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CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001

Roxy Music

If any band personified the decadence of the '70s, it was Roxy Music. Singer Bryan Ferry epitomized the dissolute lounge lizard made handsome by a glib tongue and good fashion sense. The band's torch-song pop, poised on the periphery of disco and New Wave, chronicled the underbelly of the good life:...
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001

Marshall Crenshaw

With its encyclopedic array of early rock 'n' roll hooks and a spare guitar sound that anyone could duplicate, Marshall Crenshaw's eponymous 1982 debut was the perfect primer, the kind of record mainstream acts could plunder for material to plug into the already ebbing New Wave. The fact that the record...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Pricey fish losing favor amid deflation, imports

Consumers are increasingly shunning high-priced fish and opting for lower-priced fare and imported fish as deflation hits the sluggish economy. Japan was once the world's top catcher of fish but has been overtaken by China because catches of popular fish such as sardines and mackerel have decreased due...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Unemployment rate reaches 5% threshold for first time

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate hit a record high 5 percent in July, up 0.1 percentage point from June, according to government data released Tuesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 29, 2001

Hawks slice Ham to retain PL lead

Shinji Kurano allowed one run in 72/3 innings and Kenji Jojima doubled in a pair of runs as the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks retained the lead in the Pacific League with a 4-1 victory over the Nippon Ham Fighters at the Tokyo Dome on Tuesday night.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 29, 2001

Boy Bands II Men Bands

On July 9, the day after the Backstreet Boys announced on MTV that their tattooed bad-boy member A.J. McLean was entering a rehabilitation facility for "alcohol and depression," advertisements appeared in the Japanese dailies announcing the Boys' Japan dome tour in November. Tickets, however, would not...
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2001

Kuwait asks Japan to wait on oil-drilling contract

Kuwait has asked Japan to delay signing some parts of the drilling contract it has drawn up with Arabian Oil Co. of Japan, industry sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Employees' mental health on decline

The mental health of company employees has deteriorated significantly since fiscal 1996, with anxiety and obsessive behavior on the rise, according to a survey conducted by a private research institute.
JAPAN / 50 YEARS SINCE SAN FRANCISCO
Aug 29, 2001

American culture now just part of the furniture

Following decades of hot pursuit, Japan feels it no longer needs to catch up with the U.S. Fifth in a series Staff writer Who would have believed 50 years ago that the hatred spawned during World War II could dissipate to the extent that former enemies now reminisce about shared cultural experiences,...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 29, 2001

Crafting a way back to natural Kyushu living

An exhibition of photographs, pottery and woodwork made by participants in an nonprofit organization, Eco Link Association, with a view to increasing public awareness of environmental issues will be held Sept. 1-9 at Session House Garden in Kagurazaka, Shinjuku Ward.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Aug 29, 2001

Fed set to slash interest rates once again

There appears a good chance the U.S. Federal Reserve will lower interest rates again at its Oct. 2 policy-setting committee meeting.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 29, 2001

Is self-promotion the deep need of his soul?

It's hard not to be impressed with all the things Takashi Murakami has done. Still shy of 40, he enjoys a level of international recognition shared by perhaps no more than a dozen of the world's leading contemporary artists.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Trio held in loan scam tied to credit union NSK

Three people, including the head of a Tokyo-based consulting company, were arrested Tuesday for allegedly swindling a credit union out of some 160 million yen.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001

Charlie Haden: 'Nocturne'

Bolero is the Latin American equivalent of ballads -- slow, romantic, mid-tempo and loaded with sentimentality. As such, it is a style of music more suited to dancers moving cheek-to-cheek by candlelight than to a cutting-edge improvisational jazz artist. But on his latest release on the Gitanes label,...
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Entertainment firm in tax evasion tangle

Entertainment production firm Rising Production Co., which counts pop stars Namie Amuro and Da Pump in its stable, was found by tax officials to have evaded taxes on income of 2 billion yen in the three years to August 1999, sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Koizumi targets rising joblessness

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday told his Cabinet ministers to take additional steps to deal with rising unemployment.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Kawakami to replace JICA head Saito

Veteran diplomat Takao Kawakami will replace Kunihiko Saito as head of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2001

Pressure on reforms likely as bleeding starts

The nation's unemployment rate, which hit an all-time high of 5 percent in July, may present the greatest threat to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's reforms, begging the question, "Is reform worth the pain?"
CULTURE / Art
Aug 29, 2001

Prints to restore blocked vision

An exhibition of woodblock prints by Seiichi Suzuki is on show until Sept. 10 at Za Gallery Bunkyo in Bunkyo Ward, Tokyo.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Kyoto postmaster also taken into custody

OSAKA -- Yet another former senior official at the Kinki Postal Administration Office has been arrested on suspicion of using his position to urge postmasters to support the campaign of newly elected House of Councilors lawmaker Kenji Koso, police said.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Aug 29, 2001

Sizzla: 'Black History'

This, I believe, is Sizzla's 16th album since his 1995 debut, although forgive me if I've missed one or two in my calculation, as we're talking about a reggae artist so prolific that, this year alone, we're looking at the possibility of four new albums.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2001

Ogi told to submit privatization plans

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Tuesday ordered transport minister Chikage Ogi to submit her ministry's draft plans for privatizing six controversial state-backed corporations.
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2001

Shiokawa tries to talk yen down

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa told a regular news conference Tuesday he hopes to see the yen weaken against the dollar.
EDITORIALS
Aug 28, 2001

The world without the Soviet Union

Ten years ago this month, the Soviet Union collapsed in one final, drunken spasm. After decades of fear, the Soviet threat vanished with the proverbial whimper when Communist hardliners launched a last desperate coup attempt to bring then Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev back into line. They failed,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 28, 2001

Trends in life learning for senior citizens

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- So much talk about globalization issues nowadays overshadows a couple of other equally important current developments: the longer life span of individuals and their wish to lead a meaningful period of time as silver-haired "senior citizens."
JAPAN
Aug 28, 2001

State to finance NGOs' participation in conflict-prevention activities abroad

In a bid to raise its low profile in international peacekeeping efforts, Japan is embarking on a significant financial-assistance program for domestic nongovernmental organizations participating in overseas conflict-prevention activities.
BUSINESS
Aug 28, 2001

Mitsui, Sumitomo to merge fertilizer sales subsidiaries

Mitsui & Co. and Sumitomo Corp. plan to streamline their operations by merging their wholly owned fertilizer sales subsidiaries by around April, officials of the two trading companies said Monday.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic