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JAPAN
Apr 14, 2001

New rules to trim public organizations

The Cabinet on Friday approved a set of guidelines to reform public organizations financially aided by the government or conducting charity, academic or other work on behalf of the state.
EDITORIALS
Apr 14, 2001

The great Tiger Woods debate

Semantics and politics make a familiar pair. Every other day, it seems, something crops up in the mine-strewn worlds of domestic or international politics that makes us stop and think about the meaning of words. One day it's a foreign president's legalistic musings about the meaning of "is," the next,...
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2001

FSA nearing completion of writeoff plan for banks' bad loans

Financial Services Agency chief Hakuo Yanagisawa said Friday that the FSA has virtually completed drawing up measures to help Japanese banks accelerate their direct writeoffs of bad loans.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2001

State funds lavished on Diet members

Japanese diplomatic establishments in foreign countries used discretionary government funds to wine and dine visiting Diet members, a Foreign Ministry internal document revealed.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 11, 2001

Japanese neighbors join in incinerator struggle

Two previous columns have focused on a United States government lawsuit seeking a provisional injunction against a private incinerator in Ayase City, Kanagawa Prefecture. The Americans, however, are not the only ones eager to shut down the facility. Other neighbors, too, are fired up about Envirotech...
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2001

GEOS affiliates fined for hiding 280 million yen

Around 20 companies affiliated with English-language school operator GEOS Corp. failed to declare some 280 million yen in income in the five years to March 2000, industry sources said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

The spy game: high stakes, low payoffs

LONDON -- It's an impressive list: CIA official Aldrich Ames jailed for life in 1994 for spying for Moscow; CIA agent Harold Nicholson jailed for 23 years in 1997 for the same offense; FBI employee Earl Pitts sentenced to 27 years later the same year for passing information to Moscow; U.S. Army Col....
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2001

External panel meets to review workings of Foreign Ministry

A panel of outside experts advising the Foreign Ministry held its first meeting Wednesday morning to review ministerial operations and discuss ways of preventing further misuses of public funds.
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2001

External panel meets to review workings of Foreign Ministry

A panel of outside experts advising the Foreign Ministry held its first meeting Wednesday morning to review ministerial operations and discuss ways of preventing further misuses of public funds.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Defense Agency staff, SDF to face stiffer penalties for spying

The Defense Agency plans to make penalties for personnel and Self-Defense Forces members who leak secret information harsher by raising the maximum prison term from one year to five years, agency sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2001

Ministry funded Cabinet Secretariat on the sly: officials

Some of the Foreign Ministry's discretionary diplomacy funds were given to the Cabinet Secretariat every year despite legal restrictions on the transfer of budget funds between government organs, some government officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2001

Ministry funded Cabinet Secretariat on the sly: officials

Some of the Foreign Ministry's discretionary diplomacy funds were given to the Cabinet Secretariat every year despite legal restrictions on the transfer of budget funds between government organs, some government officials said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 20, 2001

Construction firms' profits slide

The combined unconsolidated operating profits at Japan's 52 major construction companies declined 29.9 percent to 100.6 billion yen in the first half of fiscal 2000, the Research Institute of Construction and Economy said Friday.
BUSINESS
Jan 6, 2001

Four major department stores plan to merge home deliveries

Four of Japan's leading department store chains will jointly launch in April a unified goods home-delivery system in Tokyo and end their separate services, Mitsukoshi Ltd. said Friday.
JAPAN / STAGING A COMEBACK
Jan 4, 2001

Information disclosure could give power to citizens if they get involved

Satoru Ienishi felt overwhelming anger as he watched a newscast at his Tokyo office on June 13, 1998.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 25, 2000

World fisheries collapsing as technology and demand soar

As this is the season of giving, here is a gift, a riddle:
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Japan, U.S. urged to forget trade spats and rethink focus

Japan and the United States should shift the focus of their economic relationship away from coping with individual trade issues and toward creating a more business-friendly environment, according to a still-classified Foreign Ministry report.
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2000

Yatsu hits Yokohama betting tax plan

Yoshio Yatsu, the minister of agriculture, forestry and fisheries, said Friday he opposes Yokohama's plan to introduce Japan's first local tax on horse-race betting.
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2000

Blues for the new millennium

The new CD puts a contemporary spin on classic blues-rock. "It's a ticket to the show." That's how Canadian band leader Robin Suchy describes the newly released CD he produced with his 10-man blues band, the Howling Loochie Brothers.
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2000

Defense dialogue with Russia set to resume in January

The top Defense Agency bureaucrat will visit Russia in January, marking a resumption of defense dialogue suspended when a Japanese naval officer was found in September to have passed classified documents to a Russian military attache, according to Japanese defense officials.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 23, 2000

The man who never forgets a sake

Haruo Matsuzaki raises the small glass to his nose, sniffs for but a couple of seconds, and takes in a small sip. Slurping in a bit of air, he scribbles for a few seconds into his ever-present tiny notebook, finally expelling the sake into the spittoon next to the table. On to the next.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2000

Residency given despite false 'war orphan' claim

Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka granted a special residency permit Tuesday to a 39-year-old Chinese man and his family who arrived in Japan in 1994 and passed themselves off as the blood relatives of a Japanese "war orphan."

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