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EDITORIALS
May 1, 2002

Toothless global-warming bill

Domestic global-warming debate is heating up as the Diet discusses a bill to revise the nation's global-warming prevention law and prepares to approve the Kyoto climate accord for ratification. The centerpiece of this law will be a new national scheme -- a Kyoto Objective Achievement Plan -- to cut greenhouse...
COMMENTARY
May 1, 2002

Economic sense clashes with security concerns

HONG KONG -- Taiwan is coming to grips with a paradox: China is both its best friend and its worst enemy. In recent weeks, the island has been debating what its priority should be -- to enhance its economy by taking advantage of what China has to offer, or to safeguard its political security by restricting...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Attitudinal shift is lifting taboo on death education: professor

Public attitudes in Japan toward death and dying have undergone considerable changes in the past 20 years, according to Alfons Deeken, founder and president of the Japanese Association for Death Education and Grief Counseling.
MORE SPORTS
May 1, 2002

Inoue earns split-decision victory

Defending champion Kosei Inoue overcame a slow start against determined Yasuyuki Muneta on Monday to hold onto his All-Japan judo championship crown with a hard-earned split-decision victory.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 1, 2002

Lopez puts tantrum behind him

Hiroshima Carp first baseman Luis Lopez says the problem between him and outfielder Tomonori Maeda has been put to rest. Marty Kuehnert, in his April 10 "Keen Edge" column, described how the teammates had nearly come to blows after Maeda twice failed to score from second base on outfield hits by Lopez...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Tracking systems try to tackle food safety

Shoppers are now being invited to check with their own eyes that what something is labeled is what they actually eat.
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Medical firm raided over tot's death

Police raided the headquarters of a medical equipment firm in Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, over the death of a baby boy last year at a hospital run by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

BTM chiefs to resign after June 26

Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Chairman Satoru Kishi and Vice Chairman Kenji Yoshizawa will step down now that the bank has almost finished disposing of nonperforming loans to large-lot clients, sources close to the bank said Tuesday.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
May 1, 2002

Investors focus on earnings

Elated at the U.S. economic pickup, investors are opting for shares backed by favorable earnings prospects.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 1, 2002

Yabu leads Tigers over Dragons

Keiichi Yabu allowed four hits and struck out six over the distance to pick up his first shutout victory in two years as the Hanshin Tigers blanked the Chunichi Dragons 4-0 Tuesday at Koshien Stadium.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

Protest letters sent on bond downgrade

The Finance Ministry has sent letters of complaint to foreign credit rating agencies over their recent downgrading of Japanese government bonds, the ministry said Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2002

Haiku seascapes make an impression

In an art world increasingly turning to digital media, traditional techniques nonetheless retain a small and dedicated following. Printmaker Peter Miller, who in 1991 founded the Kamakura Print Collection workshop, is one such traditionalist. "Ink on paper has a certain take on the world," he explains....
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

Mizuho boasts of 12-million-transaction day

The Mizuho financial group, hit by serious computer problems upon the launch of its two banks at the beginning of April, completed 12 million settlements Tuesday, the largest number of daily online transactions handled by a bank.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

Economy might stop contracting but unlikely to grow much: BOJ

The economy will stop shrinking but is not expected to grow much during fiscal 2002, the Bank of Japan said Tuesday, with its Policy Board members' gross domestic product forecasts ranging from a contraction of 0.5 percent to growth of 0.2 percent.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
May 1, 2002

Marc Ribot

Guitarist Marc Ribot originally gained attention by playing with those iconoclastic Downtown Johns -- Zorn and Lurie -- in the early '80s. Later he cemented his reputation as a musical polymorph with session work for people like Elvis Costello and Tom Waits. However, it was mainly as the leader of Los...
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Land ministry prepares for volcanic contingencies

The land ministry said Tuesday it will create computerized hazard maps for evacuation and emergency plans to cover volcanic eruptions, lava flows and ash falls nationwide.
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

Nomura Holdings posts 43% drop in consolidated net profit

Nomura Holdings Inc. said Tuesday that its group net profit plunged 43.4 percent in fiscal 2001 due mainly to a fall in both brokerage commissions and revenue from stock and bond trading on its own accounts.
COMMENTARY
May 1, 2002

Le Pen victory a dark sign of the times

LONDON -- Political experts of all shades have been professing surprise and amazement that Jean-Marie Le Pen, with his wild mixture of views, some overtly racist, should have collected around 17 percent of the votes in the first round of the French presidential elections. But the real surprise is that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
May 1, 2002

Young artists are making a splash

The third installment in an almost-annual series (they skipped it last year), "New Media New Face 02" is now showing at the NTT InterCommunication Center, in Shinjuku. The work here, from four Japanese artists, falls into the vague but trendy, technology-based genre known as "media art."
BUSINESS
May 1, 2002

Fuji Photo sees 74% sales growth

Fuji Photo Film Co. said Tuesday its group sales in fiscal 2001 grew 73.6 percent from the year before to 2.4 trillion yen because Fuji Xerox Co. was included as a direct subsidiary.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 2002

Marc Chagall: painting the great power of love

In Japan, July 7 is a special day. It is the festival of Tanabata, the one night of the year when two celestial star-crossed lovers -- the Weaver (Vega) and the Cowherd (Altair) -- are said to cross the Milky Way to meet.
JAPAN
May 1, 2002

Tokyo, Seoul to swap airport-based hooligan inspectors

Japan and South Korea will exchange airport customs inspectors in an effort to enhance checks on travelers during the World Cup soccer finals, which will run from May 31 to June 30, the Finance Ministry announced Tuesday.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight