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BASEBALL / MLB
May 19, 2001

Yakult's Ramirez drives in seven runs

Yakult's Alex Ramirez went 4-for-5 and drove in seven runs in his team's 16-hit batting rampage as the Swallows trounced the Hanshin Tigers 14-3 at Jingu Stadium on Friday night.
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

White paper calls for foreign investment

To cope with intensifying competition with China amid a prolonged economic slump at home, Japan should actively woo foreign direct investment and become more efficient, according to the White Paper on International Trade 2001 released Friday.
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

Panel chair nixes call for Nakamura to quit over bribery

The House of Councilors Steering Committee on Friday killed an opposition-proposed resolution calling on former Construction Minister Kishiro Nakamura to resign from Parliament over a conviction for bribe-taking, which he has appealed, arguing he is not guilty.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2001

KDDI reports net profits surge of 318% for fiscal 2000

KDDI Corp., the nation's No. 2 telecom operator, announced Friday its earnings results for fiscal 2000, which ended in March.
COMMENTARY / World
May 19, 2001

Koreans' dream of unity is still remote

SEOUL -- In less than a month, Koreans will commemorate the first anniversary of the historic inter-Korean summit. In mid-June last year, the leaders of the divided country met for the first time and vowed to open a new chapter in peninsular relations. Numerous political and academic events will take...
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

Tokyo Metro government now testing a 'pollen-icide'

A Tokyo Metropolitan Government-affiliated institution says it may have a solution to the nation's pollen problem.
EDITORIALS
May 19, 2001

Moderation wins in Spain

Spanish voters rejected violence on both ends of the political spectrum last weekend. In parliamentary elections in the Basque region, the moderate Basque Nationalist Party was the big winner. The party, which already heads the regional government, has vowed to fight for independence through legal means....
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

Top officials of coalition mull trips to Beijing, Seoul

The secretaries general of the Liberal Democratic Party and its two coalition partners are considering visiting China and South Korea in the near future, LDP Secretary General Taku Yamasaki said Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 19, 2001

Dancing with rubbish leads to dancing with rice

It is easy to pick out dancer Firak di Bello in a crowd. Slight of build and all skin and bone, his shaven head mirrors the sun. Equally distinctive are his eyes (as wary as they are warm and all-seeing), the hawklike nose (which leads the way) and a gait that bobs rather than glides.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
May 19, 2001

Satellite radio: a commuter's best friend

Ever wonder how Japanese people can sleep on trains? Ever wonder how they know exactly when to wake up at their stop? I've finally figured it out: They're not really sleeping. They're listening to satellite radio. Satellite-radio stations offer a variety of programs, many of them designed with Japan's...
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

Warrant issued for Sumiyoshi-kai chairman

Police obtained an arrest warrant Friday for the chairman of Sumiyoshi-kai, one of Japan's largest yakuza gangs, on suspicion of conspiring with a Tokyo realtor to evade a creditors' asset seizure, police officials said.
BUSINESS
May 19, 2001

Matsushita, Bayer enter into tieup

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. said Friday it has agreed with Bayer Corp. of the United States to jointly develop, manufacture and market diagnostic products.
JAPAN
May 19, 2001

Farmers' land improvement unions diverted membership dues to LDP

Government-subsidized "land improvement unions" of farmers in 17 prefectures have misappropriated union membership fees worth 46.13 million yen since fiscal 1996 to pay for union leaders' membership fees for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and to aid LDP lawmakers, the Agriculture Ministry said this...
BUSINESS
May 19, 2001

Meager gains in premiums precede mergers of insurers

Increased competition saw premium revenue rise only incrementally at Japan's largest property insurance companies, according to fiscal 2000 earnings reports released Friday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 19, 2001

Dana Neufer

Dana Neufer had never lived anywhere other than the Midwest of America until she came to Japan. Her husband's employment with General Motors brought the family here in 1988, when their daughter Erin was still very small. Dana went into a hospital in western Tokyo to have her second child, Jeffrey. "That...
EDITORIALS
May 18, 2001

Poisoning the air and the airwaves

The Saitama District Court has ruled in favor of TV Asahi in a damage suit filed against the network over its report that high levels of dioxin, a toxic substance, had been found in vegetables in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture. Farmers in the area claimed that the report spread rumors that vegetables...
JAPAN
May 18, 2001

Child abuse found rising as 16 die in three months

Abuse claimed the lives of 16 children from January through March, up by six from the same period last year, with the total number of reported victims rising by 14 to 53, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
BUSINESS
May 18, 2001

IYBank eyes regional tieups to expand ATM network

IYBank, a new bank specializing in automated services, will actively seek tieups with regional banks, IYBank President Takashi Anzai said.
BUSINESS
May 18, 2001

NTT group's pretax profits tumbled 12% in '00

Declining profits from fixed-line services -- once the mainstay of the telecom sector -- bit into the pretax profits of the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group in fiscal 2000.
BUSINESS
May 18, 2001

Mitsui posts 55% gain in group pretax profits

Major trading house Mitsui & Co. said Thursday its consolidated pretax profits for fiscal 2000 expanded 54.7 percent from the previous year to 79.63 billion yen, helped by securities sales.
COMMENTARY / World
May 18, 2001

Beijing masters tit-for-tat trade policy

CAMBRIDGE, England -- China is on a steep learning curve. There is a tendency to forget that only 20 years ago, China had none of the institutions of a market economy -- nor the trained personnel to operate them.
JAPAN
May 18, 2001

'Elderly households' hit record 6.2 million

Households comprising only elderly residents or only elderly residents and children have topped 6 million for the first time, according to a survey released Thursday by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

Longform

The students at Mitaka Municipal No. 7 Junior High School have access to various cooling devices for when they play sports.
Japan's extreme heat is causing a rethink of school sports