Search - 2000

 
 
LIFE / Travel
Feb 2, 2000

New winter travel bargains opening domestic flight doors

Winter brings Japan's best travel bargains, and this millennium year the bargains are better than ever.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2000

Seat bill passes Diet on ruling bloc's vote

The contentious seat-reduction bill that has rocked the government for months was passed in an Upper House plenary session Wednesday amid an opposition boycott of all Diet proceedings. The ruling coalition -- the Liberal Democratic Party, Liberal Party and New Komeito -- skipped committee sessions in...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2000

KEDO ready to begin construction on nuclear reactors

Staff writer Full-scale construction of two light-water reactors in North Korea is set to begin by mid-February, Desaix Anderson, executive director of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, said in an interview. On Monday in Tokyo, Japan signed a loan agreement with KEDO to provide up...
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2000

Opposition parties continue Diet boycott

The Lower House on Monday entered a two-day, question-and-answer session on policy speeches delivered Friday as the opposition camp continued its boycott in the face of last week's turmoil over a seat-reduction bill. It marked the first time in the past 33 years that a question-and-answer session on...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jan 30, 2000

More Japanese baseball games on the horizon?

Japanese sports papers are saying the Central and Pacific Leagues are thinking of expanding their season schedules to 140 games in 2001, and the PL is considering re-adopting its split-season format used between 1975 and 1982. If they follow through, it will be the most games played by the teams here...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 30, 2000

Vesting the third millennium in peace

KYOTO -- Llamas grazed contentedly on the slopes surrounding Machu Picchu as John Kurtenbach spread out the kesa on the South American peak. Later it became part of a meditation held there.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 30, 2000

Rihito Kimura

To answer the question what is bioethics, professor Rihito Kimura wrote a book and more than a hundred articles. "It is a huge subject," he said. "Many people think its focus is on medical issues, but it is much wider than that. It has ethical, legal and social implications too, in an environmental context....
BUSINESS
Jan 28, 2000

Finance meeting ends rates speculation

Last week's Group of Seven meeting of financial leaders in Tokyo provided Japan with an opportunity to clear up doubts about its monetary policy options.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2000

State considers move to inflation targeting

Staff writer With little room left for government spending to stimulate the fragile economy, political pressure on the Bank of Japan is rising. The Liberal Democratic Party's panel on financial affairs decided Thursday to launch a working team next week to study whether the BOJ should adopt inflation...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2000

Seat-cut bill rammed through Lower House

The ruling parties on Thursday night ignored an opposition boycott of a Lower House plenary session and passed a controversial bill that would cut 20 seats from the chamber. Passage came around 8:30 -- 7 1/2 hours after the session was to open. It was the second time in as many nights that the ruling...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jan 26, 2000

The menu's a long fellow at Coffee House Poem

As "the new millennium" approached, there were endless arguments over whether we actually had cause to celebrate. The "Is it 2000 or 2001?" debate continues, but certainly no one would dispute that the number 100 represents a long life, a perfect score or the number of coffees available on the menu at...
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 / Travel
Jan 26, 2000

The wild daffodils of Awaji Island

Awaji Island (area 590 sq. km), administratively part of Hyogo Prefecture, is located in the Inland Sea between Kobe and Tokushima in Shikoku. It is the largest island in the Inland Sea, and was once a separate province.
SUMO
Jan 25, 2000

Musoyama captures first sumo title at Hatsu Basho

Six and a half years after his auspicious debut in the top division in September 1993, Musoyama finally won his first yusho, defeating fellow-sekiwake Kaio on senshuraku (final day) to clinch the championship of the 2000 Hatsu Basho Sunday with an outstanding 13-2 record.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2000

Putin to respect agreements with Japan

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has received a letter from acting Russian President Vladimir Putin that says Russia will respect a series of previous agreements reached by the two countries' leaders to enhance their partnership, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. Putin's remark may help Tokyo assess Moscow's...
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2000

Panel snubs opposition, begins seat-cut talks

Amid fierce protest from the opposition camp, a Lower House committee began deliberating a controversial bill Tuesday that would reduce the number of Diet seats. The move is apparently an effort by the ruling camp to maintain the framework of the coalition by fulfilling a promise made earlier between...
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2000

Common sense up in flames

Shizuka Kamei, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, recently proposed a raise in the tobacco tax in the fiscal 2000 government budget. The proposal, however, was quickly quashed due to opposition in the LDP and by Japan Tobacco Inc., the nation's only cigarette manufacturer. Smokers and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2000

Enhancing global security

The business of the world has changed almost beyond recognition over the course of the last 100 years. At the turn of the last century, Japan was the first country outside Europe to break into the ranks of the great powers. Yet even until World War II, international affairs were largely Eurocentric in...
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2000

Close the bases, start again

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's Cabinet deserves praise for changing Japan's policy stance regarding the Japan-U.S. security system. First, the Cabinet recently proposed a 15-year time limit on U.S. use of the facility that would take over operations of the U.S. Futenma Marine Air Station in Okinawa, which...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

G-7 expected to hold low-stress meeting

Staff writer Policy coordination over the yen's rise against the dollar will be the biggest issue for Japan at Saturday's financial meeting of the Group of Seven industrial countries in Tokyo. Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa hopes the G-7 will share Japan's concern about the yen's appreciation; the...
COMMUNITY
Jan 20, 2000

Multifaceted legacy is rock solid

The public will never know what Ronald Winston looks like. Until he dies, that is.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

Politicians brace for battle as Diet opens

The 147th ordinary Diet session was convened Thursday, as the ruling and opposition camps brace to do political battle over a controversial proposal to cut the number of seats in the Lower House and an expansive 84.99 trillion yen budget for the fiscal year. The current Diet session is scheduled to...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 18, 2000

Here comes Japan's e-boom

Let me make some predictions about Japan's economic performance in and after 2000. I believe that recovery in the next 12 to 18 months will be slow but robust expansion will take place after that. The boom will not benefit everyone, as did the past expansion, however. It will be accompanied by the polarization...
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2000

Nations must cooperate to stop illegal drugs, Azuma says

Drug abuse is not a problem that can be solved by just one nation, Shozo Azuma, parliamentary vice minister for foreign affairs, said at the opening ceremony of "Anti-Drug Conference, Tokyo 2000" on Monday. Law enforcement and financial officials as well as researchers from about 20 Asia- Pacific nations...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 18, 2000

Call it garage punk, if you insist

"I was in a band called the Titties," says Cat Scratch, squeezing her breasts.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Viva Odaiba! Ishihara dreams of casinos in the bay

Cigarette smoke wafts out of noisy pachinko parlors, crowds armed with racing forms jostle one another on trains on horse racing days, and lines form in front of lottery ticket booths. You may or may not call it gambling, but playing to test your luck has grown into a huge industry in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2000

The buzz is all about Vladimir Putin, too

Talk at the Balalaika restaurant in Tokyo's Kanda district these evenings, as at the 27 other restaurants specializing in Russian cuisine in the Japanese capital, is focused on Vladimir Putin.
BUSINESS
Jan 14, 2000

New Year yen fall forecast proved accurate

My predictions have come true. The yen has stumbled into 2000, giving up much of its recent gains as anticipated.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 12, 2000

We have a future

Another megamerger, another Internet world-eating conglomerate emerges. Apart from its size, the AOL-Time/Warner deal is a big deal: The marriage of AOL and Time Warner matters (if it goes throtwo reasons. First, it combines one of the biggest Net presences with a broadband delivery systefinally makes...
BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2000

Minicar sales hit record high in '99

Sales of new minicars in 1999 jumped 21.2 percent from the previous year to 1.88 million units, the highest annual figure since the Japan Mini Vehicles Association started taking statistics in 1967, the association said Tuesday.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.