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JAPAN
Jul 5, 2000

Newly appointed ministers announce policy priorities

The ministers appointed to the second Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori announced their priority tasks in separate press conferences Tuesday evening.
COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2000

Advancing smartly backward

LONDON -- It is an old American saying that "the pioneer is the one who gets the arrow in his back." So when President Jacques Chirac of France recently proposed a "pioneering" project to bring France and Germany still closer together at the political level and, as he put it, to "move further and faster...
BUSINESS
Jul 4, 2000

DIC's bailout of Sogo draws S&P warning

Standard & Poor's on Monday criticized the Deposit Insurance Corp. decision last week to help bail out ailing department store chain Sogo Co., calling the move "potentially hazardous" to the nation's efforts toward financial reform.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Mori re-elected prime minister, selects his new Cabinet

A majority of House of Representatives members voted to have Mori -- president of the Liberal Democratic Party -- keep the prime ministership as the Diet convened for a three-day special session. Mori was also re-elected prime minister by the House of Councilors.
JAPAN
Jun 26, 2000

Ex-FRC chief Ochi likely to lose seat

Kyodo News Michio Ochi, a former chairman of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, is likely to suffer a crushing defeat in Sunday's House of Representatives election, early returns show.
JAPAN
Jun 25, 2000

James Treece named new FCCJ head

James Treece of Automotive News has narrowly beaten Anthony Rowley of the Singapore Business Times to become president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, official election results showed Friday.
BUSINESS
Jun 21, 2000

Economy progressing toward self-sustained growth: EPA

Economic Planning Agency on Tuesday upgraded its assessment of the economy for the second consecutive month and said it is gradually approaching a self-sustaining recovery.
BUSINESS
Jun 20, 2000

Economy hit bottom in April '99: EPA

Japan's economy bottomed out in April 1999 after more than two years of downturn, an advisory panel to the Economic Planning Agency said Monday.
BUSINESS
Jun 15, 2000

End to easy money edges closer: BOJ

The timing is drawing nearer for the Bank of Japan to abandon its zero-interest-rate policy, BOJ Gov. Masaru Hayami indicated Wednesday.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 2000

Stable coalition key for economy, Kanzaki says

New Komeito will campaign for the Lower House election by promising a stable coalition government that will surely bring about a full-fledged economic recovery in Japan, said party leader Takenori Kanzaki.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 15, 2000

Thai villagers protest dam's legacy of destruction

BANGKOK -- The Moon River is the lifeline of Isan, bringing sustenance to the poorest, most populous part of Thailand. The World Bank identified the Moon, the greatest of the Mekong River's tributaries, as a suitable location for a giant dam, and proceeded to fund a hydropower project that is destroying...
JAPAN
May 30, 2000

State denies Okinawa deals with U.S. ever took place

The government on Monday denied a report by a major Japanese daily that Japan paid about $200 million to the United States in clandestine deals over the May 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japanese rule.
JAPAN
May 29, 2000

G7 finance ministers to back creation of Internet sales tax

Finance ministers of the Group of Seven economic powers will agree on the need to tax the sale of data such as software, music and other digital information via the Internet, at their meeting scheduled for July in Fukuoka, sources close to negotiations told Kyodo News on Sunday.
BUSINESS
May 27, 2000

Nichiei in red for fiscal 1999 after loan collection outcry

OSAKA -- Nonbank moneylender Nichiei Co. said Friday that its group net balance sank into the red in fiscal 1999 for the first time since its founding in 1970, due largely to a public outcry over its loan collection methods.
BUSINESS
May 20, 2000

End to deflation fears nearing, BOJ chief says

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami said Friday that an end to deflationary fears is nearing -- which may mean an end to the zero-interest rate policy -- amid a brightening picture for the Japanese economy.
JAPAN
May 17, 2000

Miyazawa cannot recall 3 million yen Nakamura admits getting as payoff

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa said Tuesday that he has no recollection of handing a paper bag containing 3 million yen to Kishiro Nakamura, a politician who was convicted of accepting bribes, in 1991 to buy his support to raise antitrust fines.
EDITORIALS
May 16, 2000

Rockets under review

There is no humor to be found in Japan's recent disappointing -- and expensive -- rocket failures. Nevertheless, the news that the spectacular crash of an H-II rocket last November may have been caused by design and planning errors does more than suggest that the nation's rocket scientists should go...
BUSINESS
May 11, 2000

BOJ mulls end to zero-interest policy

Policymakers at the Bank of Japan are close to concluding discussions on when to terminate the bank's zero-interest rate policy, the central bank's deputy governor told a parliamentary committee Wednesday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2000

Kaigo hoken throws spotlight on life in 'nursing care hell'

A few weeks ago I submitted a proposal for an April Fool's story to a local publication. The piece would have been a news report about Japanese airline companies taking advantage of "Japan's rapidly aging society" by offering "nursing care miles" to frequent flyers in order to attract middle-aged travelers....
BUSINESS
Mar 31, 2000

Sony ties up with Sakura on Net bank

Sony Corp. announced Thursday that it has formally decided to set up an Internet-only bank in cooperation with Sakura Bank and J.P. Morgan of the U.S.
BUSINESS
Mar 17, 2000

NTT, gas firms eye power retail business

Tokyo Gas Co., Osaka Gas Co. and a power facility under Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. may jointly enter the electric power retailing business, industry sources said Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2000

Dai-Tokyo, Chiyoda announce merger

Midsize nonlife insurers Dai-Tokyo Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Chiyoda Fire & Marine Insurance Co. announced Wednesday they will merge in April 2001.
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2000

Domestic auto sales on the rise

Auto sales in Japan have posted year-on-year increases for January and February, the first two consecutive increases since the April 1997 consumption tax hike, an industry leader said Monday. Hiroshi Takikawa, chairman of the Japan Automobile Dealers Association, told a news conference that Feb. 1-25...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2000

Bank-tax bill handed to metropolitan assembly

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara on Wednesday formally presented the metropolitan assembly's steering committee with a bill that would impose a temporary tax on all funds held by banks operating in the metropolis. Despite warnings by central government ministers that the tax could have a negative impact...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic