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BUSINESS
Jan 25, 2000

Think before giving nonbankers licenses, JBA chief urges

The relationship banks will have with nonfinanciers trying to enter the industry should be clarified before authorities decide to grant them banking licenses, Katsuyuki Sugita, chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association, said Tuesday.
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.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2000

'20s Industry Club faces wrecking ball

The 80-year-old Industry Club of Japan building in Tokyo's Marunouchi district, which has served as a hub for Japan's business circles, will next month undergo reconstruction.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2000

Kobe Steel exec admits paying 'sokaiya' 30 million yen

OSAKA -- A former managing director of Kobe Steel Ltd. admitted during his first court hearing Tuesday that the firm paid 30 million yen in cash to a "sokaiya" corporate extortionist in violation of the Commercial Code. Hiroshi Kajiwara, 58, acknowledged the facts outlined by prosecutors and said he...
EDITORIALS
Jan 24, 2000

Saddam Hussein unrepentant

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, a move that launched the Persian Gulf War. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein lost the war, but he seems to be winning the peace. He has successfully blocked international efforts to enforce compliance of the treaty he signed and the United...
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...
BUSINESS
Jan 24, 2000

A new economic theory for a new millennium

The arrival of the new millennium offers us an opportunity to consider matters from a longer term point of view. While it is impossible to predict the events of the coming 1,000 years -- pause to consider that of today's seven leading industrialized coun- tries, only Japan, France and Britain existed...
COMMENTARY
Jan 24, 2000

Homage to a mass murderer

I was shocked to see a photograph in The Japan Times last month of former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama and former Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka laying a wreath at the statue of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. They looked rather sheepish. They should, in fact, have looked...
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 24, 2000

U.S. Greens Abroad get organized for wiser, more principled politics

Once, green was just a color. Now the word evokes numerous shades of fear, anger and optimism, and pops up in discussions of politics, economics, trade and environment.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2000

Aum by any other name...

Desperate people -- and groups -- can be expected to take desperate steps. The carefully orchestrated public relations campaign in which the Aum Shinrikyo cult is now engaged, including changing the cult name to Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, for a "fresh start," seems like little more...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2000

Japan's 'railway diplomacy' rolls forward

Plans for a Japanese consortium to construct a shinkansen link between Taiwan's two biggest cities will showcase Tokyo's technology and "railway diplomacy." Both have been running virtually nonstop and on schedule since 1872, when the first line connecting Tokyo's Shimbashi station to Yokohama opened....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 23, 2000

Missile defense opens a Pandora's silo

Ever since 1983, when U.S. President Ronald Reagan broached the project, the idea of a missile defense program that would protect the United States from nuclear attack has burned bright in the breasts of many Americans. The image of a nation protected from threat and insulated from nuclear blackmail...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2000

Ensembles produce refined nuances in lasting, expressive performances

Ensemble. Now there's a word we bandy about all the time in music. A French word, it means "together." In music, it has two shades of meaning. On the one hand, we often speak of good ensemble, or poor, when we refer to the precision of playing together. A musical group is itself called an ensemble: musicians...
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...
COMMUNITY
Jan 23, 2000

U.S. lawyer set to solve your immigration woes

Being a quietly spoken, modest-sounding soul, immigration lawyer Mark Ivener, of the California-based law practice Ivener & Holt, may not like the following revelation. But the fact is he gives a good part of his professional time for free by giving immigration lectures and seminars.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Jan 23, 2000

Buried in time

A woman writes of her problem. It is likely to remain one. She has a collection of what she calls bark pictures, produced in Japan after World War II. She describes them as landscapes composed of mountains made of tree bark, trees made of moss, and painted water and skies. She doubts if they were considered...
EDITORIALS
Jan 22, 2000

A mother's place is in the Diet

Babies are always news, but an even more special baby than usual is expected in Japan in April. Its mother is a news-maker herself: Diet member and former Olympic speed skater and cyclist Ms. Seiko Hashimoto. Dubbed a "superwoman" of Japanese athletics, Ms. Hashimoto competed in seven consecutive Olympics...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 22, 2000

Partying the century right on out the door

I don't know about you, but I am glad to see the 20th century out the door! And I hope all those crooks out there that made millions on the Y2K scare choke on all that cash -- taking advantage of a bad situation like that is shameful, like selling shovels to rescue workers at the site of an earthquake....
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2000

Vision, not structure, is key to recovery

This is a time of unprecedented opportunity for Japan. It may seem strange to speak of opportunity when the country's political and economic experts are struggling with the challenges of structural change. However, I believe the current pessimism in the country is the result of two misconceptions.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2000

Veteran of Hagi continues rediscovery

Most of the great potters who rediscovered and revived old potting styles in the early to mid years of the 20th century have passed on into the great kiln in the sky. Yet there is one legend who is still potting: Hagi ceramist Kyusetsu Miwa XI.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 22, 2000

Ginza's Satani Gallery closes doors with clearance sale of collection

It was immediately evident that something was very different.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 21, 2000

How to build a career on no satisfaction

Whining, I was once told a long time ago, will get you nowhere, but in our current "culture of complaint" everybody thinks they have the right to air their grievances. That doesn't mean everybody has to listen to them, but in such an environment some people have elevated whining to an art form.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2000

French back weaker yen

French Finance Minister Christian Sautter on Friday said he still shares Japan's concern over the yen's appreciation.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2000

NCB chiefs plead not guilty to '97 window-dressing

Three former executives of the now-defunct Nippon Credit Bank pleaded not guilty Friday to falsifying the bank's fiscal 1997 earnings report to conceal bad loans. The defendants are the bank's former chairman, Hiroshi Kubota, 68; a former president, Shigeoki Togo, 56; and a former vice president, Tadao...
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2000

Indonesia on the brink

Indonesia threatens to become engulfed by violence. Religion, nationalism and feelings of victimization have triggered conflict across the immense archipelago. Clashes between Muslims and Christians have prompted calls for an Islamic jihad, or holy war. Some fear the breakup of the world's fourth-most...
JAPAN
Jan 20, 2000

Cult makes case against new surveillance law

During a hearing before the Public Security Examination Commission, lawyers for Aum Shinrikyo said the cult does not fit the criteria for application of the so-called anti-Aum law, and argued that the new law violates the Constitution, which ensures freedom of religion. The hearing, held at the Justice...
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 20, 2000

Need a winter pick-me-up? Citrus splash quenches blues

Lately I've found myself sprinkling essential oil of orange here and there in the house. It seems suited to winter because something about the scent is both summery and wintery all at once.
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...
JAPAN / Media
Jan 20, 2000

Of the people, for the people: the mass appeal of konbini

Though Japan is famous for importing technology from the West and then sending it back in cheaper and better form, business practices remain homegrown. The shining exception is convenience stores, an American concept that has been so successful here that one could say it subsidized the rest of the Japanese...
COMMUNITY
Jan 20, 2000

Multifaceted legacy is rock solid

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

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.