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BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2002

Tough talk preludes steel meeting

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EDITORIALS
Mar 14, 2002

Death of a warmonger

The death of Mr. Jonas Savimbi offers Angola its first real chance for peace in a decade. War has been a constant feature of Angola's history; Mr. Savimbi has been a key antagonist in the fighting. His death deprives UNITA, the rebel group he commanded since 1966, of its chief source of inspiration and...
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 14, 2002

Troussier taps Alex for Japan squad

Two previously uncapped players -- Shimizu S-Pulse midfielder Alessandro "Alex" Santos and Kashima Antlers' Mitsuo Ogasawara -- have been called up for Japan's upcoming two friendlies, against Ukraine next Thursday in Osaka and Poland away on March 27, Japan coach Philippe Troussier announced Wednesday...
SUMO
Mar 14, 2002

Tochiazuma tossed

OSAKA -- Grand champion hopeful Tochiazuma could not handle No. 2 maegashira Kotonowaka on Wednesday and was thrown for an upset loss four days into the Spring Grand Sumo Tournament.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Sasebo Heavy cuts profit outlook

Sasebo Heavy Industries Co. said Wednesday it has lowered its unconsolidated net profit forecast for the current business year through March 31 because it has been forced to return government money obtained by fraud.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Panel hopes to spur reform with deregulation zones

A government advisory panel on deregulation has proposed creating special deregulation zones and compiling an interim report as early as June.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2002

Premier raises peace hopes in Sri Lanka

There is now hope, however faint, of peace in Sri Lanka after almost two decades of bloody ethnic conflict between the majority Buddhist Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, who are fighting for a separate homeland in the northern and eastern parts of the small island.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 14, 2002

Noam Chomsky: America is a leading terrorist state

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- Noam Chomsky, a linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is world-famous as the originator of the "Transformational Grammar" theory, a framework of principles accounting for all language-specific rules.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Toshiba, Mitsubishi in new 3G deal

Toshiba Corp. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. announced Wednesday they will jointly develop a third generation dual-mode mobile phone platform that will allow users of rival technology to use their handsets around the world.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2002

A demand-starved economy

What do you do if you are Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and the "structural reform" policies you have been advocating with tight lips and a steely gaze are now hit by the deflation you have caused? Simple. You do an about-face and tell the world with tight lips and a steely gaze that you are now absolutely...
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Japan firms open to hackers: group

About 20 percent of Internet servers at Japanese companies use deficient software that leaves them vulnerable to attacks by hackers, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization said Wednesday.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Mar 14, 2002

Rally has put 12,000 in Nikkei's cross hairs

During the recent rally on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the 225-issue Nikkei average broke the 11,000 resistance line.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Air France eyes '05 Nagoya return

The general manager of the Japanese office of Air France said Wednesday that the airline may resume its flights from Nagoya in 2005, the year in which a new international airport is scheduled to open and a world exposition will be held in Aichi Prefecture.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Firms stand hard against pay-scale hikes

Most companies in the nation's four major industrial sectors on Wednesday offered no pay-scale increases beyond standard yearly hikes in spring wage talks with their labor unions, highlighting the severity of the economic slump.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

S&P downplays drug price cuts

Standard & Poor's Corp. said Wednesday that the Japanese government's planned cuts in drug reimbursement prices will have a limited impact on its ratings for seven Japanese pharmaceuticals.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Kansai businesses on China mission

OSAKA -- Business groups in the Kansai region said Wednesday they will send a mission to China on Sunday to discuss economic changes with government leaders.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

METI reviews R&D, investment incentives

A trade ministry study panel on Wednesday began considering revisions to tax incentives on corporate research and development and capital investment.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2002

Furukawa Electric to see red for '01

Furukawa Electric Co. said Wednesday it expects to fall into the red in fiscal 2001 as the slump in information technology businesses in North America affected sales of the company's fiber-optic products.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENS FOR ALL
Mar 14, 2002

Garden jewels in the Tofukuji Temple crown

Tofukuji Temple is one of Kyoto's most magnificent jewels and is one of the city's 17 UNESCO-designated World Heritage sites.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Mar 14, 2002

Evolution of intelligence

Woody Allen once famously said that the brain was his second favorite organ. And it is well-established that having a big one, as with Allen's "first favorite" organ (I'm guessing he wasn't referring to his liver), confers high status on its owner.
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Mar 14, 2002

Junior hoops nearly scores

"Backyard Basketball," a new PC/Macintosh game from Infogrames, is not what you would call a full-fledged simulation. You play most of the game using one button on your mouse, and it only has two professional basketball stars on its roster.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Mar 14, 2002

You win some and you lose some . . .

Ten years ago, on March 12, 1992, this column began its life on these pages. Though it's still "green," when compared with colleagues who have graced The Japan Times for several decades, Our Planet Earth has now appeared more than 245 times.
EDITORIALS
Mar 13, 2002

An inconclusive testimony

Diet testimony given Monday by Liberal Democratic Party legislator Muneo Suzuki proved to be inconclusive. It failed to lift the heavy cloud of doubt hanging over his alleged abuse of power. The central question -- how he used his political clout to favor his friends in government and business -- was...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 13, 2002

No alternative to Saudi peace 'vision'

BEIRUT -- There is little new about Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah's proposal for full Arab "normalization" with Israel in return for a full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of a Palestine state. A vision more than a plan, it leaves vague or unmentioned potential stumbling...
SOCCER / World cup
Mar 13, 2002

Troussier bans media

SUSONO, Shizuoka Pref. -- Japan coach Philippe Troussier, concerned about his players' lack of concentration ahead of two upcoming friendlies, shut out the media Tuesday from the final day of the two-day training camp in Gotenba.
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2002

Kanto Bank, Tsukuba Bank eye 2003 merger

Kanto Bank, a regional bank in Ibaraki Prefecture, and Tsukuba Bank, a second-tier regional bank there, said Tuesday they have agreed to merge as part of efforts to ease clients' concerns over their financial health.
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2002

Nissan to sell factory site to Buddhists

Nissan Motor Co. said Tuesday it will sell most of the site of a former auto plant in western Tokyo to a Buddhist organization for 73.9 billion yen.
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2002

Mobile phone shipments fall 28%

Shipments of mobile phones and PHS handsets in Japan fell 28 percent in January from a year earlier to 3,274,000 units, marking an eighth consecutive month of decline, an industry group said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 13, 2002

Forsooth, 'tis surely no great Shakes

"Shakespeare shakes you. The spear of his imagination shakes you, and the story shakes you," said Mark Rylance, artistic director of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London, in an interview for The Japan Times last October.

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’