Search - new

 
 
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 2000

Poor little rich kids

Here's a problem many of us might wish we had: being so rich that we have to start worrying about its effect on our children. It seems there are suddenly a lot more people around who fall into this category. So many, in fact, that the U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch has reportedly begun offering psychiatric...
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Street people face tuberculosis scourge

Staff writer
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Man and his dog conquer disabilities to continue aid crusade

YOKOSUKA, Kanagawa Pref. -- "Love me, love my dog," say many pet owners. But for Satoshi Kabaya, it's the other way around.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Viva Odaiba! Ishihara dreams of casinos in the bay

Cigarette smoke wafts out of noisy pachinko parlors, crowds armed with racing forms jostle one another on trains on horse racing days, and lines form in front of lottery ticket booths. You may or may not call it gambling, but playing to test your luck has grown into a huge industry in Japan.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jan 14, 2000

Valentine wants 'authentic' W. Series

New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine longs for the day when the World Series will truly be a global event.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2000

Monitoring body included in Japan's gas-reduction plan

Staff writer Japan will formally propose later this month the creation of a new body to monitor industrialized countries' compliance with the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, government sources said Friday. The establishment of the compliance body will be included in Japanese proposals...
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2000

Peers rate Ishihara as not 'approachable'

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara revealed discomposure Friday when questioned about the low rating he received in a survey of 400 metropolitan government employees. "It doesn't show anything," the governor retorted in a regular news conference. Ishihara received an average score of 60 out of 100 in the...
BUSINESS
Jan 14, 2000

New Year yen fall forecast proved accurate

My predictions have come true. The yen has stumbled into 2000, giving up much of its recent gains as anticipated.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000

Protesters step up Kobe airport campaign

Staff writer KOBE -- The continuing saga of Kobe airport enters its next phase later this month as citizens opposed to the project begin a campaign to recall the mayor, and foreign firms step up pressure to be included in construction work. For nearly a year following the December 1998 rejection of...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000

Countdown starts to citizens' poll on dam

TOKUSHIMA -- Residents of the city of Tokushima were officially notified Thursday of a Jan. 23 plebiscite on the controversial Yoshino River dam project -- the first such vote to be held on a central government-initiated major public works plan. The plebiscite will ask local voters whether they support...
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000

Dam opposition group rallies for vote in plebiscite

Staff writer TOKUSHIMA -- The group smiled and waved as they jogged through the city of Tokushima earlier this week, calling on local residents to go to the polls. Theirs is no usual campaign. The men and women on this two-day "sacred run" are part of an effort by local citizens' groups to rally residents...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2000

Austrian ambassador aims for mature ties

Austria's new ambassador to Japan, Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, said Wednesday he hopes to work for a more matured partnership between his country and Japan, which last year marked the 130th anniversary of bilateral relations. In order to expand ties, the two countries will have to develop more mutual trade...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jan 12, 2000

Win some, lose some

Like many of our readers, I continue to miss Gary Larson's The Far Side cartoons. Now I have 366 of them in a millennium collection brought up to date with color and appropriate historic dates which the publisher, Andrews McMeel of Kansas City, calls "a refreshingly irreverent retrospective of the last...
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...
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2000

Declaring war against AIDS

It is reckoned that the AIDS scourge began about 20 years ago. In the two decades since then, it has claimed more than 16 million lives. The World Health Organization estimates that 33.6 million people, 1.2 million of them children, live with the HIV infection that is the disease's precursor. The speed...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2000

End the dangerous illusions

In this final year of the 20th century, there are several key lessons we should learn from this turbulent period. First, as a Japanese I want to point out that Japan modernized with remarkable success in the first half of the century. Following its victory in the Russo-JapaneseWar (1904-05), the nation...
BUSINESS
Jan 11, 2000

Minicar sales hit record high in '99

Sales of new minicars in 1999 jumped 21.2 percent from the previous year to 1.88 million units, the highest annual figure since the Japan Mini Vehicles Association started taking statistics in 1967, the association said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 11, 2000

Ani DiFranco's hard road leads her to a higher plane

Last year, the prolific Ani DiFranco released three albums. Any record company marketing executive would tell you that's more than the market could take. But then, DiFranco doesn't have to answer to any record company. She owns her own.
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2000

Aum will leave when ready, Joyu says

YOKOHAMA -- People living near a Yokohama condominium containing an Aum Shinrikyo office demanded Tuesday that former cult spokesman Fumihiro Joyu and other followers immediately leave the area. The written demand by a town council, shop owners and local residents came after the neighborhood was thrown...
EDITORIALS
Jan 10, 2000

School discipline applies to all

Media reports of the increasing number of violent incidents in the nation's public elementary and junior and senior high schools have made "classroom collapse" part of the everyday language. The reports nearly always refer to these incidents as examples of a breakdown in school discipline, but "discipline"...
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2000

Make 'Rebuilding Confidence' the government slogan for 2000

Last year a series of mishaps shook our faith in various things we have grown to trust over the years, from the H-II rocket failure and the crumbling tunnels of our shinkansen lines to the nuclearcriticality accident in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture.
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2000

Ex-MITI councilor to stand in Osaka poll

OSAKA -- Ota, formerly a senior trade ministry official, announced Monday that she will run in the Osaka gubernatorial election with the backing of several parties. The election, to be held Feb. 6, is to fill the post left vacant by Gov. "Knock" Yokoyama, who resigned after being indicted for sexually...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 10, 2000

High stakes in the war on terrorism

Special to The Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 10, 2000

DaimlerChrysler may purchase Nissan Diesel

DETROIT -- Robert Eaton, cochairman of DaimlerChrysler AG, expressed interest Sunday in purchasing embattled truck maker Nissan Diesel Motor Co. -- as long as terms of acquisition are acceptable.
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 9, 2000

Troussier has high expectations for 2000

Following his achievements at the World Youth Championship (runnerup) and in the Olympic qualifiers (qualified with 12 out of 12 wins) in 1999, Japan manager Philippe Troussier is aiming to make 2000 even more successful.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 9, 2000

M.S. Swaminathan

In August, a special double issue of Time magazine selected professor M.S. Swaminathan of India as one of the most influential Asians of the 20th century. The magazine called him a "green revolutionary . . . who helped half a world get enough to eat."
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2000

Tent city gone but common bonds remain

KOBE -- The idyllic image of a father and son flying a kite in Minami Komae Park bears no resemblance to the scenes visited on this place during the devastating 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 8, 2000

Oh, the glamour of poetic injustice

Violence aspires to poetry and vice versa in "Death in Granada," an American/Spanish production that sheds a fleeting but eerie light on one of Spain's greatest poets: Federico Garcia Lorca.
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.
BUSINESS
Jan 7, 2000

One false step could send dollar reeling

The dollar-yen exchange rate could remain on a roller-coaster ride through much of the year ahead.

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo