search

 
 
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Japan, China need cooling-off period before launching cooling-off forum

When they met during an international business conference on the southern Chinese island of Hainan in March, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and his Chinese counterpart, Zhu Rongji, agreed to inaugurate a high-level comprehensive forum for dialogue on economic topics.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Goldman Sachs closes night market

Ltd. was set to temporarily shut down its nighttime stock market after its session Friday because of recent sluggish trading. Company officials said it is unclear when trading, launched in January 2001, will resume, but the company will pay attention to market trends and the wishes of individual investors...
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2002

Soccer's greatest show kicks off

SEOUL -- The waiting is finally over. Four years after France lifted the World Cup in Paris, soccer's biggest event has kicked off again in South Korea and will end 64 games later in Yokohama with the best team in the world lifting the famous gold trophy.
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2002

LDP hints at calling Tanaka for sworn Diet testimony

Former Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, who remains mired in a bitter feud with leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, could be called to appear before the Diet to give testimony over allegations that she misappropriated her secretaries' salaries, a senior LDP member suggested Friday.
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 1, 2002

Inamoto ready to show off

MORIMACHI, Shizuoka Pref. -- Ten months after joining Arsenal, Japan midfielder Junichi Inamoto is ready for the World Cup and he plans to show off all that he's learned playing in England.
Japan Times
JAPAN / MUSEUM MUSINGS
Jun 1, 2002

Venue lets budding, talented artists bring their works out of the closet

"Yomenanohana," or kalimeris "yomena," is a weed that flowers unnoticed in the fields, and for Kyoko Mita, it is the perfect name for a museum for unknown artists.
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2002

No easy answers for China as refugee problem grows

HONG KONG -- There was biting irony behind the episode of the five North Koreans' seeking asylum at the Japanese Consulate in Shenyang, China, as well as the lingering diplomatic Sino-Japanese impasse over whether China infringed on Japanese sovereignty by taking the North Koreans into custody.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

LDP panels want Koizumi to leave works spending alone

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party agreed at a joint panel meeting Friday to urge the government to avoid cutting public works spending or using road construction-specific tax revenues for general purposes in the fiscal 2003 budget.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Authorities act again to halt yen rise

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Friday that monetary authorities conducted yen-selling, dollar-buying intervention to arrest the yen's rise, marking the third time they have stepped into the currency market in the past two weeks.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Tax panel calls for investment and R&D breaks

The Finance Ministry's Tax Commission on Friday unveiled a reform outline that would allow corporations to write off investments and spending on research and development.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 1, 2002

Make the world a better place for children

From May 8 to 10, the streets of New York City were adorned by the presence of 60 heads of state and their bodyguards, 3,000 government officials, 3,000 nongovernmental organizations and children from 180 countries. They were delegates of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children,...
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2002

'Spy' ship salvage back on table

The government said Friday it will attempt before the typhoon season to salvage a suspected North Korean spy ship that sank in China's exclusive economic zone in December after a shootout with Japan Coast Guard vessels.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Unemployment stays at 5.2% but 270,000 more are jobless

The jobless rate stood at 5.2 percent in April, unchanged from a month earlier, but the number of unemployed actually increased 270,000 to 3.75 million, according to preliminary figures released Friday by the Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications Ministry.
SOCCER / World cup
Jun 1, 2002

My World Cup Memories

I played in the 1978 and 1982 tournaments but couldn't make it in 1986 because of an injury, although I played in all the qualifiers.
JAPAN
Jun 1, 2002

16 Britons denied entry in lead up to World Cup

Since late April, Japanese immigration authorities have turned away 16 Britons in the lead up to the World Cup soccer finals, which began Friday in Seoul, according to a British police officer.
BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2002

Tokyo CPI falls 32nd straight month

Key consumer prices in Tokyo fell 1.1 percent in May from a year earlier for a record 32nd straight month of decline, the government said Friday in a preliminary report.
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 2002

In defense of privacy

The Defense Agency is at the center of a privacy scandal. An information officer of the Maritime Self-Defense Force is said to have prepared a sensitive list of personal data, with defamatory footnotes, about people who had requested information from the agency under the Freedom of Information Law. The...
COMMENTARY
Jun 1, 2002

Crisis threatens Pakistan's recent gains

ISLAMABAD -- The regime of Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is eager to find a way out of the military standoff with India, knowing full well that a war between the two nuclear-armed neighbors could easily erase the few gains the country has made in the past six months.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2002

Measuring China's pulse online

The spread of the Internet in China is turning out to be a boon for China watchers in Japan. The Web now serves as an outlet for news not found in newspapers or on television but that can be deemed important and valuable. It also offers an opportunity to learn about the real feelings Chinese people have...
COMMENTARY
May 31, 2002

Closer cooperation benefits all

HONOLULU -- The scheduled appearance of Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Chinese President Jiang Zemin alongside South Korean President Kim Dae Jung at the opening ceremonies of the 2002 World Cup in Seoul later this month symbolizes much more than mere cooperation on the field of athletic...
SUMO
May 31, 2002

Kabutoyama stable shuts doors

The Kabutoyama stable folded Wednesday with the announcement of the retirement of the stable's three sumo wrestlers and the pending retirement of sumo elder Kabutoyama.
EDITORIALS
May 31, 2002

At last, the World Cup

Maybe it is because it rolls around just once every four years. Maybe it is because it is played by more people, in more countries, than any other sport. Maybe it is because it promises, and usually delivers, moments of magnificent drama --all the more stirring for the long stretches of tedium before...
JAPAN
May 31, 2002

Residents win damages for base noise

The Tokyo District Court on Thursday ordered the government to pay some 2.4 billion yen in damages to 4,763 residents near the U.S. Yokota Air Base, west of Tokyo, for noise pollution caused by U.S. military aircraft.
JAPAN
May 31, 2002

Building fire near Yoyogi Station halts JR trains

Tokyo's Yamanote Line was halted for more than four hours Thursday evening after a fire broke out in a building near JR Yoyogi Station, the Tokyo Fire Department and East Japan Railway Co. said.
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2002

The World Cup: more than just a game

"Si, Senor, It's War" read the headline in an English newspaper a few days before the national team of England and Argentina met in their semifinal soccer game during the World Cup in Mexico in 1986. The headline was an exaggeration, of course. It was just a game. Yet, the Falklands War was fresh in...
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
May 31, 2002

All signs point to 13,000

In a rare development in recent months, the daily turnover on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section topped 1 trillion yen on May 17 and stayed above this level on four of five trading days last week.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CUP COUNTDOWN
May 31, 2002

Hooligan phobia triggers siege mentality

KAWAGUCHI, Saitama Pref. -- Soccer fans hoping to stop for a cup of coffee on their way to or from World Cup games at Saitama Stadium won't be able to do so at Katsura cafe here. Whenever matches are being played -- and hooligans might be in the area -- the cafe will be closed.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past