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LIFE / Travel
Apr 12, 2000

Taking it to the skies of Bangkok

On the anniversary of the King's 72nd birthday in December 1999, the revolutionary concept of electricallypowered mass transit finally hit Bangkok, a city long dependent on the noisy, noxious, internal combustion engine. Two short elevated lines, totaling 23.7 km of track, were built at a cost of 54.9...
BUSINESS
Mar 29, 2000

DoCoMo ordered to pay 11 billion yen for tax dodge

Tax authorities have said NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. (NTT DoCoMo) and its group failed to properly declare a 26 billion yen-plus taxable investment in equipment for its personal handy-phone system over a one-year period beginning in April 1998, NTT DoCoMo announced Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2000

NTT to offer early warning to allergy-sufferers via phone

Come next spring, your cell phone may tell you how runny your nose and how itchy your eyes will be the next day -- a warning of what might happen if you walk outside.
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2000

All eyes on nuclear energy

It is axiomatic that any group in Japan -- doctors, dentists or candlestick makers -- will want to turn itself into a tightly bound community, closed off from the outside world. It will be concerned almost entirely with its own survival and prosperity.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2000

Fisher intent on pushing shift to information age

Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Richard Fisher expressed his determination Tuesday to work with Japan in hammering out a new set of deregulatory measures this week that will help its people embrace the Internet.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2000

0.2% increase in capital spending seen

Major Japanese corporations are planning to invest 0.2 percent more on equipment in fiscal 2000, the first increase in four years, the government-affiliated Development Bank of Japan said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 21, 2000

Troubled Toshiba to keep president

Toshiba Corp. President Taizo Nishimuro will likely remain in the top post even though the firm is expected to post losses for a second consecutive business year, informed sources said.
BUSINESS
Mar 10, 2000

IT sector leads way for huge gains in corporate pretax profits

A triple-digit surge in the pretax profits of personal computer makers and telecommunication companies more than offset a steep decline in other sectors as the combined figure jumped 41.8 percent in the October-December quarter.
COMMENTARY
Mar 7, 2000

E-nough of this e-mania

E-commerce fever has spread from the United States to Europe and Japan. New e-commerce companies are mushrooming everywhere and new issues are snapped up even if there is no prospect of profits for years. Young men and women with a bright e-commerce idea become millionaires overnight. The feverish demand...
BUSINESS
Mar 4, 2000

Updated PlayStation lands in stores

PlayStation2, the advanced version of the world's most popular video game console, goes on sale today amid growing expectations that the new machine will serve as a powerful tool connecting homes to cyberspace in the near future.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2000

Complimentary consoles to link Dreamcast retailers

Major Japanese video-game maker Sega Enterprises Ltd. said Thursday it is planning to use the Dreamcast game console to link some 5,000 retailers online by this spring to provide marketing information quickly.
BUSINESS
Feb 22, 2000

Stock market on hold until weather clears

The Tokyo stock market has entered a consolidation phase since the key Nikkei average climbed past the 20,000 level early this month.
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2000

Tertiary industrial activity rose 1% in 1999

The nation's tertiary industry activity grew 1 percent in 1999, marking the first rise in two years, according to a preliminary report issued Monday by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. The index of activity in the tertiary industry for the year stood at 103.2 against a base of 100 in...
JAPAN
Feb 18, 2000

Hearings on 2000 budget bumped up

The Lower House Budget Committee voted Friday to hold hearings on the record 84.98 trillion yen state budget for fiscal 2000 on Thursday, paving the way for its passage through the lower chamber by the end of the month. Despite the opposition's call for more deliberation, the Budget Committee approved...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2000

DDI cuts cash flow to bankrupt Iridium

DDI Corp. President Yusai Okuyama said Thursday that the company would not make an additional investment in Iridium LLC, the financially troubled U.S. satellite telecommunications company. Okuyama also told a regular news conference that Nippon Iridium Corp., which provides satellite phone services...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 16, 2000

Rambling after migrating bramblings

The many seed-bearing plants of the temperate region, the grasses and the herbs, the trees and the shrubs, produce an enormous volume of seed each year. Typically of the natural world, a vast amount of effort is rewarded by very few successes. In the game of chance that is life, relatively few seeds...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

Obuchi defends aide accused of swindling stock

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi rejected allegations Thursday that his close aide swindled a man, now deceased, out of shares currently worth about 2.3 billion yen. "I understand that he did nothing wrong," Obuchi said during an Upper House plenary session , adding that he himself was not involved in the...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 9, 2000

Making a start

Some time ago I wrote of the passing of Tokyo Theater for Children, an organization with a long history of exciting, well-staged performances for adults as well as children. My report, fortunately, was premature. It needed new people to take over, and they came, drawn by the enthusiasm of Jude Kaye who...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 4, 2000

Rescuing abandoned electones from a grim fate

The electone, better known as the home organ, might recall memories of drunken uncles playing shambolic versions of Christmas songs, or upwardly mobile parents forcing a bit of culture down junior's throat. In many family homes, it is a dust-gathering fixture, a hulking monument to the musically dasai....
JAPAN
Feb 3, 2000

DCI unveils programming for digital data broadcasts

Digital Cast International Ltd. on Thursday unveiled programs it plans to deliver on a digital data broadcasting service it is planning to launch Dec. 1. The Tokyo-based broadcaster will offer a 24-hour schedule of news, weather forecasts, local government bulletins, sales programs for books, regional...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2000

High-tech juggernaut is a dangerous ride

Apparently, sales of dog food by the U.S. shopping giant Wal-Mart were bigger than the worldwide sales chalked up by e-commerce last year. Even if that is true, the current media frenzy about e-commerce makes it hard to countenance. There is a danger that this current fashion for one particular technology...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 30, 2000

Can hard industry spike the Net bubble?

Time Warner's one-two megamerger punch, first with America Online then with British music giant EMI Group, followed last week by shares of Yahoo Japan Corp. exceeding 100 million yen, sent many investors and observers searching for a psychological safety blanket.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 26, 2000

Memories can't wait

This year's New Year's cleaning was quick: Pull out the file of Y2K clippings and dump all the doom and gloom in the trash with nary a backward glance. That got me digging through other files, and I spent a merry half hour reliving the Internet's infancy: the prospect of genuinely mobile computing (shades...
COMMUNITY
Jan 26, 2000

China's gray peril

BEIJING -- Xue Aiying, a 65-year-old retired worker from Nanjing, used to go to Bailuzhou Park every morning to practice Falun Gong before the sect was outlawed in July last year. "I didn't know what to do with myself after I retired," she explains. "I felt lonely and empty before I joined Falun Gong."...
LIFE / Digital
Jan 3, 2000

Wearable PCs set to liberate employees from keyboards

Xybernaut Corp. of Fairfax, Va. has begun enlisting some of Japan's top universities to help further its research and development of so-called "wearable computers," the worldwide market for which is expected to be worth around $2 billion by 2003.
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,...
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.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building