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EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 1999

This pension reform slights Japan

When a Lower House committee voted late in November in an attempt to enact a bill to reform the nation's pension system, many Japanese must have been pained to see politicians play games with a national issue that will affect the livelihood of almost every one of us in our old age. The bill passed the...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Noise pollution not abating, agency says

The amount of noise pollution generated by traffic is still a serious problem as only 13 percent of the sites monitored nationwide met the government's environmental quality standards in 1998, according to the results of an Environment Agency survey released on Thursday. The annual survey, which measured...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Diet enacts 6.8 trillion yen extra budget

The Diet enacted a 6.79 trillion yen supplementary budget Thursday that is intended to put the nation's fragile economy back on track for a full recovery. The second supplementary budget for fiscal 1999, which began April 1, passed the Upper House plenary session with support from the ruling coalition...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Light up -- ante up: New tobacco tax on the way

Staff writer The good news -- at last -- for Japan's ailing state coffers spells bad news for Japan's estimated 33.63 million smokers: The nation's most powerful policymaker announced Wednesday that the ruling Liberal Democratic Party will consider raising the tax on cigarettes by 40 yen per pack, starting...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Chinese sue over Unit 731 germ warfare

Chinese survivors of Japanese germ warfare filed a lawsuit Thursday with the Tokyo District Court, seeking an official apology from Tokyo and 720 million yen in compensation. The 72 plaintiffs claim they are survivors of Japanese biological attacks and the next of kin of those killed in Zhejiang and...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

DPJ panel wants labor law to force holiday leave

Article 38 of the Labor Standards Law should be revised to forcibly cure the nation's workaholism by obliging all businesses to make workers take paid holidays, a policy study group of the Democratic Party of Japan said Thursday. The average Japanese worker takes only about half of the paid holidays...
COMMUNITY
Dec 9, 1999

How to learn more in less time

One of the great things about living in Tokyo is the opportunity to participate in the vast array of workshops that are offered every season. With Glenn Fraser's Accelerated Study Techniques Workshop, students and adult learners of all stripes will really be hitting the jackpot.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Dec 9, 1999

Plenty to imbibe on the Internet

Sake has slowly seeped through the Internet, having reached a fairly saturating presence there. Any search on the word sake will yield intoxicatingly broad results. A lot of it is good information, some of it is a bit light and some of it is pure business. Here is a quick rundown of what can be culled...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Dec 9, 1999

Could you be drinking a glass of freaky Frankenstein wine?

How about a glass or two of Frankenstein wine?
LIFE / Travel
Dec 9, 1999

Rise and fall of a Japanese matador

SEVILLE, Spain -- Atsuhiro Shimoyama never planned on becoming a bullfighter. Growing up in the greater Tokyo region in the late 1980s, he opted out of going to college, and instead bummed around searching for something meaningful to do during Japan's wildly inflating bubble years.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Former POW demands compensation from Mitsui

Lester Tenney, a former U.S. soldier who was held as a prisoner of war in Japan during World War II, on Thursday demanded that Mitsui & Co. and its affiliates issue an apology and compensation for forcing him to work like a "slave." "Me and my colleagues went through hell," Tenney, 79, a retired professor...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Nuclear energy firms form safety network

In an effort to regain public trust in the nuclear energy industry, 35 companies and research institutions formed an association Thursday that subjects members to safety inspections by competitors. September's criticality accident at JCO Co.'s uranium processing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture has jeopardized...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Tokyo to host conference on future role of U.N.

Staff writer Some of the world's leading experts on development, security, governance and the environment will meet in Tokyo in mid-January for an international conference on the role the U.N. will play in the 21st century. According to a provisional program, the Millennium Conference will be held for...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Mazda Motor to raise output, sales

Mazda Motor Corp. plans a slight increase in production and sales of its vehicles next year, President and CEO James Miller told a press conference Thursday. According to the plan, the automaker, based in Hiroshima Prefecture, will manufacture 825,000 units in Japan, up 6.2 percent from this year's...
COMMUNITY
Dec 9, 1999

Social power, social pressure in the playground community

On sunny afternoons, I strap my baby Rio in a carrier and we go to swing on the swings at the local park. He giggles as the wind blows through his hair.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Dec 9, 1999

Good-time dining for the new year

It's the time of year for that annual conundrum: Where to go for that end of year celebration. It really does have to be something European, with wine and a soft, jazzy backing track. You want something with style, but definitely not too formal; a place with a buzz, but not too well known; with good...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

U.K. envoy upbeat on ties

Staff writer What a difference a decade makes. In 1990, BBC television aired a documentary series that chronicled Japan's economic miracle. In January, it will air a followup series examining the nation's economic demise, titled "Bubble Trouble." A contrasting, yet perhaps an even more insightful British...
EDITORIALS
Dec 8, 1999

Seattle's silver lining

Size matters. That is the lesson to be drawn from last week's failed attempt to launch a new world trade round. Finger pointing has intensified in the wake of the breakdown in negotiations, with the United States proving the scapegoat of choice for most non-Americans (and even some Americans). That may...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Dec 8, 1999

May we help you?

They say this might be the year that online Christmas sales in the U.S. actually live up to past promises of e-commerce's ascendancy. Hurrahs could be heard when it was reported that online transactions over Thanksgiving were up 10-fold (and groans could be heard as servers started overloading with the...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Pop singer Makihara given suspended sentence

Popular singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara was sentenced Wednesday to a suspended 18-month prison term for possessing amphetamines at his Tokyo home. The Tokyo District Court found Makihara, 30, guilty for violating the Stimulant Drugs Control Law, but suspended his sentence for three years. He was...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Intimidation charge spurs more Nichiei raids

OSAKA -- Osaka Prefectural Police raided the Kyoto head office and Osaka branch of moneylender Nichiei Co. as well as four other sites Wednesday in connection with the scandal-tainted firm's alleged involvement in heavy-handed loan-collection tactics by its employees. Investigators were acting on a...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Kanagawa cop admits hazing subordinates

YOKOHAMA -- A former patrol unit chief at Atsugi Police Station, Kanagawa Prefecture, admitted in his first trial hearing Wednesday to charges of hazing junior officers. Masaru Kawano, 26, is the first of six former Kanagawa Prefectural Police officers charged with various abuses of authority and coverups...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Dec 8, 1999

Beyond coping

Certain products come in many shapes and sizes, and a reader must thank the Italian Trade Commission in Tokyo for the successful ending of her search. She was looking for a special kind of Italian support hose made by IBICI and she wondered where she could buy them in Japan. It could be an endless search,...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Mie credit union raided in lending probe

TSU, Mie Pref. -- Mie Prefectural Police raided the home of the former president of the failed Mie Prefectural Credit Union, its head office and other locations Wednesday in connection with a breach of trust investigation. Investigators said they suspect Tatsuo Ichikawa, former president of the credit...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

'Knock' to keep low profile during Y2K celebrations

OSAKA -- While celebrations to usher in the new millennium are being scheduled at a number of venues here, one of Osaka's most visible officials may not be among those taking part. It is speculated that Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama, who is currently embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, will have...
LIFE / Travel
Dec 8, 1999

American tycoons leave lush legacy

In Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine, the National Parks Service just completed flossing "Mr. Rockefeller's teeth," the nickname given to the large chunks of granite edging roads built by John D. Rockfeller Jr. The "teeth" were in desperate need of a cleaning to remove vegetation that had grown...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Dec 8, 1999

The natural treasures of Kinomiya Shrine

Atami in Shizuoka, along with Beppu in Kyushu and Shirahama in Wakayama, is well known for its hot springs.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 8, 1999

A life less ordinary: Anne Frank's legacy

Amsterdam must be the only European city whose most popular tourist attractions occupy different ends of the sliding scale that begins with virtue and ends with vice. It is likely that many of those who wait patiently in the queues that snake daily around the canal-side block where the Anne Frank Huis...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Advocates hit courts' insensitivity to mentally disabled

Staff writer When the court officer announced "all rise" before the close of the trial, the 58-year-old mentally disability defendant remained seated. When the judge sentenced him in July to a 20-month prison term, he was the only one who apparently did not understand what had happened. The man was...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 1999

Losing the battle in Seattle

Last Tuesday, a crowd in downtown Seattle assembled in front of a McDonald's restaurant. First, a French dairy farmer, defending European agricultural export subsidies, denounced the World Trade Organization. Next, a Brazilian farmer, harmed by those same European export subsidies, excoriated the WTO....

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