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LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Apr 6, 2001

Opening the doors to the world

"How many Islamic people are there in the world?" Andrea Landis asks a class of 11th-graders at Ohara High School.
BUSINESS
Mar 30, 2001

More mobile phones anticipated

Ownership of mobile phones in Japan is expected to rise to around 66.8 percent of the population in fiscal 2004 from 57.1 percent in fiscal 2001, according to a survey released Thursday.
BUSINESS
Mar 21, 2001

S&P drops Aozora Bank to BB-pi

U.S. credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's has assigned Aozora Bank a credit rating of BB-pi, which is considered speculative.
BUSINESS
Feb 24, 2001

Failed Taisho Life contracts set to move to new entity

Softbank Finance Corp. and Yamato Mutual Life Insurance Co. announced Friday that they have formed a wholly owned subsidiary to take over failed life insurer Taisho Life Insurance Co. on March 31.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 14, 2001

Sakhalin oil sparks hopes and fears

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia -- Sakhalin Island is a remote former penal colony where the sea freezes for up to six months a year and villagers have been known to sleep in tents pitched in their bedrooms when the central heating fails.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2001

How do you spell that again?

Another storm has been raging lately in the teacup of English. Like many linguistic squalls, this one is centered on spelling. It blew up in Britain late last year after the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority decreed the use of internationally agreed spellings for some scientific terms...
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2001

Colleges brace as fewer apply

Tadataka Koide, president of Aichi Gakuin University in Nagoya, is awaiting this month's entrance exams with anticipation and anxiety.
BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2001

U.S. firms in hunt for Tokyo Sowa

Two financial groups, both of which include U.S. investment funds, are leading the race to buy the failed Tokyo Sowa Bank, industry sources said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2001

Softbank to be lead buyer of Taisho Life

Midsize life insurer Yamato Mutual Life Insurance Co. and a group led by Softbank Corp. plan to take over the failed Taisho Life Insurance Co., sources said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 18, 2001

Firms unite on Net voice access

IBM Japan Ltd., Oki Electric Industry Co. and Hitachi Ltd. plan to set up in April a Japanese unit of the VoiceXML Forum, an international group that promotes open standards on voice access technologies for the Internet, company officials said Wednesday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 16, 2001

Best politics money can buy

Under a new law, which will come into force shortly in Britain, all political donations of more than 5,000 British pounds (some 800,000 yen) will have to be reported and foreign donations will be disallowed. The rules have been brought in to deal with suspicions that large donations to party funds may...
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2001

Aozora Bank unveils new logo

Aozora Bank, the reincarnation of the failed Nippon Credit Bank, kicked off operations Thursday by unveiling its new corporate logo in a high-profile ceremony.
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2001

Redevelopment hits Tokyo's heart

For the moment, it remains an enormous no man's land in the heart of Tokyo, with the only signs of life the numerous cranes, prefab huts and foundations that indicate construction projects are under way.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 27, 2000

Shaky finances threaten to sink KEDO

Sinp'o is a quiet coastal town on the edge of the Japan Sea in North Korea, almost two hours by helicopter from the capital Pyongyang. There is a beautiful swath of unspoiled beach, edged with bushes and shrubs typical of marine margins, and clusters of shabby houses and farms littered across the landscape....
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

Japan offers $10 million in food aid to Yugoslavia

Japan will provide about $10 million in emergency food and medical aid to the new Yugoslav government set up by opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica to help ordinary Yugoslav citizens get through the winter, government sources said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 30, 2000

Vietnam proves a reluctant reformer

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Foreign investors have not been showing any confidence in Vietnam's Doi Moi (liberalization) program recently. Socialist market economics, Vietnamese-style, have not proved as attractive as the Chinese version. After the initial euphoria of the early 1990s, when foreign companies...
JAPAN
Sep 25, 2000

Kim urges Mori to help feed North Korea

ATAMI, Shizuoka Pref. -- South Korean President Kim Dae Jung on Sunday called on Japan to extend as much food aid to North Korea as it can.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Japan seeks biomedical boost

Japan plans to improve its competitiveness in biomedical engineering with the creation of a liaison panel involving government, medical and industry representatives, government officials revealed Saturday.
BUSINESS
Sep 23, 2000

NCB to waive 6.1 billion yen in loans to Hazama

Nippon Credit Bank has agreed to waive 6.1 billion yen in loans to debt-ridden Hazama Corp. while maintaining its remaining loans worth 12.8 billion yen to the contractor for the time being, sources close to the deal said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Sep 7, 2000

The price of failure

Nippon Credit Bank, which came under state control in December 1998, was sold last Friday to a consortium led by Internet investor Softbank Corp. The contract includes a controversial clause that says the buyer (the Softbank group) can request the seller (the government) to buy back troubled NCB loans...
BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2000

NCB applies for fund injection

Nippon Credit Bank, under new management, applied to the Financial Reconstruction Commission on Tuesday for an injection of 260 billion yen in public funds into its capital base.
BUSINESS
Sep 5, 2000

Sky Perfect wins rights to air 2002 World Cup

Sky Perfect Communications Inc. said Monday that it has won exclusive satellite broadcasting rights in Japan for the 2002 World Cup soccer championship.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

Ripplewood to run failed insurer

The U.S. investment company Ripplewood Holdings LLC, the parent of Shinsei Bank, will take over the operations of the failed Daiichi Mutual Fire & Marine Insurance Co., industry sources said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 31, 2000

Shinsei Bank plans to waive 15 billion yen loans to Hazama

Shinsei Bank will waive 15.3 billion yen of its 43 billion yen in outstanding loans to ailing construction firm Hazama Corp. and then sell the remainder to the debt-ridden company's two main banks, sources close to the negotiations said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2000

Softbank gets approval to take over NCB

The Financial Reconstruction Commission on Friday officially approved the Sept. 1 transfer of the nationalized Nippon Credit Bank to a consortium led by Internet investor Softbank Corp.
BUSINESS
Aug 24, 2000

NCB sale to proceed unchanged, Aizawa tells Son

The government confirmed Wednesday that it will sell the nationalized Nippon Credit Bank to a Softbank Corp.-led consortium Sept. 1 under the original contract terms, government officials said.
BUSINESS
Aug 16, 2000

Tokyo confirms NCB transfer

The operations of state-owned Nippon Credit Bank will be transferred to a consortium led by Softbank Corp. on Sept. 1, the government confirmed Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 11, 2000

Politicians know ordinary people best: Aizawa

The government will not delay again the sale of the nationalized Nippon Credit Bank to a Softbank Corp.-led consortium on Sept. 1, despite a controversial clause in the contract, the new chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Jul 31, 2000

Bangalore emerges as Asia's high-tech hub

BANGALORE, India -- At a recent roadshow for India's Karnataka state, one proud exhibit was a slide of the cover of Newsweek's issue of Nov. 9, 1998, showing a list of the world's "hottest tech cites." The magazine had chosen 10, of which only two were in Asia -- Singapore and Bangalore, Karnataka's...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2000

Okinawans behind Japan-U.S. alliance

Following the tragic rape of a 12-year old Okinawa school girl by three U.S. servicemen in 1995, Secretary of Defense William Perry, perhaps the most respected member of President Bill Clinton's Cabinet, invited former Ambassadors Mike Mansfield and Richard L. Armitage to have lunch with him and the...

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan