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JAPAN
Aug 4, 2001

Osaka's 10-year reform plan aims to avoid state intervention

OSAKA -- In an attempt to avoid bankruptcy or fiscal intervention from the central government, the Osaka Prefectural Government submitted a 10-year reform program Friday that includes cutting 3,000 jobs and abolishing its Bureau of Public Enterprise.
COMMUNITY
Aug 3, 2001

Togetherness with calisthenics

School is out for the summer but still, remarkably, kids in this fitness-savvy society turn out -- at 6:30 a.m., no less -- at parks, shrines and quiet streets across Japan for NHK's daily "Radio Taiso" workout, a 15-minute live broadcast of morning calisthenics.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

DoCoMo ups expectations for demand

NTT DoCoMo Inc. has revised upward its projection for domestic demand for mobile phones in 2010 in a sign that it is pinning high hopes on the popularity of phone functions in digital cameras, TV sets and refrigerators, company officials said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

Nikkeiren calls on government to implement jobless aid fund

FUJIYOSHIDA, Yamanashi Pref. -- The Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) called on the central government Thursday to implement a 1 trillion yen emergency employment scheme to help cope with rising unemployment.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

JETRO says trade in IT decelerating

The Japan External Trade Organization said Thursday that global trade in products related to information technology, which has supported growth in world trade since 1999, has been slowing rapidly since the beginning of this year.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2001

LDP policymakers push PFI merits

Several policymakers of the Liberal Democratic Party said at a meeting Thursday that private finance initiatives should be deployed to improve the nation's infrastructure and boost the ailing economy.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2001

Major Indian software services firm turns gaze toward Japan

The economic slowdown in the United States is pushing a major Indian software services company to diversify into the Japanese market, said Vivek Paul, president of Wipro Technologies.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Aug 2, 2001

From old Edo to South Park

www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/flashback/0009/ National Geographic has been running a flashback series highlighting its rich photographic history. Here's the September 2000 peek-to-the-past: a Hadaka Matsui feat at Saidaiji Temple in Okayama just after World War II. The photographer's flash provided...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 1, 2001

American talking the talk down in Hiroshima

Most interpreters working for Japanese baseball teams are Japanese. Though there has been a need for translators in a variety of languages in recent years as the suketto (foreign "helpers") hired by Central and Pacific League teams have come from various countries, most of the men hired to change Nihongo...
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Shiokawa set to cut public works 10%

Five Cabinet members spoke out Tuesday on economic matters, with two, including Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa, calling for a reduction in public works for fiscal 2002, and the others discussing the need for a supplemental budget for the current fiscal year.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsuo admits embezzlement

The Foreign Ministry's former head of logistics for VIP trips abroad pleaded guilty in court Tuesday to defrauding the government out of some 161 million yen by padding expenses of overseas visits by two former prime ministers between 1997 and 1999.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

NEC to eliminate 4,000 jobs amid global IT shrinkage

NEC Corp. announced Tuesday it will cut 4,000 personnel in Japan and abroad by April and withdraw from DRAM chip operations in 2004 amid a global shrinkage in information-technology markets.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2001

Matsushita posts first group loss

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. posted its first quarterly group operating loss in 30 years, because of a global slump in demand for technology, the electronics giant said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 31, 2001

Dammed by the state: Displaced Chinese fight for their rights

JIANGSU, China -- Last August, the great Chang river (formerly known as the Yangtze) washed a modern day Noah's Ark from the heart of southwest China to the mouth of the Yellow Sea. Crowded aboard the ferry were 800 peasant farmers, nursing children, animals and seedlings on their three-day voyage to...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2001

Budget test for sacred cows

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reforms with no sacred cows" received a boost from the G7 economic summit in Genoa, Italy.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2001

A nasty taste of things to come

LONDON — Conventional wisdom has it that the future is impossible to predict, or at least to predict with any accuracy.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 24, 2001

Visiting educators find confidence lacking

Japan should make greater efforts to instill a sense of self-confidence in its children and help them to develop the ability to express themselves, according to foreign educators invited to speak at a recent discussion session in Tokyo.
COMMUNITY
Jul 22, 2001

When we had heroes

They were voices in the silence, stars in the night they showed the way and they showed what was right
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jul 22, 2001

The kimono celebrated

KIMONO. Text and photos by Paul van Riel, introduction and comments by Liza Dalby. Leiden: Hotel Publishing, 144 pp., color photos, $49.95. Folklorist Kunio Yanagita long ago said that "clothing is the most direct indication of a people's general frame of mind." If this is so, what then is one to...
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jul 22, 2001

Gifts from the 'god of sake'

Throughout the history of sake brewing, there has been a handful of individuals who have had a huge impact on the craft in the form of technical developments or discoveries. One such benefactor of brewing was Professor Kin'ichi Noshiro of Kumamoto.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 22, 2001

Bourbon Street comes to town

If seen on the street, minus their sousaphones and trombones, the guys from the Black Bottom Brass Band would look like any of the other slightly hip types that wander around Shibuya or America-mura. A guess about their musical tastes would probably run toward some obscure DJ or indie rock's flavor of...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2001

Cloistered ways breed corruption

The Foreign Ministry is embroiled in another fraud scandal. Earlier this week police arrested two ministry bureaucrats on charges of receiving illegal refunds from a limousine company during last year's G8 summit in Kyushu and Okinawa. Investigators say most of the money — which was obtained through...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 19, 2001

Midsummer notes and anecdotes

It was refreshing to see Japan's Shigeki Maruyama notch his first PGA Tour victory last Sunday at the Greater Milwaukee Open. Maruyama, one of the most charismatic and likable of any of the nation's professional athletes who play overseas, put an end to a miserable streak by Japanese golfers on the U.S....
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2001

Lesbian & Gay film fest fetes anniversary

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, the Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival kicks off today and runs until July 22 at Aoyama's Spiral Hall.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 15, 2001

Controversial textbooks are big sellers for Fusosha

The latest best seller, oddly enough, is a junior high school history textbook. After going on sale on June 1, "Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho" has been at or near the top of the best-seller list and the related social studies text "Atarashii Komin Kyokasho" in the top 10. Already 500,000 copies of the history...
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

For the sake of sake

Every winter and spring for the last 10 years, Philip Harper reckons he has had no more than a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but he's more than willing to sacrifice some shut-eye in pursuit of the perfect glass of sake.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 15, 2001

It takes two to tangle

Hong Kong pop idol Faye Wong already has quite a few fans in Japan, but she's sure to add more on a weekly basis thanks to her costarring role in the summer comedy series "Usokoi (False Love)" (Fuji TV, Tuesday, 10 p.m.). Wong plays a young Chinese woman appropriately named Faye, who is studying to be...
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

So much to learn, so little time . . .

To learn a new skill, try the following schools and classes. (Unless otherwise specified, all organizations have information in English on their Web sites but accept telephone inquiries only in Japanese.)

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight