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JAPAN
Mar 9, 1998

10 trillion yen stimulus eyed

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party will call for an additional economic stimulus package of more than 10 trillion yen after the Diet approves the fiscal 1998 state budget in April, top officials of the LDP have indicated.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 1998

Bill to make wards municipalities

The Home Affairs Ministry plans to submit a set of bills to the Diet March 10 to revise laws to convert Tokyo's 23 wards into full-fledge municipalities in April 2000, ministry officials said March 9.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 1998

Kitora chamber reveals ancient planisphere

KASHIHARA, Nara Pref. -- A planisphere carved into a stone chamber inside a 1,300-year-old tumulus in the village of Asuka shows such important constellations as Ursa Major, Orion and Scorpio, an expert has found.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 1998

Arrested Finance officials face new charges

Prosecutors charged two former Finance Ministry bank inspectors in custody Friday with taking a combined 3.8 million yen in additional bribes from four commercial banks in return for favors.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 1998

Bureaucrats applying brakes threaten freedom of info act

Last in a series
JAPAN
Mar 6, 1998

New BOJ plan to cut pay of governor, executives

The annual salary for the Bank of Japan governor will be lower than that of the prime minister beginning in April.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1998

Spend ODA strategically, forum urges

Japan should use its Official Development Assistance more strategically and in tandem with diplomatic tactics to serve its national interests, a private think tank said in a report submitted Thursday to Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1998

Camera enters Kitora burial mound to glimpse elusive art

ASUKA, Nara Pref. -- Using a tiny, high-resolution camera, archaeologists on Thursday began examining the interior of the 1,300-year-old Kitora burial mound for the first time in 15 years, hoping to get clear images of mural paintings inside the stone tomb.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1998

Local efforts serving as wedge for disclosure

Second in a series
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1998

Matsunaga to issue stiff punishment if bribes prove true

Finance Minister Hikaru Matsunaga said Thursday that he is ashamed of the arrests of two more bureaucrats and promised to hand out stiff administrative punishments to them and their superiors if the allegations prove to be true.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 1998

ANA changes profit forecast to loss

All Nippon Airways Co. announced Thursday that it is revising its forecast of a 2.3 billion yen net profit in its business report for the term that ends in March 1998 into a 3.2 billion yen net loss.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 1998

Information disclosure bill seen as first step

First in a series
JAPAN
Mar 4, 1998

Vindicated gassing suspect wants Aum's Niimi to tell truth

Yoshiyuki Kono, falsely accused in connection with the June 1994 nerve gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, said Wednesday at the trial of an Aum Shinrikyo figure that he hopes the proceedings shed light on what really happened.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 1998

Financier arrested in major stock fraud

The president of a Tokyo finance company was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of making 5.5 billion yen in profits through fraudulent stock transactions, police said.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1998

France hid medical effects of nuclear testing, activist says

Staff writer
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1998

Amnesty criticizes Cambodian peace plan

Cambodia's Second Prime Minister Hun Sen and his security forces continue to kill people for their political beliefs, casting doubt on how fair the country's upcoming July elections will be, said Rory Mungoven, program director of Amnesty International's Asia and Pacific region.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1998

BOJ breaks precedent, divulges minutes of policy talks

For the first time ever, the Bank of Japan disclosed Tuesday the minutes of a recent monetary policy meeting in line with recently adopted transparency rules.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1998

Quake-hit Kaigan Building gets new look

KOBE -- The Kaigan Building, once a symbol of Kobe's former "kyoryuchi," or foreigners' district, in Chuo Ward, has been resurrected and enlarged, after the original structure was destroyed in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
JAPAN
Mar 3, 1998

Bill approved to grant groups corporate status

The Upper House Committee on Labor and Social Policies unanimously approved a bill Tuesday that would, for the first time, give corporate status to volunteer groups and other citizens' groups by recognizing them as official nonprofit organizations.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 1998

Court sentences Onoue to 12 years for fraud

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on Monday sentenced a woman once called Japan's largest individual stock investor to a 12-year prison term for fraud and breach of trust to the tune of about 274 billion yen.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 1998

Universal gets go-ahead as experts urge paving of toxic waste

Staff writer
JAPAN
Mar 2, 1998

Parents cope with slaying of Japanese-Brazilian son

Staff writer
JAPAN
Mar 2, 1998

Aum's Dr. Hayashi faces life term for sarin attack

Prosecutors Monday demanded that Dr. Ikuo Hayashi, one of five Aum Shinrikyo figures accused of releasing nerve gas on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995, be sentenced to life in prison.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

Cabinet expresses concern over business conditions

During a Lower House Budget Committee meeting Friday, Cabinet members admitted serious concern over current business conditions.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

Azerbaijan says Japan lagging in investment

Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev said Friday that Japan lags behind other countries such as the United States in making investments in Azerbaijan, but contends his visit to Tokyo will result in increasing Japan's investment.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

PHS subscriber slump threatens Astel

Astel Tokyo Corp., a Tokyo-based personal handy-phone system (PHS) company, selected Ken Kitazono, the former chairman of Tokyo Telemessage Inc., as its new president Friday amid continued difficulties to gain subscribers.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

School acts to stem sexual harassment after Korean incident

Tokyo Keizai University said it has taken measures following an incident in June in which a Japanese male student was accused of sexually harassing female South Korean students on campus.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

Doctor queried on Aum gas attack autopsy

Defense lawyers for Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara on Friday cross-examined a professor of forensic medicine who conducted an autopsy on a victim of the March 1995 Tokyo subway nerve gas attack.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

Open cell makes barefoot jailbreak easy

A Chinese man charged with not carrying a passport ran barefoot from a Tokyo police jail early Friday morning after an officer apparently failed to lock the detention hall and his cell.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 1998

Small companies not yet ready for 2000 Bug

About half of small and midsize companies using computers in Tokyo have not yet adapted their systems to cope with the "Year 2000 problem," or Millennium Bug, which is expected to wreak havoc on companies with computers unable to process 21st century dates, a metropolitan survey says.

Longform

Passengers that were on a morning train attacked by members of the Aum Shinrikyo group wait for medical assistance outside Kasumigaseki Station on March 20,1995.
The day a religious cult brought terror to Tokyo