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BUSINESS
Sep 19, 2000

Kumagai Gumi to restructure

Kumagai Gumi Co. unveiled a restructuring plan Monday under which the debt-ridden construction firm will ask 15 creditors to forgive debts totaling 450 billion yen.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2000

Who wants an all-white world, anyway?

LONDON -- "Whites will be a minority in Britain by the end of the century. . . . It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine and disease. Whites will be a minority in London by 2010."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Sep 17, 2000

Never enough thanks for living in Japan

Santi, a reader in the United States, will be moving to Japan soon. He wants to know how to prepare for living in Japan. Here are some of my suggestions for anyone who wants to acclimate quickly to life in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 16, 2000

California: the colors of tomorrow's U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The bald statistic released the other day informing us that the population of the state of California was no longer dominated by a Caucasian majority, having given way to a fast-growing coalition of Hispanics and Asians, should have surprised no one.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2000

Public funds approved for NCB infusion

The Financial Reconstruction Commission approved Thursday a capital injection of 260 billion yen in public funds into Nippon Credit Bank, which resumed operations this month after 21 months under government control.
JAPAN
Sep 15, 2000

Spy affair may prevent Russian colonel's visit

A visit to Japan by Col. Gen. Yuri Burkeyev, commander in chief of the Russian Ground Forces, may be postponed in the wake of last week's arrest of a Maritime Self-Defense Force officer on charges of spying for a Russian Embassy official in Tokyo, according to Defense Agency sources.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2000

GM to double stake in Suzuki

Major U.S. automaker General Motors Corp. will double its equity stake in Suzuki Motor Corp. to 20 percent, the two firms announced Thursday.
BUSINESS
Sep 15, 2000

Sakaiya concerned oil prices will hurt exports

Economic Planning Agency chief Taichi Sakaiya expressed wariness Thursday about the recent rise in crude oil prices, implying it could lead to a reduction in Japanese exports to other parts of Asia.
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 2000

Looking for Mori's successor

A couple of weeks ago, Koichi Kato, former secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, appeared at a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo. Kato is receiving growing public attention as a potential contender for the post of prime minister to replace unpopular Yoshiro...
BUSINESS
Sep 14, 2000

Future holding firm sets terms

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Mitsubishi Trust & Banking Corp. on Wednesday announced the terms for the April consolidation of their units under a single holding company, a move that will form the nation's fourth-largest banking group.
LIFE / Travel
Sep 14, 2000

Bruised flowers: China's hidden army of child laborers

BEIJING -- Hu Changjun was desperate to escape the poverty trap in Wuxi County in southwest China's Sichuan Province. So she couldn't believe her luck when a fellow villager named Changyan offered her work at a joint-venture factory in distant Beijing. "A joint venture means a foreign company, where...
ENVIRONMENT
Sep 14, 2000

Fisheries crashing from pollution in Ariake

The cuisine of the Ariake Sea in northern Kyushu, featured recently in quarterly cultural magazine Fukuoka Style, is a strange one. It's dominated by grotesque, unusual-tasting fish and shellfish simmered heavily in sugar and soy or wrapped in dense layers of seaweed.
OLYMPICS
Sep 13, 2000

'The Greatest Show on Earth' hits Sydney

The "Greatest Show on Earth" is back and badly in need of an image makeover.
OLYMPICS
Sep 13, 2000

Web sites offer a different Olympic view

Want an alternative perspective of the Sydney Olympics? Look no further than the World Wide Web, where everyone from subversives to satirists are poking criticism and fun at the biggest sporting show on earth. Fired by a sense that Australia and the Games are not all sugar-coated harmony and joy -- or...
JAPAN
Sep 13, 2000

400,000 in Tokai face evacuation

Typhoon Saomai joined forces with an autumnal rain front to cause the worst downpours in at least a century in central Japan on Monday and Tuesday, causing at least five deaths and leaving three people missing while disrupting road and rail traffic.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Sep 13, 2000

Talking Olympic tennis with Japan's best-ever player

For some, tennis is not a sport that should be in the Olympics. Its players have been professional for a long time, they earn millions of dollars a year, and they have their own major international championships.
EDITORIALS
Sep 10, 2000

Old friends are the best

Reports from the United States tell us that some Americans are having their faith restored in a popular postwar Japanese export. The subject of their revived affection is not a car or a motorcycle, not a camera or an audiovisual device, not a laptop personal computer or other advanced information-technology...
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Repair work starts again on Miyake

Emergency personnel remaining on the volcanic island of Miyake, some 200 km south of Tokyo, on Saturday resumed work to repair infrastructure damaged by recent mudslides.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Hatoyama elected DPJ president again

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, was elected party president for a second term at a party convention Saturday in Tokyo, pledging to establish a new DPJ-led government after the Upper House elections next summer.
JAPAN
Sep 8, 2000

MITI kills off proposal for carbon tax

A key government panel reviewing the nation's Basic Environment Plan released an interim report calling for the introduction of economic measures to resolve environmental problems.
BUSINESS
Sep 8, 2000

Dai-ichi Mutual to tie up with American Family

Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Co. and U.S. insurer American Family Life Assurance Co. of Columbus on Thursday announced that they will tie up to cross-sell and jointly develop products.
BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2000

Japan Telecom to match NTT rate cut

The president of Japan Telecom Co. said Tuesday that the company will soon match the major cuts in telephone rates announced last week by the two Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. regional carriers.
BUSINESS
Sep 6, 2000

Regional banks seek 95 billion yen injection

Chiba Kogyo Bank and Yachiyo Bank on Monday asked the government for a combined 95 billion yen in taxpayers' money to bolster their fragile capital bases.
JAPAN
Sep 5, 2000

Mitsui Marine named in fraud claim

The president of a Tokyo construction firm has filed a criminal complaint against an employee of Mitsui Marine & Fire Insurance Co. and one of the insurer's former agents on suspicion of fraud, sources close to the case told Kyodo News on Monday.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami