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JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Limits on trust banking to be relaxed

The Financial Services Agency said Friday that it will authorize all major city banks, regional banks and some other lenders to engage in fiduciary operations, a field of banking so far mainly limited to Japan's six major trust banks and Daiwa Bank, one of Japan's nine city banks.
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Academics indicted over exam leak

Prosecutors indicted two academics Friday on charges of leaking questions from last year's national dentistry examination in violation of the Dental Practitioners' Law.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 27, 2001

Wear black, be seen -- and be photographed

She is there week after week, down on the Ginza strip, up in Aoyama and over in Shinjuku, maneuvering from gallery to gallery on the Tokyo contemporary art exhibition opening party circuit. She is Kazumi Sugita, a retiring middle-aged woman (she does not give out her age, thank you very much), and chances...
EDITORIALS
Jan 26, 2001

Environment under assault

It has been a bad week for the environment. On Monday, a United Nations conference unanimously approved a report confirming that the threat of global warming is both real and intensifying. It identified human activity as the chief culprit. If we needed more proof that we are poor stewards of the environment,...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Mori plans to visit U.S. in February

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori plans to visit the United States for three days starting Feb. 10 to meet U.S. President George W. Bush, Japanese government officials said Thursday.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

LDP minister took bribe, KSD claims

As part of its influence-buying efforts in 1996, the former head of scandal-hit mutual-aid organization KSD gave a former Cabinet minister of the Liberal Democratic Party 10 million yen in cash, according to KSD sources.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Mori pushes social security reform plan

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori proposed Thursday that the government and the three ruling coalition parties draw up an outline by the end of March for reform of the social security system, government officials said.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

NPA officer to reform Indonesia police force

The National Police Agency said Thursday it will dispatch a ranking officer to Indonesia for two years beginning Feb. 10 to help the country reform its police force.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Steelmaker NKK comes to terms with correct words

Sometimes words hurt. But an NKK Corp. employee is trying to ensure that the language fellow workers use at the major steelmaker does not discriminate against people.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Average minimum wage up 0.76%

The weighted average daily minimum wage set by the government for each industrial sector grew 0.76 percent, or 45 yen, to 5,989 yen in fiscal 2000 the lowest increase in a decade, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Thursday. Growth was 0.95 percent in fiscal 1999.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

NTT to test broadband in Shibuya

NTT East Corp. will begin in March a six-month experiment using wireless broadband services, which operate at a speed of up to 36 megabytes per second, in and around Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, the company announced Thursday.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Yen fall now starting to raise eyebrows

The forthcoming regular meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, the policy-setting arm of the U.S. Federal Reserve, will again be the focus of close attention.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Third-quarter profits at Sony tumble 19.6%

Sony Corp. recorded consolidated pretax profits of 133.42 billion yen for the third quarter of fiscal 2000, down 19.6 percent from the corresponding period the previous year, company officials said Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 26, 2001

Plagued by scandal yet again

Fukushiro Nukaga was forced to resign Tuesday as minister for economic and fiscal policy over allegations that he received 15 million yen from the mutual-aid organization KSD in return for favors. Nukaga denied accepting the money himself but admitted that one of his secretaries had received it. He said...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

Major trends start at microeconomic level

2000 should be remembered as the first year in which it was statistically confirmed that microeconomic activities can significantly affect macroeconomic performance, according to Naoki Tanaka, president of the 21st Century Public Policy Initiative.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

Macroeconomic pacing urged

Both Japan and the United States are vulnerable to the same macroeconomic policy mistakes -- overreacting to short-term bad news and making wrong policy decisions, a renowned American economist warned during a recent symposium held in Tokyo.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Fast Retailing takes top income

Fast Retailing Co., operator of the rapidly growing Uniqlo chain of clothing stores, recorded the largest declared income among companies closing their books in August 2000, replacing Hikari Tsushin Inc., which slipped to second, Teikoku Databank said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Cisco to buy 1.65% of Softbank

Softbank Corp. said Thursday that it and Cisco Systems Inc. of the United States have agreed to strengthen their partnership through capital cooperation and launch an investment fund for Internet infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Aum's Joyu moves to Setagaya

Fumihiro Joyu, a leading member of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, said Thursday he has moved to an apartment in Minami-Karasuyama in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward from another facility in Ota Ward.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 26, 2001

From any angle, you've seen it before

They've got self-help books for just about every disorder you can think of out there, but I can think of one more niche that needs filling, namely, "Why Good Directors Make Bad Films." Chapter One: The Angle.
BUSINESS
Jan 26, 2001

Marubeni-Daiei deal nearly sealed

The ailing supermarket chain Daiei Inc. is in the final stage of talks with Marubeni Corp. over the latter's purchase of a 5 percent stake in Daiei and an additional 10 percent stake in its affiliate supermarket chain Maruetsu Inc., a Daiei official said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

Japan's banking system still shaky despite 'reforms'

Japan's banking system can still be described as "fragile" or even "precarious" despite nearly a decade of supposed reforms and a wave of industry realignment, according to Benn Steil, New York-based senior fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Three groups dominate underworld

About 68 percent of some 83,600 known gangsters in Japan were affiliated with three large "boryokudan" underworld syndicates as of the end of last year, reflecting the growing oligopolization of the mob, a National Police Agency report said Thursday.

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