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JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Less imported rice rejected last year

Of the 700,000 tons of rice imported in fiscal 2000, 0.08 percent was dumped or sent back due to decay or mold, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Bureaucrat suspected of padding hotel bills

Police are to question a 56-year-old Foreign Ministry official in connection with the latest fraud case to hit the ministry involving alleged padding of hotel bills.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Mourning enters space, cyberspace

New kinds of mortuary services are emerging in Japan to reflect diversifying values, ranging from virtual graves on the Internet to the transferal of ashes into space.
BUSINESS
Aug 22, 2001

Survey shows one in five companies doles out shareholder sweeteners

One in five publicly traded companies hands out gifts to shareholders, mainly in the form of its own goods and services, according to a Daiwa Securities Co. survey.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Brother-in-law arrested over slaying

Police said Tuesday they have arrested a 27-year-old South Korean man for allegedly murdering his 29-year-old sister-in-law and dumping her body along the banks of the Edo River in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 22, 2001

Step into the weird wonderland of illustrator Naohisa Inoue

The 60 acrylic paintings and prints by Naohisa Inoue on display from next week at Bunkamura Gallery in Shibuya invite visitors into the artist's magical world of "Iblard."
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 22, 2001

'Little' Matsui plays big role

Kazuo Matsui drilled a go-ahead two-run clout in the bottom of the eighth inning as the Seibu Lions won their fourth straight by beating the Nippon Ham Fighters 3-1 at the Seibu Dome on Tuesday.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 22, 2001

Conductor Comissiona passes the youth baton

When Sergiu Comissiona arrives in Japan later this month to embark on the final leg of this year's Asian Youth Orchestra tour, it's likely that the baton he always conducts with will feel a little heavier than usual. This year marks the acclaimed Romanian-born conductor's eighth season with the AYO....
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 22, 2001

Nina Persson: 'A Camp'

Not too many musical groups preface their name with the indefinite article, but A Camp doesn't describe a band so much as the state of mind that led to this album's recording. Promoted as a Nina Persson solo effort in fact, if not in name, the record of the same name is loose and uncluttered, dabbling...
BUSINESS
Aug 22, 2001

S&P affirms credit ratings on TDK

Standard & Poor's Corp. said Tuesday it has affirmed major electronic parts maker TDK Corp.'s AA minus long-term and A-1 plus short-term corporate credit ratings, adding the outlook on the long-term rating remains stable.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

IT can cut power costs 20%: institute

The Energy Conservation Center said Monday that the use of information technology in home electricity networks has the potential to reduce home electrical power costs by 20 percent.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Sakhalin to back Japan on fishery ban request

The governor of Russia's Sakhalin region, Igor Farkhutdinov, said he plans to propose that the central government ban fishing by foreign boats in waters around Russian-held islands claimed by Japan, Sakhalin Radio reported Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 22, 2001

NEC, Matsushita units tie up on 3G software

NEC Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. formally announced Tuesday an alliance to develop common software architecture for next-generation (3G) multimedia cellular handsets.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 22, 2001

Noda's kabuki brings the house down

The lobby of the Kabuki-za in Higashi Ginza -- the mecca of kabuki -- was swarming with people last week, ahead of the start of this year's noryo kabuki (summer festival of kabuki).
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Aug 22, 2001

Stock market woes a prelude to hard times

The Tokyo stock market has taken a severe beating in recent days.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 22, 2001

Wiggle

W iggle combine the hard, harsh beats of The Chemical Brothers with the noisy exuberance of The Boredoms and an occasional female vocal that sounds like Shonen Knife on speed. Bravely straddling the accessible and the arty, they would be worth going to see for the music alone.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Hacked auction site causes headaches

Several dozen cases of computer problems have been reported since Saturday after users logged onto an Internet auction site that had earlier been hacked, the Information-technology Promotion Agency said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 22, 2001

Contractors may get job subsidies to hire engineers

The labor ministry may subsidize construction companies as part of a program to create jobs for construction engineers forced out of work as banks strive to dispose of their bad loans, ministry officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Options over last rites sought

When a citizens' group scattered human ashes at sea 10 years ago, they revived a burial practice unseen in Japan for more than 400 years.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Space agencies to be integrated

The science and technology ministry decided Tuesday to integrate three government-affiliated space agencies and create a new space development organization by fiscal 2003.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 22, 2001

'We all felt this could be a masterpiece'

Midway through the triumphant two-week run of his summer-festival kabuki classic "Togitatsu no Utare," cutting-edge director Hideki Noda took time to reflect on his remarkable crossover from contemporary theater to the Kabuki-za in Ginza (no less).
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2001

Tracking system to save climbers via cellphone waves

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency plans to develop a system to locate missing mountaineers using radio waves sent from their mobile phones, agency officials said.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 22, 2001

Rodney Hylton Smith: 'Run Come Save Me'

If you think the only thing Britain has to offer hip-hop is a bunch of arenas for the likes of Eminem and other Americans to fill when they make the short trip across the Atlantic, then it's time to listen to Rodney Hylton Smith and reconsider.
JAPAN / PRIVATIZING PAINS
Aug 22, 2001

Loss-riddled oil entity first to face privatization ax

Kyodo News The proposal by the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to scrap Japan National Oil Corp. and turn it into a private company as part of his structural reform scheme will leave the privatized firm with many problems unresolved.

Longform

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