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JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Daiwa may join Asahi, Tokai in super-regional bank tieup

Daiwa Bank may join a "super-regional banking" alliance being planned by Asahi Bank and Tokai Bank, industry sources said Wednesday night.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Mitsubishi Chemical to absorb Tokyo Tanabe

Mitsubishi Chemical Corp., the nation's largest comprehensive chemical firm, and Tokyo Tanabe Co., a medium-size medicine maker, announced Thursday they will merge Oct. 1, a development that could trigger a realignment of the nation's pharmaceutical industry.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Justice panel urges prosecutors for juvenile hearings

The Justice Ministry's Legislative Council on Thursday proposed that prosecutors be conditionally allowed to attend family court hearings in serious juvenile crimes.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Teen takes boy hostage at knifepoint

A teenager held a 9-year-old boy hostage at knifepoint for more than two hours on a street in Tokyo's Minato Ward Thursday before being arrested by metropolitan police.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Burned cabby booked in bid to bomb rival

A 29-year-old taxi driver from Tokyo's Setagaya Ward was arrested Thursday on suspicion of assembling an explosive and attempting to mail it to a rival in a love triangle, police said.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Osaka's Olympics bid outlays probed

As the bribery scandal smolders around the International Olympic Committee, the heat is increasing for Osaka Olympic officials over allocations of city funds to various Games-related functions, including meetings with IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and payments to intermediaries for Osaka and various...
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 1999

Pyongyang's bluster

It has been four years since the United States and North Korea negotiated their framework agreement to dismantle the latter's clandestine nuclear-weapons program. Progress -- if one can call it that -- has been slow. Hopes that tensions on the Korean Peninsula would abate have been frustrated. Last weekend,...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 20, 1999

Toys today, tools tomorrow

Cybersurfers never had it so good. The efforts of Apple's Steven Jobs to revive his legacy mean that we can order the iMac in one of five "flavors." Thanks, Steve. Bill Gates wants you to be able to go anywhere you want on the Net -- as long as Microsoft escorts you on the journey
JAPAN
Jan 20, 1999

Fuhonsen currency said prompted by Tang threat

The threat posed by China's Tang dynasty prompted Japan to boost the state's economic strength by minting its first coins in the late seventh century, earlier than previously believed, according to an archaeologist at a national research institute.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 1999

Minister pushes for breakthrough in Narita deadlock

Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki ordered top ministry officials Wednesday to do what they can to break a deadlock over the Narita airport expansion project by about April.
JAPAN
Jan 20, 1999

Osaka hotel ironic symbol of bubble's collapse

Another major hotel in Osaka will cease business soon.
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 1999

A regional test for Japan

If the International Monetary Fund today serves, in effect, as a tough lender of last resort globally, Japan last year gave itself the role of a friendly neighborhood bank in East Asia. That choice has proved timely, but it has become more challenging as the new year began. Unsettling news from two places...
JAPAN
Jan 19, 1999

Failed futures firm execs arrested in trading scam

Police arrested eight people Tuesday linked to a defunct Tokyo-based commodity futures trading firm on suspicion that they swindled three company executives out of about 135 million yen, officials said.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 1999

Kan terms Obuchi 'vacuum cleaner' on issues

Opposition parties lambasted Obuchi's policy address Tuesday for lacking specific measures for solving the nation's problems.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 1999

Nissan ready to deal out one-third stake, chief says

A foreign automaker could acquire more than one-third of Nissan Motor Corp., which would give it the right to veto management decisions at shareholder meetings, Nissan President Yoshikazu Hanawa said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 1999

Environment Agency urges restoration of wetlands, coast

Coastal areas and wetlands around the Seto Inland Sea should be restored and land reclamation projects strictly controlled to protect remaining natural areas, an Environment Agency advisory group said in a report released Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jan 19, 1999

Ancient coin find rewrites Japan's monetary history

Japan's money economy began earlier than textbooks have described, archaeologists said Tuesday in unveiling 33 bronze coins from the late seventh century recently unearthed in the village of Asuka, Nara Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 1999

E-mail boosts use of real thing, Pitney Bowes' CEO says

Despite the growing use of electronic mail and electronic business systems, the market for physical mail systems will continue to grow as new technologies generate new business opportunities, according to the chairman and chief executive officer of a leading mailing system company.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 1999

'Otoshidama' levels down amid recession

Elementary school kids in Tokyo received an average 26,790 yen as "otoshidama" New Year's allowance this year, down 575 yen from last year amid the severe economic downturn, according to a survey conducted by Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank.
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 1999

Coalition's anticlimactic debut

The curtain rose Thursday on the new conservative coalition government to reveal just one more unimpressive performance of the same old political drama. Much had been said and written about the apparent significance of the realignment, but it seems to have ended up as essentially just another political...
JAPAN
Jan 15, 1999

Town mergers, decentralization go together: Noda

Mergers of cities and towns should be promoted along with decentralization to reduce administrative costs, said Takeshi Noda, the new home affairs minister.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 1999

20-year-olds celebrate adulthood

Ceremonies commemorating Coming-of-Age Day were held Friday, drawing thousands of new adults to municipal offices across the country.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 1999

Air Link's members-only approach winning believers

24th in a series of occasional articles on venture businesses
JAPAN
Jan 15, 1999

32% approve of Coalition Cabinet; 44% don't

The just-launched coalition Cabinet of the Liberal Democratic Party and the Liberal Party is supported by 32 percent of those polled by Kyodo News, the same support rating Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's Cabinet received in July, it was learned Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 1999

Helicopters scrubbed during Kobe quake fires

The Ground Self-Defense Forces mobilized seven helicopters within 24 hours of the Great Hanshin Earthquake to fight fires caused by the temblor, which hit on Jan. 17, 1995, sources said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 14, 1999

Dangerous posturing in Brazil

Meeting in Hong Kong earlier this week, 17 of the world's central bankers expressed cautious optimism that the Asian economic crisis had bottomed out. Any relief those comments might have inspired was short-lived: Almost immediately after came reports of a political standoff in Brazil. If President Fernando...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 1999

Japan is prepared to help Brazil: Miyazawa

Should an international rescue package be prepared to help financially troubled Brazil, Japan is ready to contribute its fair share, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 1999

Pyongyang would face 'strong warning' for missile move

Japan, the United States and South Korea should jointly issue a strong warning to North Korea if Pyongyang shows signs of attempting to launch another missile, visiting U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen and Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura agreed Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 1999

Japan's previous coalition governments

Coalition governments have emerged numerous times in Japanese politics to either secure a better hold on the Diet or topple an administration:
JAPAN
Jan 14, 1999

Imperial poetry reading touches on blue, youth

The Emperor and Empress took part in an annual New Year's poetry reading ceremony at the Imperial Palace Thursday where Japanese "waka" poems written by both Imperial family members and the general public were read.

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