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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2000

Language questions reflect changing times

In times of transition, when the need for reform is felt more keenly than usual, there is heightened openness to bold suggestions. Japan is in the middle of such a period. Public debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP. The social-welfare system needs a drastic overhaul. Unemployment is at an all-time high....
COMMENTARY
Aug 26, 2000

Is the Bank of Japan right?

LONDON -- The governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaru Hayami, and the majority of the BOJ's policy council have drawn criticism from the Japanese government and leaders of Japanese industry for the decision to end the BOJ's zero-interest-rate policy. These criticisms have been echoed in the British press....
BUSINESS
Aug 26, 2000

Capital gains tax system should stay: FRC chief

Hideyuki Aizawa, chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, said Friday that he will call on the Finance Ministry to maintain the current capital gains tax system in order to prevent the ministry's proposed reforms from negatively affecting the domestic stock market.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2000

The case against Japan's whaling program

While U.S. President Bill Clinton was signing legislation to protect the oceans, Japan expanded its whale hunt in the North Pacific. In defiance of international pleas from Clinton, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders, Japan has gone beyond hunting smaller minke whales to include the...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 26, 2000

Magic of Momoyama Mino still shines across the years

Let's take a walk back in time, say to the 1570s. Not just any ol' hike through the woods, but a pilgrimage to the birthplace of some of Japan's greatest ceramic wares.
CULTURE / Art
Aug 26, 2000

Hair ornament exhibitions

The Sawanoi Museum of Traditional Japanese Hair Ornaments in the western suburbs of Tokyo will hold a three-day event Sept. 8-10 commemorating Kushi no Hi (Comb Day). Stores and institutions with connections to combs and hair ornaments usually organize a variety of events on Sept. 4, as the numerals...
EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2000

Listen to the market

The market is the judge in the market-driven economy. For instance, the stock market tells -- through prices formed by the collective will of investors -- where the real economy stands. Although this fact is self-evident, it is often forgotten or misunderstood. The current slump in the Tokyo stock market,...
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

LDP sidelines 17.2 billion yen loan to China

The Liberal Democratic Party said Thursday that it will postpone approval of a plan to loan 17.2 billion yen to China to protest recent Chinese naval activity in and around Japanese territorial waters, LDP officials said.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Psychiatrists took brains for research without consent

Two psychiatrists at a national health institution in Chiba Prefecture kept for research purposes the brains of 95 people autopsied at the Medical Examiner's Office in Tokyo without the consent of relatives of the deceased or the proper authorities, it was learned Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Digital technology casts doubt on photo evidence used in court

Courts in the future will give less credibility to photos as evidence, due to the growing quality of computer-enhanced images, the president of the world's third-largest producer of image-editing computer software said.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2000

Imports outpace exports as surplus drops 19.3%

Japan's trade surplus fell 19.3 percent in July from a year earlier to 1 trillion yen as the increase in imports outpaced that of exports, maintaining the seesaw pattern that has prevailed over the past several months, the Finance Ministry said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Updated environment plan to add new economic options

The Basic Environment Plan -- Japan's 5-year-old master plan for a more environmentally sustainable society -- is in the middle of a seismic revision.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2000

RCC waiving billions of yen in debts

The Resolution and Collection Corp. has given up its claims on loans worth dozens of billions of yen it inherited from failed financial institutions since its inception in April 1999, it was learned Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

State institutes set to study violent kids' backgrounds

Amid a rise in youth violence in the country, two government research institutes will launch a joint study into the backgrounds of youths who commit impulsive acts of violence, government sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Acquitted Nepal man's second trial continues

The second hearing in the prosecution's appeal of a Nepalese man's acquittal of robbery and murder by a district court was held Thursday, after the Tokyo High Court on Wednesday designated two of his five defense lawyers as court-appointed attorneys.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2000

July department store sales fell for fifth month in a row

Sales at department stores in Japan dropped 4.5 percent in July from a year earlier to 873.73 billion yen, down for the fifth straight month, an industry group said Thursday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 25, 2000

Wakatabe hurls Hawks by Lions

Kenichi Wakatabe tossed a two-hit shutout against the Pacific League-leading Seibu Lions on Thursday, leading the Daiei Hawks to a 1-0 victory in a tight pitchers' duel at the Seibu Dome.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2000

Japan, Saudi Arabia to build 1.5 billion yen mechanics school

Despite the collapse of key oil negotiations earlier this year, Japan and Saudi Arabia are entering the final stage of preparations for a 1.5 billion yen joint project to establish a training institute for Saudi car mechanics in the kingdom.
BUSINESS
Aug 25, 2000

Yen looks poised to restart upward march

The yen has come largely unscathed through a recent spate of unnerving economic and corporate news, including the collapse of Sogo Co.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 25, 2000

Japan set for Asian Cup hockey defense

The Japan national ice hockey team will play in the Asian Cup early next month in its quest to defend its title at the annual three-nation tournament and qualify for the 2001 World Championship Pool A, the Japan Ice Hockey Federation announced Thursday in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Japan and North Korea spin wheels in normalization talks

KISARAZU, Chiba Pref. -- Japanese and North Korean negotiators resumed their 10th round of bilateral normalization talks here Thursday but failed to narrow their differences on Pyongyang's demand for an apology and redress for Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2000

Wahid battered but still kicking

SINGAPORE -- The threat of impeachment from angry legislators stared Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid grimly in the face on Aug 7., when the 695-member People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) convened in Jakarta to review Indonesia's progress.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2000

Turbulent times await Mori

Japan's new political season will open in late September, when an extraordinary Diet session starts after the summer recess. Politics in the upcoming year will be marked by three potential turning points.
JAPAN
Aug 25, 2000

Government unveils guidelines for axing works projects

The three ruling parties have adopted a set of four criteria for deciding whether to scrap or suspend ongoing public works projects as part of a plan to make Japan's huge construction budgets more effective, according to coalition officials.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past