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BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2001

Core machinery orders dipped 12% in January

Core machinery orders from Japanese businesses shriveled a seasonally adjusted 11.8 percent in January from the previous month to 966.9 billion yen after a 3.8 percent rise in December, the government said Thursday.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 9, 2001

Japan Energy claims JBL title

Forward Ryoko Yano scored a game-high 21 points Wednesday as the Japan Energy Sunflowers sealed their first Japan Basketball League crown in 11 seasons with a 95-78 win over the Chanson V-Magic in Game 4 of the championship series at Yoyogi National Gymnasium Annex in Tokyo.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 9, 2001

Michio Imazato finds another shade of blue

When Michio Imazato first heard Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," a record he checked out from the public library in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, he couldn't have known he'd be leading his own quintet 10 years later in New York City. After all, he was a typical rock 'n' roll-loving high-school kid playing...
BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2001

Marubeni to invest in China IT firm

Marubeni Corp. said Thursday it has obtained Beijing's approval to take a 10 percent stake in Shanghai Dragon Head Zhangjiang Business & Network, an information technology firm that operates an Internet portal site for textile companies.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2001

MPD officer arrested for bribery

Metropolitan Police Department officer was arrested Thursday on suspicion of accepting bribes from a company president in exchange for influencing police officers investigating a case involving his firm, police sources said.
JAPAN
Mar 9, 2001

Crime rise fuels quest for security

Increasing numbers of people are flocking to the home-security sections of their local hardware and do-it-yourself stores on weekends amid reports of a growing crime wave in Japan.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 9, 2001

Climbing out of J2 not so easy, as Oita knows only too well

The J. League's Division Two will get under way on Saturday alongside Division One. The lower division has been expanded to 12 teams, with newcomer Yokohama FC joining relegated teams Kyoto Purple Sanga and Kawasaki Frontale.
BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2001

Ministry white paper urges clarification in aid policies

Japan should clarify its priorities regarding foreign aid to China, the Foreign Ministry said in a draft annual report on aid presented Thursday to a ruling Liberal Democratic Party panel.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2001

Thais make an enemy out of Myanmar

No one knows who put a bomb on a Thai Airways jet scheduled to carry Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to Chiang Mai, but respected media outlets such as the Matichon newspaper and the Bangkok Post have hinted that the bombing may have something to do with drugs from Myanmar.
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 9, 2001

What the managers say

Takeshi Okada (Consadole Sapporo) It's my first season in J1 and we've done all we can to prepare for the season. Many of my players have stayed with the team, which has made my job easier, as they can understand what I want to do with them. We've set an initial target of reaching 10th place and winning...
BUSINESS
Mar 9, 2001

NEC to expand merit-based pay

NEC Corp. said Thursday it will allocate a larger proportion of systems engineers' income through its merit-based pay system in response to increasing competition in the field of information technology.
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2001

Protection for women in war

In a historic decision, the United Nations war-crimes tribunal in The Hague last month convicted three men in trials that focused exclusively on sexual violence against women during war. By ruling that rape can be used as an instrument of terror against women, the court sets new standards for behavior...
EDITORIALS
Mar 8, 2001

Tightening the net

When the law finally caught up with Al Capone, the famed Chicago mobster, the instrument of justice was income tax invasion. That might seem strange given his life of crime, but law-enforcement officials do the best with the tools they have and getting the feared man behind bars was the goal.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Mar 8, 2001

Putin plays a bad hand well

"I was deeply touched, when he smiled and looked at us with his blue eyes, my old sweet memories flooded back to me," a middle-aged Soviet-trained Vietnamese woman told the TV crew. The blue eyes in question belonged not to a movie star, but to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was visiting Hanoi,...
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Index shows expansion

The government said Wednesday its key gauge of the nation's economic activity topped the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent in January for the second consecutive month.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2001

Japan urged to bring in more refugees

Japan should make financial contributions to the U.N.'s refugee body, but it should also accept refugees from Asia and Africa to show leadership in humanitarian affairs, Rudolphus Lubbers, the new U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said in Tokyo Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2001

Governments disagree on dam project

The Nagasaki Prefectural Government and the central government remained at loggerheads Wednesday over a proposal to temporarily halt a reclamation project and open a dike across Isahaya Bay, government officials said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Net mobile phone users top 31 million

The number of people with Internet-capable mobile phones stood at 31.41 million at the end of February, up a sharp 2.16 million from a month earlier, the Telecommunications Carriers Association said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2001

Father of train crash victim accepts graduation certificate

The father of a 17-year-old boy killed a year ago in a collision between two subway trains in Tokyo's Meguro Ward received a graduation certificate in his son's name on Wednesday from the high school the boy attended.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Troubled Mycal may ax two stores

OSAKA -- The ailing Mycal Corp. supermarket chain may close the Ofuna Saty store in Yokohama and Shinsaibashi Vivre store in Osaka as part of its three-year restructuring plan, sources said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Nissan bonus payments to meet union demands

Nissan Motor Co. announced Wednesday it will pay its union members a bonus this year equal to 5.2 months in salary, meeting the demands of the automaker's labor union.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Hitachi Chemical sees profit rise

Major synthetic resin maker Hitachi Chemical Co. said Wednesday it has revised upward its parent-only net profit projection for fiscal 2000 to 7.9 billion yen from the 6 billion yen forecast earlier.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2001

Mori ready to resign, LDP officials suggest

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has decided to step down in late March or early April, soon after the Diet passes the fiscal 2001 budget, a senior member of Mori's faction in the Liberal Democratic Party said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Travel firms prepare for merger

Nippon Travel Agency Co. and Kinki Nippon Tourist Co. announced Wednesday they have set up a company to prepare for their planned merger in 2003.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Hayami sticks to his guns over monetary easing

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami reiterated Wednesday that the state of the economy and price trends will guide the BOJ's decision on whether to revive its "zero-interest-rate" policy and implement quantitative monetary easing.
BUSINESS
Mar 8, 2001

Book-closing factor may clip dollar's wings

The yen could remain under downward pressure for some time amid growing worries about economic and stock market prospects in Japan.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji