Search - information

 
 
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2000

Don't shortchange young readers

Despite all the talk about the need for educational reforms, little serious attention is being paid to a fundamental way in which Japan's schoolchildren are being shortchanged. Except among the educators directly involved, few have expressed concern over the Education Ministry's announcement that libraries...
JAPAN
Sep 30, 2000

Nation remains at risk to nuclear disaster

A year after Japan's worst nuclear power disaster struck the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, a nuclear safety critic said Friday that sufficient measures have yet to be taken to prevent a similar accident from occurring.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2000

Warmer ties do not signal U.S. tilt toward India

NEW DELHI -- It may be still too early to conclude that there is a definite American tilt toward India, but there are strong signs that Washington is fed up with Islamabad's obsession with Kashmir that has has forced Pakistan to throw logic and caution to the wind.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2000

Blackman refuses to give up on daughter

Tim Blackman is frustrated, in turns optimistic and pessimistic, but above all adamant that he will find out what happened to his daughter.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2000

Mystery benefactor increases Briton's reward to 77 million yen

The mystery businessman who put up a reward for information about missing British hostess Lucie Blackman has upped the ante -- increasing the reward to a cool half a million pounds, more than 77 million yen.
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2000

Mori starts extra Diet with 'e-Japan' pitch

Employing a new catchword, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori opened the 72-day extra Diet session Thursday pledging to create an "e-Japan" that would enrich people's lives and make the nation's industries more competitive.
JAPAN
Sep 22, 2000

Chairman of Osaka city arrested over bid-rigging

OSAKA -- Osaka Prefectural Police on Thursday arrested the chairman of the Osaka City Assembly and two others for allegedly disrupting the smooth execution of bidding for contracts for city-ordered public works projects in 1997.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2000

Auto execs face the music at ministry

Executives from 12 major domestic automakers and 17 vehicle importers were summoned to the Transport Ministry in Tokyo on Wednesday and ordered to report on how they operate their recall systems for defective products.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2000

10 trillion yen stimulus package ordered

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Wednesday formally ordered the government to draft a 10 trillion yen economic stimulus package that will include an extra budget of nearly 4 trillion yen for the current fiscal year.
JAPAN
Sep 20, 2000

Kawada's mother to run for Lower House seat

Human rights activist Etsuko Kawada, the mother of an outspoken HIV-infected man who contracted the virus through tainted blood coagulants, announced Tuesday her decision to run for the House of Representatives seat of Joji Yamamoto in the Oct. 22 by-election in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2000

Radio stargazer's key to quakes

Astronomer Yoshio Kushida believes he will receive forewarning should a major earthquake hit.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Sep 17, 2000

Tokyo poets get a night out to Howl

Howl, the bar in Aoyama, was founded just after Allen Ginsberg's death in 1997.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 2000

Dentist patents false teeth with chip identifying wearer

OSAKA -- An Osaka dentist has received Japanese and U.S. patents for a set of false teeth containing a tiny microchip that identifies its wearer.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Sep 16, 2000

Japanese music millennium: new music for the Heisei Era

As the days grow shorter and evenings cooler, the hogaku season begins to pick up. September, October and November are the best months for experiencing the arts in Japan as the creative impulses, stifled by the summer's oppressive humidity, break forth in an array of interesting concerts, recitals and...
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2000

Economy up 1% in quarter: EPA

The staggering nature of Japan's recovery was reflected Monday by the latest gross domestic product report, which showed that the economy grew 1 percent during the April-June quarter.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Diplomat in spy scandal leaves Japan

A Russian military attache at the Russian Embassy in Tokyo left Japan on Saturday after a senior officer of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force was arrested early Friday for allegedly passing defense secrets to him.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2000

Historical irony haunts Chinese uprising

HONG KONG -- Last March 8, the Chinese government executed a former vice governor of the southeast province of Jiangxi, in the hope that this would demonstrate its determination to act against corrupt and oppressive officials.
JAPAN
Sep 7, 2000

Yaohan chief extracts success from failure

OSAKA -- It is considered difficult and extremely unusual in Japan for those who have failed once in businesses to have a chance to succeed again.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 5, 2000

A sea of troubles for Russia

While many questions remain unanswered about the recent sinking of the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk, the disaster has exposed some of the grave problems that afflict Russia today. It attracted much attention worldwide because it caused many people to ponder the life-or-death situation that the Kursk...
EDITORIALS
Sep 4, 2000

Budget reform, not budget tricks

The government budget for fiscal 2001 is shaping up now that the Finance Ministry has received requests from all ministries and agencies. Their estimates, which include debt payments and revenue transfers to local governments, total about 84.8 trillion yen, down 0.2 percent from the initial budget for...
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2000

Police have no record Blackman got out of Japan

Police said Sunday that there is no record of a missing British woman leaving Japan, after the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Saturday she was witnessed at a cash machine in Hong Kong following her disappearance from a Tokyo apartment in July.
JAPAN
Sep 4, 2000

Legal action group decries weak victims rights

OSAKA -- Some 300 people gathered at a symposium Sunday to discuss and raise public awareness of the plight of crime victims, criticizing police inaction, excessive media coverage and lack of access to information about their own cases.
JAPAN
Sep 2, 2000

GPS satellites enlisted to help predict earthquakes, eruptions

In their quest to accurately predict earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, Japanese scientists have discovered that the satellite-based system that helps motorists navigate is an invaluable -- though as yet imperfect -- aid.
BUSINESS
Sep 1, 2000

NTT remerger mulled

The government and the ruling coalition are considering urging the two regional arms of telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. to merge in spring 2002 -- less than three years after they were split -- according to coalition sources.
COMMENTARY
Sep 1, 2000

Faction plots to replace Mori

The focal question in Japanese politics is how the 2001 Upper House election will turn out. Turn-of-the-century politics will hinge on whether the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party will retain its majority in the Upper House, or whether the opposition...
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2000

Medical importer delayed product warnings

A Tokyo-based importer of U.S.-made artificial pericardiums linked to inflammation in transplant patients waited six months before warning hospitals after it learned of health risks associated with the product, according to medical sources.
JAPAN
Aug 30, 2000

Agency to create database of tidelands

The Environment Agency will create a database of tidelands in Japan, making records on topography and fauna over a five-year period to protect those sites, agency officials said Tuesday.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes