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JAPAN
Feb 27, 2001

Approval rating for Mori declines to 7%

The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the latest Kyodo News survey is down to a mere 7 percent, a drop of 12 percentage points from a similar poll in December. His disapproval rating, meanwhile, has leaped to 82 percent from 65 percent.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2001

The guide to the Chinese economy

CHINA'S NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY, by Susumu Yabuki and Stephen M. Harner. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999, revised edition, 327 pp., $32. In this thoroughly revised edition of Susumu Yabuki's 1995 book, Stephen Harner (translator of the 1995 book) joins Yabuki to paint a broad picture of China's...
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2001

MHI to send generators to Belgium

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will ship three replacement steam generators to a nuclear plant in Belgium on Wednesday to increase the plant's power generating capacity, the company said Monday.
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2001

Approval rating for Mori declines to 7%

The approval rating for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori in the latest Kyodo News survey is down to a mere 7 percent, a drop of 12 percentage points from a similar poll in December. His disapproval rating, meanwhile, has leaped to 82 percent from 65 percent.
SOCCER / World cup
Feb 27, 2001

World Cup ticket glitch: Part IV

Internet ticket sales in South Korea and Japan for the 2002 World Cup were temporarily suspended Monday morning due to a computer glitch, just one day after the start of applications following a 10-day delay.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2001

Fairy tales for modern Japan

GHOST OF A SMILE: Stories, by Deborah Boliver Boehm. Kodansha International, 2000, 288 pp., 2,900 yen (cloth). Imagine Lafcadio Hearn venturing to 21st-century Tokyo reincarnated as a single American woman with a penchant for the exotic and erotic, and you will have a sense of the stories in "Ghost of...
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2001

Unearthly entertainment

Kiyoshi Kurosawa is God's gift to film journalists. He speaks slowly and distinctly, in a rumbling baritone, weighing each word -- and giving even the most fumble-fingered reporter time to get everything down. He is also patient with questions that, after the 20th media interview, he has heard 20 times...
JAPAN
Feb 27, 2001

Blackmans seek privacy after ordeal

The father of murdered British hostess Lucie Blackman arrived in Japan on Monday morning, asking that the family be granted some privacy before they return to Britain with her remains and outlining a trust fund in her name.
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2001

Matsushita in plastics agreement

Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. has said Monday it has agreed with Sweden's Perstorp AB to cooperate on amino molding compounds, a key element in electrical-insulation plastic devices such as power outlets.
BUSINESS
Feb 27, 2001

Matsushita in plastics agreement

Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. has said Monday it has agreed with Sweden's Perstorp AB to cooperate on amino molding compounds, a key element in electrical-insulation plastic devices such as power outlets.
EDITORIALS
Feb 26, 2001

The IOC gets down to business

The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to select the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics at a Moscow general meeting in July, according to the IOC rule that says selection should be made seven years before the summer or winter games are held. To collect the necessary data, the committee...
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

Ministry considers expansion of earlier college admissions

The education ministry plans to lift the restrictions on college admission for 17-year-old students who have not yet completed three years of high school in order to increase the number of promising applicants in various fields, ministry sources said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2001

British bill puts Tamil Tigers on notice

Britain's new antiterrorist legislation that comes into force Monday has generated mixed reaction in various circles within Britain as well as internationally. While the British government has hailed the bill as a powerful means to curtail terrorism worldwide, opponents of the legislation claim it is...
BUSINESS
Feb 26, 2001

Japan in sore need of direct financing

The Tokyo stock market remains in a slump, with its key indicator threatening to fall below 13,000, as uncertainties linger over the future and selling pressures intensify with the unwinding of cross-shareholdings toward the end of the fiscal year.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2001

Nice Treaty upholds Britain's interests

BRUSSELS -- A "stronger Britain in a wider Europe" has been the vision of a succession of British governments but increasingly this debate on the future of Britain in Europe is one in which the media is having to place severe constraints. The strong tradition of English exceptionalism and isolationism...
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2001

ODA without a conscience

I was interviewed recently by a British postgraduate student who was in Tokyo to write a doctoral thesis on Japanese policies relating to official development assistance. She met a Foreign Ministry official to obtain information about Japan's ODA policy guidelines, but she said the interview was disappointing...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 26, 2001

Americans capture half-pipe golds

American snowboarders enjoyed much success on Sunday, the final day of the Asahikawa World Cup meet, while Japanese teenager Daisuke Murakami hinted at his potential with a fifth-place finish in the men's half-pipe competition.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

Belgian prime minister decorates two Japanese execs

OSAKA -- Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt has granted decorations to two Japanese corporate executives in Osaka Prefecture in recognition of their companies' investments in his country.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

Forestry law draft stresses conservation

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has drafted legislation that would shift the emphasis in Japan's forestry policy to environmental and land conservation from the promotion of the forestry industry, ministry sources said Sunday.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

Forestry law draft stresses conservation

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry has drafted legislation that would shift the emphasis in Japan's forestry policy to environmental and land conservation from the promotion of the forestry industry, ministry sources said Sunday.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

IOC inspectors arrive in Osaka

OSAKA -- Members of the International Olympic Committee's bid-city evaluation committee arrived in Osaka on Sunday evening to begin a four-day inspection tour of sports and other facilities.
JAPAN
Feb 26, 2001

IOC inspectors arrive in Osaka

OSAKA -- Members of the International Olympic Committee's bid-city evaluation committee arrived in Osaka on Sunday evening to begin a four-day inspection tour of sports and other facilities.
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2001

U.S. Navy must come clean

Did prospects for improved Japan-U.S. relations sink with the Ehime Maru off Waikiki two weeks ago? Probably not, but the reaction to what all agree was a tragic accident demonstrates the fragility of the alliance and the need for the more sensitive "American leadership without arrogance" promised by...

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