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JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Owing 980 billion yen, Tokyo Mutual fails

In the insurance industry's fifth failure in fiscal 2000, midtier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed for court protection from its creditors Friday after it was denied capital assistance from its main bank, Daiwa Bank.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Land prices seal decade of decline by falling 4.9%

Land prices in Japan declined by an average of 4.9 percent in the year to Jan. 1, falling for the 10th consecutive year amid the nation's prolonged economic slump, the Land Ministry said in a report released Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

Ex-driver to be hanged for role in dual murder

OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court on Thursday sentenced a 58-year-old former driver to death for murdering a man and his wife in 1997 and stealing cash from their home in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Don't keep all eggs in one falling yen basket

On hearing that deposit interest rates in Japan are near zero, an investor from Jakarta said in apparent disbelief "You must be joking."
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2001

Tertiary industry index slips

The government said Wednesday that an index designed to gauge economic activity in Japan's tertiary industries slid 0.5 percent in January from the previous month.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 20, 2001

Shanghai, the heart of China

NEW SHANGHAI: The Rocky Rebirth of China's Legendary City, by Pamela Yatsko. Wiley, 2001, 298 pp., 2,300 yen (paper). Few doubt that Shanghai is the nerve center of China's second "Great Leap Forward." This metropolis -- long considered the most cosmopolitan of all Asian cities -- is the cornerstone...
JAPAN
Mar 16, 2001

Miyazawa proposes stock fund guarantee

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa presented a scheme Thursday that would extend a government guarantee to a proposed private-sector fund that would purchase cross-held shares from ailing institutions, Financial Services Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said.
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2001

Bankruptcies rise, but less debt remains

The number of corporate bankruptcies rose 0.3 percent in February from a year ago to 1,448 for the first increase in two months, but debts left behind fell 7.6 percent to 1.115 trillion yen, a research institute said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2001

Notes on debts link Obara to Blackman

Notes apparently written by Lucie Blackman, a British woman whose dismembered body was discovered last month, have been seized at a Tokyo condominium owned by the prime suspect in her case, police sources said Monday.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2001

Coalition eyes stock-revitalization package, job-creating steps

The government and ruling coalition are devising tax-incentive and other measures as an emergency package to turn around the nosediving stock market and thaw the frozen real estate market, coalition officials said Friday.
BUSINESS
Mar 1, 2001

Moody's expects securities to grow

Moody's Investors Service Inc. said Wednesday that Japan's securitization market is expected to grow 20 percent to 40 percent in 2001 from the previous year to be worth between 3 trillion yen and 3.5 trillion yen.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 1, 2001

NHK's hollow take on easy-money bubble era

What's impressive about the new Steven Soderbergh film, "Traffic," which opens here in April, is how thoroughly it presents all the ramifications of America's drug war by exclusively dramatic means: no charts, no explanations of cause and effect, no polemics. The movie's three separate plot vectors intersect...
JAPAN
Mar 1, 2001

105 million yen stolen from man's home

Five or six masked men entered the Tokyo home of a major telephone dating club operator and stole around 105 million yen in cash and 30 million yen in jewelry from three safes, police said Wednesday.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

Asia's heritage boom

Call it nostalgia or call it a self-awakening, but Asians are rediscovering the value of their architectural heritage. From ancient police courts in Shanxi, China to forest temples in Thailand, from colonial quays in Singapore to the brick kilns and iron smithies of Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward, the...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2001

Freeze on beltway complicates lives of residents

Shozaburo Kon did not expect to face the ordeal he eventually had to endure when he took the plan of his new house to a local office of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government 10 years ago.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2001

Bankruptcies down but liabilities rise

Corporate bankruptcies declined 5.8 percent in January from a year earlier to 1,358 for the first decrease in 15 months, but the failed firms' liabilities jumped 60.6 percent to 969.65 billion yen, a private research institute said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 16, 2001

Bankruptcies down but liabilities rise

Corporate bankruptcies declined 5.8 percent in January from a year earlier to 1,358 for the first decrease in 15 months, but the failed firms' liabilities jumped 60.6 percent to 969.65 billion yen, a private research institute said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2001

Care for elderly to generate 24% of GDP by 2015

The aging population will cause the medical and nursing-care sector to help generate about one quarter of Japan's gross domestic product in 2015, a think tank under the Japan Medical Association said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Feb 15, 2001

Care for elderly to generate 24% of GDP by 2015

The aging population will cause the medical and nursing-care sector to help generate about one quarter of Japan's gross domestic product in 2015, a think tank under the Japan Medical Association said Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2001

How do you spell that again?

Another storm has been raging lately in the teacup of English. Like many linguistic squalls, this one is centered on spelling. It blew up in Britain late last year after the government's Qualifications and Curriculum Authority decreed the use of internationally agreed spellings for some scientific terms...
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2001

Still thrilled every spring by start of Wimbledon

There was America's No. 2 seed, Lindsey Davenport, on court in the final stages of the Toray Pan Pacific Open, thrashing Croatia's Iva Majoli, and looking a lot softer and prettier in the flesh than TV ever suggests.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Coalition unveils market-boosting plan

The ruling coalition unveiled a package of policy proposals Friday designed to help bolster Japan's slumping stock market, calling for easing of restrictions on so-called treasury stocks and quickly introducing the U.S. 401(k)-style pension scheme.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Coalition unveils market-boosting plan

The ruling coalition unveiled a package of policy proposals Friday designed to help bolster Japan's slumping stock market, calling for easing of restrictions on so-called treasury stocks and quickly introducing the U.S. 401(k)-style pension scheme.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Public works bid-rigging said widespread

Takehiko Mori says he is confessing to his crime now that the three-year statute of limitations for the offense has expired.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2001

LDP's Takeshita, Kamei accepted bribes: witness

Liberal Democratic Party heavyweights Shizuka Kamei and the late Noboru Takeshita received bribes in return for approving public works projects, a witness testified in former Construction Minister Eiichi Nakao's bribery trial.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 2001

LDP's Takeshita, Kamei accepted bribes: witness

Liberal Democratic Party heavyweights Shizuka Kamei and the late Noboru Takeshita received bribes in return for approving public works projects, a witness testified in former Construction Minister Eiichi Nakao's bribery trial.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 6, 2001

Japan must open the doors if it is to survive

JAPAN AND GLOBAL MIGRATION: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society, edited by Mike Douglass and Glenda Roberts. London: Routledge, 2000, 306 pp., 63 British pounds. Japan's demographic time bomb is ticking away. In the coming decades, the nation faces a labor shortage and insolvency...
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2001

Pricey Rinku trash system to be dumped

OSAKA -- An advanced underground waste disposal and collection system developed for Rinku Town, the coastal business center adjacent to the offshore Kansai International Airport, is facing closure less than five years after it first came into operation, it was learned Friday.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2001

Economic indexes sink below 50%

The government said Monday its leading, coincident and lagging economic indexes all slipped below the boom-or-bust line of 50 percent in November for the first time in 23 months.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji