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BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

NTT to cut local rates for first time since 1952

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone group's two regional carriers announced Friday they will cut local-call charges from 10 yen to 8.8 yen per three minutes, starting in May.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Snow Brand set to shut Osaka plant

Snow Brand Milk Products Co. said Friday it will permanently close the Osaka plant that produced tainted milk products that caused widespread food poisoning last summer.
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

Nippon Life, Sumitomo Mitsui in insurance tieup

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., to be launched in April through the merger of Sumitomo Bank and Sakura Bank, will tie up with the Nippon Life Insurance Co. group to sell insurance products at its outlets, industry sources said Friday.
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

S&P lowers outlooks on five life insurers

Standard & Poor's said Friday it has revised downward the outlooks in its counter-party credit ratings on five Japanese life insurance companies following the recent release of business results for the April-September first half of fiscal 2000.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Town's win against dam had a cost

KITO, Tokushima Pref. -- This remote village lies along the upper stream of the 125-km Naka River.
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

Higashi-Nippon Bank to request taxpayers' money

Higashi-Nippon Bank, a Tokyo-based regional bank that has taken over four Tokyo and Saitama branches of the failed Niigata Chuo Bank, plans to apply for an infusion of public money in order to boost its capital base, sources close to the bank said Friday.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

High court reverses murder acquittal

The Tokyo High Court on Friday reversed a lower court's acquittal of a 34-year-old Nepalese man and sentenced him to life in prison for the 1997 murder of a female employee of Tokyo Electric Power Co.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Kagawa folks get to bottom of their 'udon' bowls in more ways than one

TAKAMATSU, Kagawa Pref. -- As a native of a prefecture famous for Sanuki "udon" (wheat noodles), Kazutoshi Tao thought udon was a simple component of daily life -- until he visited a place where customers whip up their own variety.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Population growth at postwar low: census

The latest census, carried out in October, shows Japan's population at 126.92 million, up 1.35 million from five years ago, the Management and Coordination Agency said Friday, noting that the corresponding growth rate of 1.1 percent was the lowest in the postwar era.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Nine WTO members file complaint

GENEVA -- Nine World Trade Organization members led by Japan and the European Union on Thursday filed a complaint with the WTO's dispute-settlement body over a new U.S. antidumping law that many say violates international trade pacts.
BUSINESS
Dec 23, 2000

DaimlerChrysler's Eckrodt nominated COO of MMC

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. said Friday it has nominated Rolf Eckrodt of DaimlerChrysler AG as chief operating officer and vice president.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Sanctions eased for Iraq, Yugoslavia

Japan has decided to partially ease economic sanctions against Iraq for humanitarian reasons and lift sanctions against Yugoslavia due to democratic reforms there, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said Friday.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 23, 2000

Anything but ordinary

With the title "Raj Packet -- Everything But Ravi," you can't help but be curious about the performance. "Raj" possibly indicates something to do with British sovereignty over India in the last century;"packet" could be compendium, maybe a selection box of performance chocolates; "everything" as in "everything...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 23, 2000

Freshly packaged desires on sale at Parco's "Point of Purchase"

Visually speaking, "Point of Purchase" has to be the busiest art exhibition in Tokyo at the moment. The pageantry of graffiti tags-cum-advertising signs is a lot of things: a throwback to yesterday's dorky company logos; a reminder that advertising is far more insidious these days; and a warning that...
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Mother's death stands out in Emperor's remembrance

The Emperor said he was greatly supported by the Empress during the "busy and heavy-hearted days" after his mother died in June.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Muroto taps nearby depths to get competitive edge

MUROTO, Kochi Pref. -- At first glance, it is hard to see what the following products have in common: bottled water, miso paste, bread, snacks and skin lotion.
COMMENTARY
Dec 23, 2000

Robert Downey's problem is not criminal

Drugs can exercise a powerful hold over the human person. Witness American actor Robert Downey, Jr.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 23, 2000

Volunteerism: not just a Western idea

Even before global observance of the International Year of Volunteers begins in January, Japanese are deeply involved in a search for the spirit of international volunteerism. Some insist that it is based on the wisdom of Oriental thought.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 23, 2000

A life fired by devotion to ceramics

Many a foreign Japanese pottery scholar or collector owes a great debt to the life and work of Fujio Koyama (1900-1975). He wrote countless books and articles and some were fortunately translated into English; they are still a great source of knowledge and pleasure. These include the wonderful "The Heritage...
COMMENTARY
Dec 23, 2000

Cabinet reshuffle solves little

Just a week remains until the curtain comes down on the 20th century. We are, in the true sense of the phrase, at the end of a century. Words like fin de siecle and millennium tend to be tossed about, but this year really can only be described as one of end-of-the-century blues.
BASEBALL / MLB
Dec 23, 2000

Giants give Kiyohara 20 million yen raise

Infielder Kazuhiro Kiyohara agreed Thursday to a 20 million yen pay hike and signed a new one-year deal with the Japan Series champion Yomiuri Giants worth an estimated 300 million yen.
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 2000

Punishing 'a haven of lawlessness'

That is how the United Nations Security Council justified its vote earlier this week to impose new sanctions against the government of Afghanistan. Voting 13-0, with two abstentions, the Security Council has demanded that the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Kabul, close "terrorist" training...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2000

DPJ to seek 30% cut in public works spending

Executives of the Democratic Party of Japan adopted a pledge Thursday to seek a 30 percent cut in public works expenditures over five years in the runup to next summer's House of Councilors election.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2000

Regulations set for new banking entrants

A government advisory panel on nonfinancial firms' entry into the banking and insurance sectors issued a final report Thursday that was slightly watered down from an interim report.
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2000

Ministry to map ways to protect unpaid wages

The Labor Ministry is considering ways to guarantee that workers receive unpaid wages in the case of corporate failures.

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