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JAPAN
May 20, 2000

'Black money' scam hits Japan

Four foreigners have been arrested on suspicion of swindling two people out of about 5.4 million yen through a scheme dubbed "black money," police said Friday.
BUSINESS
May 20, 2000

End to deflation fears nearing, BOJ chief says

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Friday that an end to deflationary fears is nearing -- which may mean an end to the zero-interest rate policy -- amid a brightening picture for the Japanese economy.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
May 20, 2000

New made old, old new at Manabiya

I waited for the performance to begin, sitting amid the audience of 30 people or so, packed into the ground-floor room of a new building in the sprawling, nondescript suburbs of Yokohama.
CULTURE / Art
May 20, 2000

Hanae Mori at Art Tower Mito

Mito City in Ibaraki Prefecture hardly seems the place to stage an international fashion exhibition, but Art Tower Mito (ATM), in celebration of its 10th anniversary, has done just that.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2000

The limits of peacekeeping

There is a troubling sense of deja vu in the tragedy befalling the U.N. peacekeeping effort in Sierra Leone (it is really peace enforcement, a euphemism for getting sucked into someone else's war). And more than just putting at risk future U.N. operations, recent events pose vexing questions about how...
COMMENTARY
May 20, 2000

Bigger isn't always better

The failure of the proposed merger between Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank ought to have signaled the end of the merger mania among the world's major banks and to have cautioned banks and other enterprises that big does not mean best. But the message does not seem to have seeped through to some people...
JAPAN
May 19, 2000

Bamboo buildings get support of ZERI as eco-friendly option

OTSU, Shiga Pref. -- One of the pavilions at World Expo 2000, slated to run from June to October in Hannover, Germany, is made mostly of bamboo.
COMMUNITY
May 19, 2000

Peace, abode of poetry, abode of peace

In this world, it remains most difficult to establish lasting peace. Aggrandizement of power continues to deface nations; blind and violent talons never cease shaking and shattering fledgling roots of peace.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2000

25% Mitsui profit dip laid to loan-loss provisions

Trading house Mitsui & Co. said Thursday that its group pretax profits plunged 24.7 percent to 52.61 billion yen in fiscal 1999 on sales of 13.20 trillion yen, down 5.6 percent.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2000

Nikkeiren, Keidanren join drive for greater efficiency

The call for organizational reform that is leading many Japanese companies and even government agencies to struggle to streamline operations is finally reaching the nation's business groups.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2000

Electronics firms emerging from the red

Helped by restructuring efforts and the recovering semiconductor sector, Japan's major electronic appliance and computer chip manufacturers have reported earnings improvements for the past business year.
JAPAN
May 19, 2000

Coalition agrees to hold general election June 25

The Lower House election will be held on June 25 and campaigning will officially start on June 13, leaders of the three ruling parties confirmed Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2000

GMO-free trade opens

The Tokyo Grain Exchange launched futures trading Thursday in U.S. soybeans containing no genetically modified organisms, making it the world's pioneer in GMO-free grain futures trading.
COMMENTARY
May 19, 2000

The right leader for Japan?

Former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi died last Sunday, 42 days after suffering a stroke and falling into a coma. He was 62.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2000

Populist bloc sends UMNO strong message

KUALA LUMPUR-- Delegates to the recently-concluded triennial elections of Malaysia's top political party have voted according to their conscience, sending a strong signal to party president, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, that they prefer their leaders who can reach out to the grassroots of the politically-dominant...
JAPAN
May 19, 2000

Summit elates Osaka's Okinawans

OSAKA -- Osaka lost the bid for the 2000 Group of Eight summit to Okinawa, shocking and disappointing many local business and political leaders who had believed their city was the clear favorite.
JAPAN
May 18, 2000

First woman to conquer Everest claims May '75 feat was unintended

A Japanese housewife who made climbing history May 16, 1975 by becoming the first woman to conquer the world's tallest peak says her achievement was unintended.
JAPAN
May 18, 2000

Mori apologizes for remark

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori apologized before the Diet on Wednesday for having invited a barrage of criticism by saying earlier this week that Japan is a "divine nation centering on the Emperor," but he refused to retract the remark.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
May 18, 2000

The facts you should know before trying to take it all off

More people than ever are overweight, and I would guess that the percentage of people on diets has gone up proportionally as well. Add the number of dieters who really do need to lose weight to those who diet out of some misguided desire to be skeletal, and you've got a lot of people. Weight loss is...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 18, 2000

'Sports executive' a misnomer in Japan

I don't know if it's just my imagination but in recent weeks the incompetence of Japan's alleged "sports executives" seems to have reached an all-time low.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 18, 2000

You too could be the target market of a new drug

Every time I visit the United States, I am increasingly alarmed at the number of TV commercials for prescription drugs, which is something I never saw when I was a child. As a matter of fact, between 1994 and 1998, drug manufacturers increased their spending on direct-to-consumer advertising in the U.S....
JAPAN
May 17, 2000

Half of top Japan taxpayers earned income from stocks

More than half of Japan's top 100 taxpayers last year earned income from stock transactions, with many making windfall profits from the listing of companies in which they have an interest, the National Tax Administration said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 17, 2000

Miyazawa cannot recall 3 million yen Nakamura admits getting as payoff

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Tuesday that he has no recollection of handing a paper bag containing 3 million yen to Kishiro Nakamura, a politician who was convicted of accepting bribes, in 1991 to buy his support to raise antitrust fines.

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.