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BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Nissan, DoCoMo to jointly work on 'telematics' project

Nissan Motor Co. and NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Tuesday they will jointly study and develop a "telematics" service based on the cellular phone giant's third-generation mobile communications technologies.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

TV Asahi buys into movie producer

Asahi National Broadcasting Co., better known as TV Asahi, said Tuesday it has acquired a 1.83 percent stake in Toei Co., one of the nation's three major movie producers.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Keep that video collection -- new DVDs are around corner

The DVD player just went the way of the VCR.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

House Foods appoints new chief

House Foods Corp. said Tuesday it will promote Akira Oze from vice president to president and chief executive officer, replacing Takashi Kono, who will become an adviser.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Koito buys U.S. plane-seat servicer

Koito Industries Ltd. said Tuesday it has acquired KPS N.A. Inc., a U.S. maintenance firm for airplane seats, to strengthen its airplane business in North America.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Banks skeptical of share-purchasing body

Banks are reluctant to use a government share purchasing body set up to help them unwind their massive cross-held shares, the chairman of the Japan Bankers Association said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Matsushita widens loss estimate

Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. said Tuesday it has widened its estimate of losses for the year to March 31 because of wobbling sales of mobile phones at home and abroad.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Feb 20, 2002

Nikkei signals spring rebound not in cards

The Nikkei average, which hit an all-time high of 38,915.87 on the final trading day of 1989, has been languishing at around 10,000 in recent months.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Feb 20, 2002

Master of life's joys and sorrows

Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), Japan's foremost playwright, was born Sugimori Nobumori, the second son of a samurai of the feudal lord of Yoshie in Echizen (now Fukui Prefecture). Because he could not inherit his father's samurai status, Nobumori resolved to be a playwright, and took the pen name...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Ex-Ishioka mayor, aide hit with fresh bribe charges

Prosecutors on Tuesday brought fresh charges against a former mayor of Ishioka, Ibaraki Prefecture, and a former aide to a lawmaker over a 2 million yen bribe allegedly made during bid-rigging for a public waterworks project.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2002

From 'kimono as canvas' to modest couture

What is so fascinating about royal dress? Clearly, in the case of Diana, Princess of Wales, her fame and glamour set the style for millions of people worldwide. But for countless centuries, the dress of the ruling classes has been about far more than just setting a trend: It has confirmed the high status...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Woman calls British ex-POWs to Japan

LONDON -- Keiko Holmes had expected hostility, but when she attended the annual conference of the British Far East Prisoners of War Association in London in 1991, the bitterness harbored by the more than 1,000 veterans and their families present nearly erupted into violence.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2002

The mind has mountains

"It's true," a friend who has lived here for more than a decade insisted. "Because for them it's the most important mountain in the world, Japanese schoolchildren don't draw Mount Fuji the sloping shape it really is, but as incredibly tall and pointed."
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2002

Teens sentenced for fatal beating at train station

The Tokyo District Court handed down indeterminate sentences of three to five years Tuesday to two 19-year-old boys who fatally assaulted a banker on a train platform in Setagaya Ward in April.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002

Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra

For those lucky enough to catch a live performance of Japanese jazz-animals Shibusa Shirazu Orchestra, one look at the legion of raised microphones in the crowd is enough to reassure that recordings of the orchestra aren't in short supply. Fans seem to collect and trade bootlegs like comics or Star Wars...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Feb 20, 2002

Views from a place you've been before

...
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Tax Commission leader opposes prioritizing cuts

The head of the Tax Commission said Tuesday that the panel will not prioritize tax cuts in discussions on comprehensive tax code reform despite a proposal do so by Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002

Sam Phillips: 'Fan Dance'

Nonesuch, America's premier record label for modern music (Kronos Quartet, Steve Reich), has recently become a place where high-minded pop artists can make mid-career course corrections. Emmylou Harris found a sympathetic outlet for her burgeoning Gothic-country tendencies, and the label let Duncan Shiek...
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Japanese firms study fiber-optic e-commerce system

Leading Japanese telecom and technology companies said Tuesday they have begun joint research on a new electronic commerce system using high-speed fiber-optic networks.
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Officials say Bush gave tacit warning on economy

Economic ministers said Tuesday they understood U.S. President George W. Bush had issued "tacit" calls for Japan to revive its economy during his summit with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2002

Onward klezmer voyager

Like people, music travels. How else could a handful of Japanese musicians have come to embrace klezmer, a centuries-old Eastern European folk music historically associated with traditional Jewish weddings?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Feb 20, 2002

And that really burns me up

If, like me, you do a lot of your work at home, I imagine you may like to listen to music as you labor through a translation, write a story or put together a PowerPoint presentation. And you probably find it convenient to listen to CDs on your computer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002

Supersnazz

Supersnazz's 1998 album, "Diode City," must feel like a bit of an albatross for the band. The 19-song punk-pop classic is so awesome that if you locked Supersnazz in a studio for 10 years and held a gun to their heads, they'd be unlikely to better it. On their latest album, "Rock-O-Matic," they don't...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Feb 20, 2002

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Last year, The Strokes and White Stripes were placed in a rocket of hype and blasted into superstardom. The media -- me included -- bludgeoned you into thinking they were the hippest bands in the universe and should be name-dropped at every opportunity if you wanted to be cool. Thankfully, they made...
BUSINESS
Feb 20, 2002

Air Nippon in deal with Eva Airways

Air Nippon, an affiliate carrier of All Nippon Airways, said Tuesday it will launch a code-sharing service with Taiwan's Eva Airways in April in a bid to boost sales.
COMMENTARY
Feb 19, 2002

Koizumi fast losing his luster

The entire affair involving Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's dismissal of Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka on Jan. 29 reminded me of an old saying that "nothing is predictable in politics." Following Koizumi's move, his government's public-approval rating plummeted to about 50 percent after remaining...
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2002

Tochigi elementary, junior high schools tops in boosting women

Tochigi Prefecture has topped the nation in the percentage of female administrators at public elementary and junior high schools in a nationwide survey of women's status in teaching, where a wide gender gap prevails.

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’