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JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Heavy thunderstorms disrupt traffic, transportation services

Downpours lashed many parts of the country Tuesday afternoon, disrupting railway services and road traffic amid temperatures of over 30 degrees during the day.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Mori Cabinet not necessarily his own

In an effort to assert his leadership and bolster his sagging political fortunes, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori elected for a mix of the old and new in Tuesday's Cabinet reshuffle.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Hankyu to support Dai-Ichi Hotel rehabilitation

The Tokyo District Court decided Tuesday to launch rehabilitation proceedings for the failed Dai-Ichi Hotel Ltd. and four affiliated companies under the auspices of Hankyu Corp., an Osaka-based railway operator.
OLYMPICS
Jul 5, 2000

Sydney Games shaping up despite flak: minister

Australian Minister for Sport and Tourism Jackie Kelly predicted Tuesday that September's Sydney Olympics will be a success, despite the scandals that have plagued preparations.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

'Tankan' results dismissed

Many business leaders Tuesday dismissed the seemingly encouraging results of the Bank of Japan's quarterly survey of business confidence as insufficient for ending the central bank's "zero-interest-rate" policy.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 5, 2000

Drags gain ground

Kazuyoshi Tatsunami belted a two-run homer in the fourth inning Tuesday and Lee Jeong Bum followed with a solo blast in the fifth to pace the Chunichi Dragons to a 7-4 win over the Yokohama BayStars at the Nagoya Dome.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Sogo chief asked to give up assets

Troubled department store operator Sogo Co. has asked its former chairman to hand over more of his personal assets to make reparations for its financial woes, Sogo officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Watanuki appointed Lower House speaker

Tamisuke Watanuki, former secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party, was elected speaker of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Blue Impulse planes missing

Two planes of the Air Self-Defense Force Blue Impulse acrobatic flight team went missing with three crew members aboard Tuesday morning over the sea off Miyagi Prefecture, ASDF officials said.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Average age of Cabinet is highest since 1990

The average age of the Cabinet launched Tuesday by Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori is 66.05, the highest in 10 years.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Mori selects new Cabinet

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori inaugurated his new Cabinet, which maintained the basic structure of his old one, on Tuesday night after being re-elected to the nation's top government post in the Diet earlier in the day.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Snow lied after milk-poisoning case

OSAKA -- Officials of Snow Brand Milk Products Co. on Tuesday said that a valve at an Osaka production facility found to be contaminated with a toxin-causing bacteria was used almost every day, and not rarely as it had claimed Saturday.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Hotel bankruptcies hit postbubble high

The number of bankruptcies of inns and hotels rose 8.4 percent in fiscal 1999 from the previous year to 90, the worst figure since the burst of the late 1980s bubble economy, a private credit research institution said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Newly appointed ministers announce policy priorities

The ministers appointed to the second Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced their priority tasks in separate press conferences Tuesday evening.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Upbeat 'tankan' may lead to rate hike

Business sentiment among the nation's corporations improved over the past three months, underscoring a recent recovery trend, according to the Bank of Japan's "tankan" business sentiment survey for June.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Japan Telecom may go local

Japan Telecom Co. is considering entering the local telephone business as early as next year in major cities such as Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka, with rates lower than those offered by its rivals, it was learned Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Projectile fired at base found

Police said Tuesday morning they found one of two projectiles fired Monday night at Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in what they believe was an attack by radicals opposed to the presence of the U.S. military in Japan.
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2000

Japanese researcher chips away at an ancient mystery

PHONSAVAN, Laos -- Archaeologist Eiji Nitta dug and scraped. The answer to the puzzle of the giant stone vessels scattered throughout the Plain of Jars in northern Laos lay, he believed, not in their material or their contents, but in what lay under them.
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2000

The Plain of Jars: A place of war and death

PHONSAVAN, Laos -- It should be hard to go missing on the Plain of Jars. But hundreds have.
BUSINESS
Jul 5, 2000

Japan to resume yen loans to Colombia

After nearly five years of suspension, Japan will resume official yen loans to Colombia to help the Latin American country rebuild its shattered economy, government sources said Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Jul 5, 2000

Mind reading, or am I just predictable?

It is often said that long-time married couples grow so close they can actually read each other's minds, but either that's hooey or my wife and I are out of synch, ESP-wise.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 5, 2000

Species hidden in the mist of Tikal

TIKAL, Guatemala -- Early morning, and thin mist licks around the feet of Tikal's towering Mayan temples. It is that haunted time, not quite light, not quite dark, when one feels that the odds of seeing a jaguar padding golden-eyed through the ruins are at their highest.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jul 5, 2000

The tyranny of the square

When talking to Ted Nelson, strap in tight. It's quite a ride. Trained as a philosopher and film director, he is equal parts visionary and crank. Many consider him to be one of the fathers of the World Wide Web. He coined the word "hypertext" in 1965, but he has become a scathing critic of the Web and...
LIFE / Travel
Jul 5, 2000

Get back to the garden, the perfect summer oasis

There's a reggae-loving bar owner in Fukuoka who loathes the stereotype that reggae is "summer music." Truth is, though, his business does extremely well during summer. It seems that atmosphere-building is still an essential part of the seasons in Japan.
COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2000

Advancing smartly backward

LONDON -- It is an old American saying that "the pioneer is the one who gets the arrow in his back." So when President Jacques Chirac of France recently proposed a "pioneering" project to bring France and Germany still closer together at the political level and, as he put it, to "move further and faster...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 5, 2000

Migrants and vagrants under Teuri's crags

An hour and a half west of the small harbor town of Haboro, which is just three hours north of Sapporo, lie two small islands: Teuri and Yagishiri. Teuri is easy to visit and has fascinating seabird colonies and good walking. There is a ferry from Haboro, which goes via Yagishiri, and although there...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jul 5, 2000

Sometimes too late

Several readers have asked me to repeat my favorite column. That is quite difficult. Actually, there would be two but neither was ever written. There are many questions that are never selected to be in a column.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2000

A Japan-U.S. alliance for an altered world

The world is still trying to grasp the meaning of the summit between the two Koreas. Many are euphoric; wiser heads counsel that there is a long way to go before there's real peace on the Korean Peninsula. Nonetheless, if reconciliation and, eventually, unification do come about, the effects will be...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji