Search - 2000

 
 
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Trains to run all night despite midnight breaks

Staff writer For people who want to make predawn visits to shrines and temples Saturday, major railways throughout Japan will provide their usual New Year's Eve all-night services. However, some plan to halt trains for a few minutes both sides of midnight today to cope with possible Y2K computer problems. In...
JAPAN
Dec 29, 1999

Titanic bell to ring in Nagoya's new year

Staff writer A bell recovered from the RMS Titanic will be rung for the first time in 88 years in a unique event to usher in 2000 in Nagoya. The brass bell was recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic, at a depth of more than 4,000 meters, in 1998. Andrew Quinn, the U.S. consul general to Nagoya, will...
JAPAN
Dec 28, 1999

Tokyo approves heliport relocation; time limit unresolved

The government Tuesday formally gave the green light to a plan to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps heliport now at the Futenma Air Station to the Henoko district of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture. Endorsing the project at a Cabinet meeting, the government adopted a basic policy on the relocation, including...
JAPAN
Dec 28, 1999

Bungling bureaucrats just another day at work for Ishihara

Staff writer The harried city official sighs as he looks at a poster designed to promote the Year 2000 countdown celebrations in Tokyo's Odaiba district. "He didn't like it," the Port and Harbor Bureau official says, bewildered. "He said we should think it out more, be more creative." A little while...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 1999

Highlights of 2000 budget

"Millennium Projects" 1) 11.9 billion yen for education projects, such as providing Internet access to all public schools by the end of fiscal 2001; 2) 15.2 billion yen for information technology; 3) 64 billion yen for projects to analyze human, rice genomes. Foreign aid 1) Official development assistance...
JAPAN
Dec 23, 1999

Carmakers jockey for inroads in slow-growing China market

Staff writer GUANGZHOU, China -- Browsing through glossy catalogs, a couple of men chat with dealers over the counter of a spacious car showroom. Beside them sit three brand-new cars. What appears to be an ordinary scene at any roadside dealership, however, is not run-of-the-mill; one of the cars --...
JAPAN
Dec 23, 1999

IOC says Osaka must not push Olympic bid abroad

OSAKA -- This city's 2008 Olympic bid will undergo a preliminary review by the International OlympicCommittee sometime between March and September, during which time it must not promote the bid internationally, IOC officials have told Osaka. "Under the new guidelines, cities wishing to bid for the 2008...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 1999

Keidanren mission to assess post-crisis Asia

As Asian countries steadily recover from the region's financial and economic crises, the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) will dispatch a mission to the area next spring, it was learned Wednesday. The Asian mission, led by Chairman Takashi Imai, will visit Indonesia, Singapore...
EDITORIALS
Dec 21, 1999

Israel, Syria take difficult first step

The key to enduring peace in the Middle East is an agreement between Syria and Israel. Syria has long been Israel's most implacable foe. Its military power and its de facto control over Lebanon give Damascus the ability to scuttle any progress Tel Aviv makes with other negotiating partners. Syria does...
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

Obuchi to hear Pacific island voices before G8

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi announced Tuesday that Japan will hold a meeting of leaders of Pacific island nations April 22 in Miyazaki as part of efforts to reflect viewpoints in the region on the upcoming Group of Eight summit in Okinawa this July.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 20, 1999

European rule comes to an end in Asia

CANBERRA -- Macau presents the last outpost of European colonial empire remaining anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Apart from Hawaii, now a state of the United States, and leaving aside Australia and New Zealand, no other territory in the Asia-Pacific region will be held or ruled by a European state...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 1999

LDP, state seeking 300 more bank inspectors

The government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party plan to budget for 300 more banking inspectors in fiscal 2000, which begins next April. The expansion is planned in conformity with a shift, scheduled in April, of the inspection and supervision authorities of credit cooperatives from prefectural...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 1999

Art group attempts to heal those ravaged by war

Staff writer In these days of "Pokemon" mania, who wouldn't want a personal note from Pikachu? Hector Sierra, 34, a fine arts doctoral student from Colombia, might not seem like the most likely recipient. But the filmmaker and NGO coordinator was as tickled as any kid. Arriving days before Sierra was...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 1999

Ministry to hike allowance to care for seniors, kids

The Labor Ministry plans to raise government allowances for workers who take time off work to care for infants and ailing family members, officials said. The allowances for both child- and nursing-care leave will be raised from the current 25 percent of a worker's wage to 40 percent, the officials said....
JAPAN
Dec 14, 1999

Singapore Airlines banks on new services, alliance

Staff writer Singapore Airlines hopes to increase its share of the passenger market for travel between Japan and Singapore by upgrading in-flight services and forming an alliance of multiple carriers, says T.K. Tan, general manager of the company's Japan office. "Our strategy is to emphasize our products...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Dec 14, 1999

The Worldwide Music Expo embraces roots and Internet

For anyone involved in any aspect of world music, WOMEX (Worldwide Music Expo) has become an essential date on the calendar. After a few years of internal wrangling, at the end of October, WOMEX returned to its original home at the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Germany, where from now on it will...
JAPAN
Dec 13, 1999

Diet enacts nuclear readiness legislation

With Monday's Upper House approval, the Diet enacted two bills aimed at preventing and better dealing with accidents at nuclear power facilities. Now that the bills, which were submitted following the Sept. 30 accident at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, have cleared both...
JAPAN
Dec 10, 1999

Obuchi, Li affirm strength of state ties

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Li Ruihuan, a visiting senior Chinese Communist Party official, reaffirmed Friday that their two countries will further strengthen ties based on firm mutual trust, a Foreign Ministry official said. Li, the No. 4 figure in the Politburo Standing Committee, the Communist...
EDITORIALS
Dec 9, 1999

This pension reform slights Japan

When a Lower House committee voted late in November in an attempt to enact a bill to reform the nation's pension system, many Japanese must have been pained to see politicians play games with a national issue that will affect the livelihood of almost every one of us in our old age. The bill passed the...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Diet enacts 6.8 trillion yen extra budget

The Diet enacted a 6.79 trillion yen supplementary budget Thursday that is intended to put the nation's fragile economy back on track for a full recovery. The second supplementary budget for fiscal 1999, which began April 1, passed the Upper House plenary session with support from the ruling coalition...
JAPAN
Dec 9, 1999

Nuclear energy firms form safety network

In an effort to regain public trust in the nuclear energy industry, 35 companies and research institutions formed an association Thursday that subjects members to safety inspections by competitors. September's criticality accident at JCO Co.'s uranium processing plant in Ibaraki Prefecture has jeopardized...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

'Knock' to keep low profile during Y2K celebrations

OSAKA -- While celebrations to usher in the new millennium are being scheduled at a number of venues here, one of Osaka's most visible officials may not be among those taking part. It is speculated that Osaka Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama, who is currently embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, will have...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

IBM, Tivoli join NTT Com. for e-business alliance

NTT Communications Corp. (NTT Com.), IBM Japan Ltd. and Tivoli Systems Inc. announced Tuesday that they have agreed to form a business alliance to promote NTT Com.'s e-business outsourcing services. Clients ranging from large companies to home-based businesses will be offered consultation and design...
JAPAN
Dec 7, 1999

Property appraisals to trigger drop in land taxes

Appraisal prices of commercial and residential land -- a basis for calculating the next fiscal year's property taxes -- are an average of 5.9 percent lower than those for this year, according to the Home Affairs Ministry. Based on the new evaluation, it is now expected that the nation's residential...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Yeltsin visit penciled in for spring

Japan and Russia agreed Monday to work on realizing a visit by Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Japan some time next spring, a Foreign Ministry official said. The agreement came during the first of two days of bilateral vice-ministerial talks in Tokyo under a joint peace treaty committee aiming to...
JAPAN
Dec 6, 1999

Shinagawa parents take chance on new schools

About 13 percent of parents in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward have decided to send their children to schools outside of their conventional districts next year under a unique system that starts in April, officials said Monday. Under the system, the first of its kind in the country, children scheduled to attend...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 5, 1999

Fantasy, drama: visions of a blind artist

When Carter's, the biggest children's clothes maker in the U.S., chose to use blind artist Emu Namae's pastel drawings on their children's line, new doors opened in Namae's life.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 4, 1999

In Britain now, 'tis the season to be silly

Not with a bang but a whimper, last month Britain's hereditary lords slid out of their ermine robes and off the scarlet-padded benches and retired to their country seats. A line of continuity from feudalism has finally been broken.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Dec 4, 1999

The buzz in Washington: New Millennium parties and would-be new presidents

WASHINGTON -- I experienced some interesting feelings as I typed in the date on this piece. We writers and pundits will have an emotional ride during the next few weeks as we put pen to paper -- or fingers to keyboard -- for the last time in this century and millennium. The temptations are rife: to be...
JAPAN
Dec 3, 1999

Bimetallic 500 yen coin set to be issued in August

A 500 yen coin made with a new mix of metals will debut in August to combat a vending machine con in which altered 500-won South Korean coins are redeemed for the more valuable domestic coin, the Finance Ministry announced Friday. It will be Japan's first reminting of a coin as an anti-counterfeiting...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan