the family said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2001

Japan's conformist culture attacked

Hayao Kawai, one of Japan's leading clinical psychologists and the former head of a government advisory panel, emphasized the importance of fostering individuality among Japanese while admitting it is a difficult task in light of the nation's conformist culture.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 23, 2001

Okinawa's fate through women's eyes

WOMEN OF OKINAWA: Nine Voices from a Garrison Island, by Ruth Ann Keyso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, 168 pp., $16.95 (cloth). Ruth Ann Keyso traveled to Okinawa in 1997 to write a history of the island's postwar past. Following conversations with various people on the island, she decided...
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2001

Paper production posts record high

Japan's paper and cardboard output grew 3.9 percent in 2000 from 1999 to 31.83 million tons, marking a record high for the second year in a row, the Japan Paper Association said Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2001

Dentistry exam also leaked in 1999

A professor at Nippon Dental University who allegedly leaked questions on a national dentistry examination to another professor had been doing so for two straight years, sources close to the case said Monday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 23, 2001

Gender, identity, plain old eros

MALE HOMOSEXUALITY IN MODERN JAPAN: Cultural Myths and Social Realities, by Mark J. McLelland. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000, 268 pp., b/w plates 17, 15.99 British pounds (paper). Mark McLelland begins this pioneering study by quoting Alfred Kinsey to the effect that nature rarely deals with...
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2001

Nukaga likely to step down

State minister Fukushiro Nukaga is likely to resign from his Cabinet post today in the wake of allegations he received 15 million yen from KSD, a provider of industrial accident insurance, in 1999 and 2000, political sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2001

Partnerships for humanitarian crises

The number of refugees, displaced people and others of concern to the UNHCR jumped from under 15 million in 1990 to over 22 million in 2000: a 50 percent increase over the decade. Refugees are a symptom of a deeper malaise in the polities from which they have fled. The failure to establish satisfactory...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2001

Hydrogen future: Iceland's quest for a clean, green energy legacy

The future is wherever people are "thinking outside the box," seeking atypical solutions to problems of the status quo.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2001

Pressure on Nukaga to quit in KSD row

Fukushiro Nukaga, state minister in charge of economic and fiscal affairs came under growing pressure Saturday to resign for accepting funds from the scandal-hit industrial insurance foundation KSD and is receiving little support from his Liberal Democratic Party colleagues.
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 21, 2001

FIFA raps JAWOC over wording

Soccer's international governing body FIFA has ordered the Japanese organizing committee (JAWOC) to stick to the official English order of "Korea-Japan" on documents pertaining to the 2002 World Cup finals, informed sources confirmed Saturday.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2001

More people urge less aid for developing countries

A record number of Japanese people hope to see a reduction in economic assistance to developing countries now that Japan itself faces economic difficulties, according to a government poll released Saturday.

Longform

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