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JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Chloroform cybersales suspect faces bars

Prosecutors demanded 2 1/2 years in prison Monday for a former graduate student of Kyoto University who stands accused of illegally selling chloroform via the Internet to several men who tried to rape women.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Shares in Tokyo Sowa plunge

Tokyo Sowa Bank dropped sharply on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday, reflecting investors' concerns over the financial institution's creditworthiness.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Pollution victims petition Manabe for action

Representatives of a citizens' group federation working toward a pollution-free society handed a petition Monday to Environmental Agency chief Kenji Manabe calling for government measures to tackle dioxin-related problems.
EDITORIALS
Jun 5, 1999

A wakeup call for us all

About a year ago, biologists woke up to a startling phenomenon: Amphibians -- frogs, toads, salamanders and newts -- were vanishing. No one knows why, but the results are pretty uniform across the world. Many people will not spare much anguish for the amphibians, but the fate of the frog is worth pondering...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 5, 1999

No heart of gold in Brecht's cold vision

Bertolt Brecht started considering the qualities of a good person in 1939 just before the outbreak of World War II. In all, it took him the best part of three years to come up with his finished product dealing with thistheme: "The Good Person of Setzuan," a play in which he deals with the idea that in...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 5, 1999

bis moves forward -- to the past?

Growing up is hard to do, especially if you're bis, a band that made its reputation promoting something called "Teen-C Power" and producing infectiously frisky pop songs with bitter lyrics about the inherent dishonesty of adults and the indignities of adolescence.
COMMUNITY
Jun 5, 1999

Brushing up on hairs and whiskers the write way

"The first thing that I learned from my father was how to choose the right type of hairs," says Yoshio Tanabe, the fude (Japanese writing brush) maker who owns Tanabe Bunkaido. Selecting the hairs is the first and most important step taken in the brush-making process, he says.
EDITORIALS
Jun 4, 1999

Ten years after Tiananmen

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic climax of the 1989 demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. It has been a long decade. The world is much changed, as is China. Deng Xiaoping, "the Little Helmsman," the man who set China on the path to economic transformation, is dead. His legacy survives...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

State may draft Aum-specific law

The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will consider creating a law to specifically curb Aum Shinrikyo's activities, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Toho Mutual Life told to suspend operations

The Financial Supervisory Agency ordered Toho Mutual Life Insurance Co. to suspend operations Friday, after the ailing life insurer failed to obtain approval from auditors on a fiscal 1998 earnings report, agency officials announced.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Uruguay ambassador lauds ties with Japan

Surveying her nearly six years in Japan, Zulma Guelman, Uruguay's ambassador to Japan, is most pleased to see the growing economic ties between the two countries.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 1999

Obuchi set for one more term

Following the Diet's enactment last week of a legislative package covering the updated guidelines for Japan-U.S. defense cooperation, the Lower House on Tuesday passed bills that will allow wiretapping in investigations into organized crime. The administration of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi has thus...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

UNEP kicks off third global photo contest

The head of the U.N. Environment Program announced Friday in Tokyo the launch of the world's largest photography contest in anticipation of World Environment Day.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Three women die after train collides with car

Three women in a car were killed Friday in a car-train collision at a railroad crossing in Ichinomiya, Chiba Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

ASDF finishes probe into crashed Phantom

The October crash of an F-4 Phantom fighter that killed two Air Self-Defense Force pilots was most probably caused by the pilots' over-concentration on radar instruments or by the vertigo they suffered in midair, the ASDF said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Police shut down gangs after Tokyo-area shootings

Police ordered Japan's largest underworld organization, Yamaguchi-gumi, and Tokyo's Kokusui-kai syndicate to suspend the use of five of their offices in the wake of a series of shootings reported this week in Tokyo and neighboring areas, they said.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Foreign women who leave husbands have few options

Second of two parts
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Half of ESC reform proposals to be used, state says

About half of the 234 measures that the Economic Strategy Council, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, has proposed are likely to be carried out, according to a report released by the government Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

First Japanese-English dictionary on display

OSAKA — A rare first-edition copy of the first Japanese-English dictionary published in Japan has been on public display at the Mint Museum in Osaka since April.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Ex-LTCB execs face criminal charges

The nationalized Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan filed a criminal complaint Friday against its former top executives, accusing them of falsifying the bank's balance sheets and illegally paying dividends to shareholders without earning enough profit.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

MSDF-coast guard hotline OK'd

Cabinet ministers Friday approved government-proposed sea patrol measures that call for more communication between the nation's maritime authorities, following a failure in March to capture two suspected North Korean spy boats.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

19-year-old 'bosozoku' found slain

A man believed to be a "bosozoku" hot-rodder gang leader died Friday of wounds inflicted in an apparent attack by rivals.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Citizen-numbering system clears last obstacle

Policy affairs chiefs from the ruling coalition and New Komeito agreed Friday to work on new legislation to protect individual information, clearing the way for passage of a citizen-numbering system, party officials said.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 1999

Both sides to blame for Sino-U.S. troubles

HONG KONG -- As the United States debates the security implications of the Cox report on Chinese spying in the U.S., and as China continues to deny the spying and to denounce the NATO attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, it is easy to lose sight of a basic reality: There is a remarkable symmetry...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Law paves way for re-creating JDB

A law to merge two quasigovernmental banks — Japan Development Bank and Hokkaido-Tohoku Development Finance Public Corp. — was enacted Friday, paving the way for creating a new developmental financial institution on Oct. 1.
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 1999

Somewhere over the airwaves

Once upon a time, back in the '50s, there existed a "better" America, a wholesome utopia of crew cuts, unquestioning white-bread conformity and mom in the kitchen baking apple pies.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 4, 1999

An audience with the Tokyo culture king

Moichi Kuwahara's office occupies a crumbing apartment building in Tokyo's Yutenji district. The warren of small rooms resembles an art squat -- packed full of editors, graphic designers, writers and other creative types who provide the artistic fodder for Club King, a company whose products, magazines,...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 4, 1999

Musician spreads jazz gospel

"Jazz is my religion," said Joe Lee Wilson in a ceremony last week at the Tokyo campus of the International School of the Sacred Heart, after completing a six-week music workshop with 600 students.
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 1999

A new world for Japanese business

The latest earnings reports from Japanese corporations listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange provide a running commentary on their predicament. Reflecting a drawn-out recession, both sales and profits plunged in the year to March 1999 (fiscal 1998). On average, sales in all industries except financial services...
JAPAN
Jun 3, 1999

Annual international dinghy race not enough: sailors

YOKOHAMA — A recent officially supported international friendship dinghy race held off Yokohama saw nine nations represented in a crowded field of 17 vessels.

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