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JAPAN
Dec 14, 2000

Liberal Party leader re-elected

Ichiro Ozawa was re-elected uncontested as leader of the Liberal Party for a second three-year term Wednesday, officials said.
COMMUNITY
Dec 14, 2000

Network crusades for dogs in distress

If the pope were to visit Yokohama, he would have to consider Kiyoto Kitaura for sainthood, for the modern-day St. Francis is nothing short of a godsend to animals in need.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2000

Deregulation deemed key to keep up with other nations

Japan should adopt a variety of deregulation measures, including the dismantling of the current holding company structure of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. and permitting companies that issue stocks to run hospitals, a government advisory panel recommended Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2000

Japan, OSCE pledge cooperation in Asia

Japan and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on Tuesday agreed to cooperate in helping build political and economic stability in Central Asian countries, government officials said.
JAPAN
Dec 13, 2000

Kobe man says he was a spy for Pyongyang for 20 years

KOBE -- For nearly 20 years, Cho Ryu Un, a Korean resident of Japan born and raised in Kobe, lived a double life. To friends and business partners, he was a normal businessman, albeit connected with the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon).
EDITORIALS
Dec 13, 2000

The EU makes nice in Nice

At its make-or-break summit last weekend in Nice, the European Union bent. Faced with the need to reform to accommodate new members and new responsibilities, European heads of state produced the inevitable compromises and fudges. Some choices were made; others, predictably, were put off. Still, the ground...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Dec 13, 2000

Quest for the yellow-flowered toad lily

After visiting Ukishima bog-woodland in Shingu I took the express train back to Kushimoto. My quest was for a yellow-flowering toad lily, which reportedly grows wild in the southern Kii Peninsula.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2000

Citizen exchanges said key to Japanese-Korean ties

Japan and South Korea should increase citizen exchanges, especially of young people, to build a new partnership and jointly play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, panelists at a symposium on Japan-South Korea relations agreed Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2000

India seeks approval of nuclear policy

Japan and India share the same goal in terms of universal nuclear disarmament and differ only in their approaches to achieve it, Indian Ambassador to Japan Aftab Seth said Monday.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2000

Katayama wants municipalities to amalgamate

Japan's 2,600 towns and villages should be amalgamated to reduce the number of municipalities to around 1,000 to tie in with the planned decentralization of administrative power, according to the new chief of the Home Affairs Ministry.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2000

Murayama offered Pyongyang compromise for past

Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama offered a compromise to North Korea earlier this month to break a deadlock in normalization talks between Tokyo and Pyongyang, but the North Korean response was not positive, sources to close to Japan-North Korea relations said Saturday.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2000

Magazine to run picture of Mori, alleged rightist

In the latest potential headache for Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, a weekly magazine plans to publish photographs of Mori with a man allegedly linked to a crime syndicate in an edition that will hit newsstands this week.
COMMENTARY
Dec 10, 2000

American democracy teeters on the brink

NEW YORK -- There's plenty of room for reasonable disagreement in this post-election netherworld. The Bushies are right that we need a president-elect and we needed one weeks ago; despite lackadaisical opinion polls and surprising public apathy, the legal maneuvering over recounts can't go on forever....
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2000

Environment Agency rises a rank

In less than a month, the Environment Agency will -- at least in theory -- get its hands on a bigger piece of the administrative pie.
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Dec 9, 2000

Ogi wants Haneda to go international

Tokyo's Haneda airport should be an international hub and the new megaministry that will control most public works budgets should draw up a grand design for the nation's airport network, said the woman who will head the megaministry.
JAPAN
Dec 9, 2000

NGOs open sex slave tribunal

Nongovernmental organizations began a five-day people's tribunal Friday in Tokyo to clarify the criminal role of the government and Japanese soldiers in regards to violence against women during the war.
JAPAN / CABINET INTERVIEW
Dec 8, 2000

Ogi pushes international role for Haneda

Tokyo's Haneda should be used as an international airport, and the new megaministry that will control most public works budgets should draw up a grand design for the nation's airport network, said the woman who will head the megaministry.
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2000

SDP set for about-face on SDF

The Social Democratic Party may take a major step back from its historic decision in 1994 recognizing the Self-Defense Forces as constitutional and supporting the continuance of the Japan-U.S. security treaty, according to party sources.
JAPAN
Dec 7, 2000

Slovakia hopes for Japanese Embassy in capital

Slovakia wants Japan to establish an embassy in its capital, Bratislava, and scrap visa requirements to enhance bilateral ties, according to Jozef Migas, president of the National Council -- Slovakia's parliament.
BUSINESS
Dec 7, 2000

Retail chains under siege

Conventional Japanese supermarket chains, which are suffering dwindling sales and being cold-shouldered by consumers, will be dealt another blow with the advance of foreign retail giants wielding aggressive business plans into the Japanese market.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2000

LDP approves three top positions

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday formally appointed Makoto Koga as its secretary general and Kanezo Muraoka as chairman of the Executive Council, while approving Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's decision to retain Shizuka Kamei as policy affairs chief.
BUSINESS
Dec 6, 2000

World economy better than in 1998, EPA says

Despite concerns over surging crude oil prices and the weak euro, the global conomy remains in better shape now than it was in 1998, when it was hit by the Asian financial crisis that broke out the previous year, the Economic Planning Agency said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2000

First Nordic-Japan Forum held

NAGANO -- About 950 people attended the first Nordic-Japan Forum on environmental issues held recently at a hotel in Nagano Prefecture.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2000

Police raid Osaka assembly over construction bid scam

OSAKA -- Investigators raided the Osaka Prefectural Assembly's secretariat Monday in connection with the arrest of an assembly member on suspicion of leaking bid-related information to a construction company.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2000

Old guard may still deliver

As suggested in an earlier column (Nov. 16), the Liberal Democratic Party faction leader, Koichi Kato, probably deserved to fail in his recent attempt to overthrow his party's leadership. His timing and approach were flawed. His call for immediate structural reform and fiscal restraint was bad economics....
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2000

World's tallest building planned in South Korea

South Korea's Lotte Group is to construct the tallest building in the world -- nearly one-third as tall again as the highest building in Japan, the Landmark Tower in Yokohama -- at a cost of some 1.2 trillion won, over $1 billion.
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Red Army kin could return by yearend

Prospects increased that five family members of the former Red Army Faction members who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet in 1970 will return to Japan from North Korea as government sources said Japan plans to allow an agent to apply for visas for them.
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2000

Global economic factors paint gloomy picture for new year

Since the mid-1990s, the world economy has expanded remarkably, propelled mainly by the introduction of advanced information and communication technologies. In fact, according to the IMF's recent World Economic Outlook, global output grew 3.4 percent in 1999 and is expected to accelerate to 4.7 percent...
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Fight the spread of small arms

The United Nations General Assembly has decided to hold the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Aspects in New York in July 2001. The trade involves a broad range of hand-carried arms from automatic rifles to portable missiles.

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