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BUSINESS
May 3, 2001

Online bank, insurer plan tieup

Japan Net Bank, the nation's first Internet bank, and Nippon Life Insurance Co. announced Wednesday they will begin offering customers easy cash transfers between accounts from both firms.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

LDP to promote Koizumi on TV

The Liberal Democratic Party will use images of Junichiro Koizumi, the party's new president and Japan's new prime minister, to promote its policies on TV.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Murakami gets bonus despite arrest

Former House of Councilors member Masakuni Murakami, accused of taking bribes from mutual-aid foundation KSD, received a spring bonus of around 870,000 yen for work he completed before quitting the Diet over the scandal in late February, Diet sources said Wednesday. Murakami, 68, who has been charged...
COMMENTARY
May 3, 2001

Take the lead, Mr. Koizumi

LOS ANGELES -- Probably the great foreign fear that overhangs the Japanese -- and in some respects is more fearsome than their near-moribund economy -- is the looming dark presence of North Korea.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2001

Arafat remains unbowed as his 'long march' continues

Veteran Middle East correspondent David Hirst was recently the first journalist to be granted an interview with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat since the intifada began.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Fukuda wary of missile defense plan

Japan may urge the United States to be prudent in its plan to deploy a national missile defense system, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
May 3, 2001

Optimism continues to fuel Nikkei rebound

The upturn in Tokyo share prices has gathered momentum in recent days, reaffirming the positive shift in market sentiment.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Japan's Major league idols cash in at home clubs' expense

With the sensational debut of Japanese outfielders Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners and Tsuyoshi Shinjo of the New York Mets, Major League Baseball is stealing the hearts of many Japanese.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 3, 2001

Sweet revenge for Giants

Yomiuri hurler Yusaku Iriki scattered five hits over the distance and won his first complete game in three seasons as the Giants bounced back from a hammering the night before to beat the Chunichi Dragons 3-1 at the Tokyo Dome on Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Peacekeeping shackles hobble Japan

Staff writer The 1991 Persian Gulf War marked a turning point in Japan's involvement in international security efforts, triggering a debate that paved the way for the nation to participate in U.N.-led peacekeeping missions. Ten years later, however, Japan is still debating how far it can go.
ENVIRONMENT / IN BLOOM
May 3, 2001

Hana Shobu (Japanese iris)

There is nothing to equal the Festival of the Fifth Month, when the scents of the iris and sagebrush mingle so charmingly. The children are proud of themselves and keep looking at the flowers on their sleeves, comparing them with those of their companions. This is all delightful, as are the little...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
May 3, 2001

Antlion symbiosis story to make Darwin smile

Antlions, insects resembling feeble, intoxicated dragonflies, flutter briefly in summer, hardly eating, only copulating, reproducing then dying. But their life as larvae is all about food. Living for two to three years at the bottom of a funnel-shaped pit/trap in the ground, the antlion larva waits with...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 3, 2001

Tackling the man without the ball

Japan entered the home leg of the World Sevens Series hoping to put itself on the international rugby map and to give the sport in this country a much-needed morale boost.
BUSINESS
May 3, 2001

DaimlerChrysler plans new fuel-cell pact

The Mitsubishi group and DaimlerChrysler AG plan to jointly develop fuel cells with the aim of producing pollution-free motor vehicles, sources close to the project said Wednesday.
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Killer's coat, umbrella, cap found in park

Police said Wednesday they have found a long jacket and an umbrella near a bloodstained kitchen knife believed to belong to the man who fatally stabbed a 19-year-old female college student Monday in Tokyo's Taito Ward.
MORE SPORTS
May 3, 2001

Japan claims first table tennis medal

OSAKA -- Akiko Takeda and Mayu Kawagoe edged Croatians Tamara Boros and Eldijana Aganovic in the women's doubles quarterfinals of the table tennis world meet Wednesday to secure Japan's first medal in the event in 26 years. The Japanese pair assured themselves of at least a bronze medal by advancing...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
May 3, 2001

How dung beetles came to save Australia

For millions of years a whole host of landlubbers (mammals, reptiles, birds and insects) have been scouring the Earth for food and leaving behind the scraps of their meals and deposits of dung. Billions of creatures over thousands of millions of years, all dumping on the planet. Thank goodness for the...
BUSINESS / CABINET INTERVIEW
May 3, 2001

Finance chief Shiokawa supports fiscal tightening

In line with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's fiscal reform policies, Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa has acknowledged the need to make substantial cuts to general expenditures for fiscal 2002.
MORE SPORTS
May 3, 2001

Another lesson learned in hockey

Ryan Kuwabara is the captain of Japan's national ice hockey team currently playing at the Pool A World Championships in Germany. Kuwabara, a Japanese-Canadian who was drafted by the Montreal Canadiens and now stars for Japan Ice Hockey League champion Kokudo, has agreed to keep a journal chronicling...
COMMENTARY / World / GUEST FORUM
May 3, 2001

Turn the PM into a man of the people

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is right to suggest amending the Constitution to allow the people to elect the prime minister directly. The government of Japan currently lacks the ability to make quick and firm policy decisions. The Japanese tradition of decision-making by a consensus of powerful individuals...
JAPAN
May 3, 2001

Tanaka, Choi mull mending ties

Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and South Korean Ambassador to Japan Choi Sang Yong agreed Wednesday that an apology issued in 1995 by then Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama should be the basis for resolving the issue of a controversial Japanese history textbook.
BUSINESS
May 2, 2001

Talk of duty-free imports riles Japanese politicians

Yet another block has been added to a diplomatic wall being built by the international community to shut out Japan's rising protectionism on farm trade.
JAPAN
May 2, 2001

NPO tackles cybercrime as government drags its feet

A group of lawyers, scholars and housewives has launched a nonprofit organization to help victims of libel, fraud and other problems that have seen a sharp increase on the Internet.
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
May 2, 2001

Public works projects not so easy to ax, Ogi reckons

The central government must look to local governments and their leaders when reviewing public works projects and avoid drastically reviewing or canceling them without such input, Infrastructure Minister Chikage Ogi said.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb