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BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Ministry aims housing lender at low earners

The land ministry has drawn up a proposal for the government-run Housing Loan Corp. to target low-income earners, ministry sources said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

Tracing days in their lives

"Two Lives," a joint exhibition of acrylic paintings by Japanese artist Tadanori Yokoo and American artist Paul Davis is on show until Aug. 4 at Nishimura Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo.
CULTURE / Music
Aug 1, 2001

Lords of the underground

Asian Underground -- as spurious a genre as there's ever been -- has been hot for a while now, but most people would be hard-pressed to name any pioneers of this sound other than Talvin Singh. For those looking to dig deeper, though, August provides a good opportunity to catch two of the more interesting...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

A century down along the Sumida

In most of the great European capitals, wide, impressive rivers flow through the very heart of the cities, providing the perfect setting for stately buildings such as the Houses of Parliament in London or the Orsay Museum in Paris.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Insurance covers fireworks

Yasuda Fire & Marine Insurance Co. recently announced that it has begun marketing an insurance policy to cover accidents at fireworks displays.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Honda profit up 45.1% in first quarter

Honda Motor Co. said Tuesday its consolidated operating profit for the April-June quarter jumped 45.1 percent from the same period a year earlier to 151.45 billion yen.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Producer promotes Asian women singers

Chika Asamoto is a professional saxophonist in her own right but nowadays she works chiefly as a producer to promote talented Asian female singers.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Prize-winning ninja novelist Futaro Yamada dies at 79

Futaro Yamada, whose unique, romantic and exciting ninja novels sent tidal waves through the Japanese literary world, died of pneumonia at a Tokyo hospital Saturday, his family said Tuesday. He was 79.
BUSINESS / ON THE FRONT LINE
Aug 1, 2001

Poll victory not enough to convince market

Despite the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's victory in Sunday's Upper House election, the yen remains under downward pressure.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

State appeals order to pay black-lung disease victims

The government on Tuesday filed an appeal to the Supreme Court against a high court ruling ordering the state and three companies to pay 1.91 billion yen in compensation to former coal miners who contracted black-lung disease and to families of those who died from the disease.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

National government cuts funds to localities by 4.9%

Central government tax revenues allocated to local governments in fiscal 2001 declined 4.9 percent from the previous year to 19.129 trillion yen, according to an annual report released Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 1, 2001

Mario A's walking, talking, breathing, living doll

A new photography book titled "ma poupee japonaise" arrived in the post the other day, sent by German-Italian artist Mario A. After skimming through pictures of an apparently life-sized wooden doll posed mostly unclothed in a variety of private and public places, I uploaded a brief note about the publication...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

LDP moves up presidential election

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party set the stage Tuesday for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's re-election as party leader by formally deciding to move its presidential race from September to this month.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

State revenues exceeded expenditures in 2000

Government revenues exceeded expenditures by 238.1 billion yen in fiscal 2000, mainly due to increased revenues in corporate taxes, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

NEC to eliminate 4,000 jobs amid global IT shrinkage

NEC Corp. announced Tuesday it will cut 4,000 personnel in Japan and abroad by April and withdraw from DRAM chip operations in 2004 amid a global shrinkage in information-technology markets.
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2001

Breathing new life into the Tories

A political party that suffers a major defeat after 18 years in power is obviously in need of serious self-examination. If it repeats the experience four years later at an election marked by an unusually high degree of abstention, the need for wrenching change may well become inescapable.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Tokyo education board leans toward contentious text for disabled children

The Tokyo metropolitan education board has tentatively decided to adopt a contentious history textbook penned by nationalist historians for use in public schools for disabled children beginning next April, sources close to the board said Tuesday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 1, 2001

BayStars rally for seventh straight win

Yokohama catcher Motonobu Tanishige smashed a grand slam home run to highlight a six-run 10th inning on Tuesday night as the BayStars beat the Hiroshima Carp for their season-high seventh straight victory -- an 11-5 win at Hiroshima Stadium. With the score tied 5-5 in the 10th, pinch-hitter Jon Zuber...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Elderly seen warming to overseas home-stays

Yujiro Hamada, 77, is typical of a rising number of middle-aged and elderly Japanese who have rejected more common overseas package tours in favor of extended stays abroad.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

FSA to recheck banks' bad loans

The Financial Services Agency will conduct a followup audit of major banks' books by Sept. 30 to ensure they register loan-loss charges in accordance with FSA inspectors' earlier findings on the quality of their loan portfolios.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Nomura to set up pension-plan firm

Nomura Securities Co. said Tuesday it will set up a new company today to provide management and operation services for defined-contribution pension plans modeled on U.S. 401(k) pension programs.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsushita posts first group loss

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. posted its first quarterly group operating loss in 30 years, because of a global slump in demand for technology, the electronics giant said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Three men held over Chinese worker scam

A Japanese man and two Chinese men were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of taking commissions from the salaries of Chinese nationals whose services they had illegally procured for Japanese hotels and inns, authorities said.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Unemployment hovers at 4.9%

The nation's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.9 percent in June from the previous month, matching the record for the third time this year, the government said Tuesday in a preliminary report.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

June housing starts down 10.5%

Housing starts dropped 10.5 percent in June from a year earlier to 101,168 units, marking the sixth straight month of falls, the infrastructure ministry said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2001

Shiokawa eyes securities tax decision

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa said Tuesday he hopes to outline plans for a revision of the securities tax system before the extraordinary Diet session in September.

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