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JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Bath salt vendors flout norm, chase smell of success

OSAKA -- The Japanese affinity with hot spring resorts has long provided a market for firms selling bathing salts containing various minerals and ingredients.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Monitors to attend East Timor poll

Japan will dispatch 14 monitors to East Timor between late August and early September to assist international monitoring of the election late this month for the territory's constituent assembly, the Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Koizumi wavering on plan to visit Yasukuni: Tanaka

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka said Tuesday that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is wavering on his decision to visit Yasukuni Shrine after she urged him to reconsider in view of diplomatic relations with China and South Korea.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsuo admits embezzlement

The Foreign Ministry's former head of logistics for VIP trips abroad pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to defrauding the government out of some 161 million yen by padding expenses of overseas visits by two former prime ministers between 1997 and 1999.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2001

. . . And then there's angst

Ghost World Rating: * * * * 1/4 Director: Terry Zwigoff Running time: 111 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing If you're lucky, you made it all the way through high school as one of the in-group, one of the "normal" kids. The next least-bad fate was to not fit in, but remain convinced that somehow...
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Ministry aims housing lender at low earners

The land ministry has drawn up a proposal for the government-run Housing Loan Corp. to target low-income earners, ministry sources said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

Tracing days in their lives

"Two Lives," a joint exhibition of acrylic paintings by Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo and American artist Paul Davis is on show until Aug. 4 at Nishimura Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 1, 2001

Lords of the underground

Asian Underground -- as spurious a genre as there's ever been -- has been hot for a while now, but most people would be hard-pressed to name any pioneers of this sound other than Talvin Singh. For those looking to dig deeper, though, August provides a good opportunity to catch two of the more interesting...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

A century down along the Sumida

In most of the great European capitals, wide, impressive rivers flow through the very heart of the cities, providing the perfect setting for stately buildings such as the Houses of Parliament in London or the Orsay Museum in Paris.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Insurance covers fireworks

Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co. recently announced that it has begun marketing an insurance policy to cover accidents at fireworks displays.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Honda profit up 45.1% in first quarter

Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday its consolidated operating profit for the April-June quarter jumped 45.1 percent from the same period a year earlier to 151.45 billion yen.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Producer promotes Asian women singers

Chika Asamoto is a professional saxophonist in her own right but nowadays she works chiefly as a producer to promote talented Asian female singers.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Prize-winning ninja novelist Futaro Yamada dies at 79

Futaro Yamada, whose unique, romantic and exciting ninja novels sent tidal waves through the Japanese literary world, died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital Saturday, his family said Tuesday. He was 79.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Aug 1, 2001

Poll victory not enough to convince market

Despite the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's victory in Sunday's Upper House election, the yen remains under downward pressure.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

State appeals order to pay black-lung disease victims

The government on Tuesday filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against a high court ruling ordering the state and three companies to pay 1.91 billion yen in compensation to former coal miners who contracted black-lung disease and to families of those who died from the disease.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

National government cuts funds to localities by 4.9%

Central government tax revenues allocated to local governments in fiscal 2001 declined 4.9 percent from the previous year to 19.129 trillion yen, according to an annual report released Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

Mario A's walking, talking, breathing, living doll

A new photography book titled "ma poupee japonaise" arrived in the post the other day, sent by German-Italian artist Mario A. After skimming through pictures of an apparently life-sized wooden doll posed mostly unclothed in a variety of private and public places, I uploaded a brief note about the publication...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

LDP moves up presidential election

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party set the stage Tuesday for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's re-election as party leader by formally deciding to move its presidential race from September to this month.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

State revenues exceeded expenditures in 2000

Government revenues exceeded expenditures by 238.1 billion yen in fiscal 2000, mainly due to increased revenues in corporate taxes, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

NEC to eliminate 4,000 jobs amid global IT shrinkage

NEC Corp. announced Tuesday it will cut 4,000 personnel in Japan and abroad by April and withdraw from DRAM chip operations in 2004 amid a global shrinkage in information-technology markets.
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2001

Breathing new life into the Tories

A political party that suffers a major defeat after 18 years in power is obviously in need of serious self-examination. If it repeats the experience four years later at an election marked by an unusually high degree of abstention, the need for wrenching change may well become inescapable.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Tokyo education board leans toward contentious text for disabled children

The Tokyo metropolitan education board has tentatively decided to adopt a contentious history textbook penned by nationalist historians for use in public schools for disabled children beginning next April, sources close to the board said Tuesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 1, 2001

BayStars rally for seventh straight win

Yokohama catcher Motonobu Tanishige smashed a grand slam home run to highlight a six-run 10th inning on Tuesday night as the BayStars beat the Hiroshima Carp for their season-high seventh straight victory -- an 11-5 win at Hiroshima Stadium. With the score tied 5-5 in the 10th, pinch-hitter Jon Zuber...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Elderly seen warming to overseas home-stays

Yujiro Hamada, 77, is typical of a rising number of middle-aged and elderly Japanese who have rejected more common overseas package tours in favor of extended stays abroad.

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’