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LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 12, 2000

We have a future

Another megamerger, another Internet world-eating conglomerate emerges. Apart from its size, the AOL-Time/Warner deal is a big deal: The marriage of AOL and Time Warner matters (if it goes throtwo reasons. First, it combines one of the biggest Net presences with a broadband delivery systefinally makes...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2000

Employers call for shake up by sharing jobs, cutting wages

As a way of maintaining the current level of employment as well as creating new jobs, the Japan Federation of Employers' Associations (Nikkeiren) proposed that wages be reduced and job-sharing be adopted by more firms in its annual report released Wednesday. The business organization's report is regarded...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 10, 2000

How to level the business playing field

CRISIS AND OPPORTUNITY IN A CHANGING JAPAN, by William R. Farrell, with a foreward by Walter F. Mondale. Westport/London: Quorum Books, 1999, 275 pp., $60 (cloth). It's the Black Ships, round II. JETRO reports that foreign direct investment into Japan leaped 89.4 percent last year, topping $10 billion...
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2000

Japan dangles WTO carrot for oil rights

Japan hopes that moving on a bilateral deal that could eventually lead to Saudi Arabia's admission to the World Trade Organization will help convince Riyadh to renew a Japanese government-backed company's oil-drilling rights, government sources said Monday. A 40-year agreement giving Tokyo-based Arabian...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2000

Economics and the human perspective

Economics, it is sometimes useful to point out, can hardly be analyzed at all if divorced from some basic cultural parameters. A recent academic gathering in Japan reminded us of just that.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2000

Top of the line in toys

HIMEJI, Hyogo Pref. -- For a long time, koma (tops) were commonly given to children during the New Year's season. These days, however, the traditional toy is wobbling on the edge of extinction.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2000

Pessimism, ambivalence about future sum up state of the nation

Staff writer
JAPAN
Jan 6, 2000

Tax agency to probe Aum computer firms

URAWA, Saitama Pref. -- Police alerted tax authorities Thursday that two Tokyo-based personal computer industry firms allegedly linked to the Aum Shinrikyo cult are suspected of hiding income, investigation sources said Thursday. The National Tax Administration Agency is planning to launch a full-scale...
JAPAN / Media
Jan 6, 2000

New Year's TV specials -- impersonating entertainment

The suicide rate goes up at the end of the year, an increase that's usually attributed to depression in the face of what is perceived as everybody else's high holiday spirits. In Japan, there's another reason for despair. That's the prospect of being stuck in the company of relatives you hate eating...
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2000

Rural regions accentuate their pluses to lure city dwellers

Staff writer AYA, Miyazaki Pref. -- A small window on the upper floor of a two-story log house offers a magnificent view of mountains covered in dense deciduous forests of various color gradations. This landscape, coupled with the area's policy of promoting organic agriculture, prompted Teruhiko and...
MORE SPORTS
Jan 4, 2000

Asahi tops Kwansei to capture Rice Bowl

Yasumoto Sasaki recorded a game-high three quarterback sacks as the X League champion Asahi Beer Club Silver Star defeated the collegiate representative Kwansei Gakuin Fighters 33-17 in the Rice Bowl on Monday at the Tokyo Dome.
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2000

Domestic banks embrace information technology

Domestic banks, lagging behind their American counterparts in the use of information technology, are stepping up their Internet banking operations and expanding services available to retail customers via the Net.
BUSINESS
Jan 3, 2000

Wake-up call for the private sector

As the New Year begins, many corporate leaders and economic experts will be holding their breath to see what the Japanese economy will do -- work its way to a self-sustained recovery, or be pulled along by the steamroller of government spending.
COMMUNITY
Jan 3, 2000

Picture-book village looks to the children

Once upon a time, sometime in 1992, there were two communities, Kijo-cho and Ishikawauchi, nestled high in the mountains of Miyazaki Prefecture. As in many such rural communities, the sound of children's voices was becoming a rarity as young families left to find their fortune in the city of Miyazaki,...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2000

Public must face higher tax burden: Imai

Japan must act on its deteriorating financial health by launching discussions on fiscal reform and revealing the results to the public, said Takashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren).
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

Hotels, stores cashing in on Y2K scare

Staff writers Y2K wise men say, only fools rush out on New Year's Eve. Yet, as many stayed home for the definitive moment, tens of thousands of private company officials left their homes Friday to stand guard at their offices for possible Y2K problems, unwittingly providing a millennium windfall to...
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

Another Century: Pollution legacy may linger

This is the first installment in a yearlong series on the blueprints of Japanese society in the 21st century. Staff writer Japan's beaches may be little more than a memory when the end of the 21st century rolls around. Conservative estimates predict it will be sayonara for about half of them, while...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Japanese consumers opting for riskier, more rewarding investments

Staff writer Are the Japanese changing the way they save money, turning to risky but potentially rewarding financial investments? The rising popularity of investment trusts may provide a clue. Net assets of investment trusts, or mutual funds, amounted to 53.3 trillion yen at the end of November, up...
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 1999

Le Nozze de video

Toss away your Love Getty and forget the formal o-miai (arranged meeting) -- matchmaking has gone hi-tech.
JAPAN
Dec 29, 1999

Fukaya to join last stage of Saudi oil talks

Trade chief Takashi Fukaya said Wednesday that he will visit Riyadh in mid-January in a bid to resolve the now-stalled negotiations over the renewal of Arabian Oil Co.'s drilling rights in the Khafji oil field in Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry made the decision following...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 28, 1999

Happy in the Gucci nation

What kind of country will Japan be in the 21st century? The millennial forecast is in and it looks like this: Japan's cultural elite is quickly converging around the notion that Japan should be the first boutique state of the 21st century -- distinctive, well designed and expensive.
JAPAN
Dec 28, 1999

Taiwan opts for Japan's bullet trains

TAIPEI -- A Japanese consortium has been awarded priority negotiation rights for contracts involving the construction of a high-speed railway between Taipei and Kaohsiung, the Taiwanese builder of the rail system announced Tuesday. The announcement by Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp. could pave the way...
COMMUNITY / JAPAN LITE
Dec 26, 1999

Forget this year, and the last 999 as well

At the end of the year now, Japan is in the throes of "bonenkai," or "forget the year" parties. I wonder, though -- shouldn't we be having "forget the millennium" parties?
JAPAN
Dec 24, 1999

Drop nuclear safety myth, institute precautions: NSC report

Japan should drop the long-held myth that nuclear power operations are "absolutely safe" and take steps to prevent the recurrence of serious accidents like the Tokai disaster that rocked the nation in September, the government's Nuclear Safety Commission said in a report Friday. The report was compiled...
JAPAN
Dec 23, 1999

WTO ruling pumps up Japan for battle

Staff writer Emboldened by a preliminary World Trade Organization ruling that deals a serious setback for Washington's antidumping policy, Japan is likely to up the ante in an anticipated series of its own legal WTO battles with the United States over steel trade. In an interim report presented to the...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 1999

Kidnapped girl freed without payment of ransom

OSAKA -- An 8-year-old girl was safely reunited with her parents Wednesday morning, 42 hours after she was apparently kidnapped while on her way home from school. Sayaka Teranishi had been held for a 42 million yen ransom, but was reunited with her parents outside a convenience store near her home in...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 1999

New game rides in the slow lane

Staff writer After test-driving a simulation game and ramming right into a curb, Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara announced Wednesday, "I guess I wasn't meant to be a bus driver." "Tokyo Bus Guide," created for Sega Enterprises Ltd.'s Dreamcast game console, focuses on an ungainly, slow-plodding mode of...
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Dec 22, 1999

Seattle's other coffee house goes for Tokyo market share

Can we talk?
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

NTT, Korea Telecom form alliance to handle demand

NTT Communications Corp. and Korea Telecom have agreed on a comprehensive business alliance to jointly offer global services for multinational corporate users, the two firms announced Tuesday. Under the agreement, NTT Com and Korea Telecom, the largest telecom company in South Korea, will also cooperate...
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

Nichiei strong-arm collector faces 18 months

Prosecutors are demanding an 18-month prison term for a former employee of nonbank moneylender Nichiei Co. for trying to pressure a loan guarantor sell body parts to repay a debt. In Monday's Tokyo District Court hearing, Eisuke Arai, 25, pleaded guilty and tearfully apologized to the plaintiff. "If...

Longform

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How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan