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JAPAN
Mar 16, 2000

Obuchi may visit Russia to start talks

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi expressed Wednesday his strong intention to hold talks with the new Russian president as soon as possible after Russian elections on March 26, even implying that he may visit Russia to get them under way.
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2000

BOJ unveils conditions for buying state bonds

The Bank of Japan said Wednesday that if necessary it will purchase government bonds from the Finance Ministry's Trust Fund Bureau under three-month resale agreements between April 1 and March 31, 2002, to cover fund shortages expected in the government's investment and loan program.
JAPAN / Media
Mar 16, 2000

Mercian salutes cluelessness with New Frontier awards

Spring is in the air, and a young publicist's thoughts turn to awards ceremonies. Across the sea, we've seen the Golden Globes and the Grammys, and at the end of the month there's the Oscars.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 16, 2000

If only Greenpeace told the truth about whaling

On Nov. 9, 1999, Japan's whale research fleet departed for the Antarctic to begin the 13th year of its research program. The research program involves both a sighting survey whose primary purpose is the estimation of trends in abundance, and a sampling component that involves the take of up to 440 minke...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2000

Russian writes about postwar Japanese prisoners

At the end of World War II, Soviet troops imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers and civilians in Asia, sending them to labor camps in Siberia. Tens of thousands subsequently died in brutal conditions.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Mar 15, 2000

Seeds of knowledge

Welcome to the digital revolution, where we crunch numbers, process information and mine data. Maybe we don't get grease under our fingernails, but one wonders how far we've progressed beyond the industrial revolution. Though the metallic cling-clang of factories is rare, isn't there something familiar...
BUSINESS
Mar 15, 2000

Number of companies going bankrupt climbs 51%

The number of Japanese corporate bankruptcies with liabilities of more than 10 million yen rose 51.1 percent in February from a year earlier to 1,443, a private credit research institute said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2000

Coalition leaders agree on police system reform

The leaders of the coalition government agreed on new measures to reform the nation's scandal-tainted police system on Tuesday, during a review of recent police misdemeanors in Kanagawa and Niigata prefectures.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2000

The marketing that made Japan

ASSEMBLED IN JAPAN: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer, by Simon Partner. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 317 pp., $19.95/12.50 British pounds (paper). I was standing on the corner by the Hachiko exit of Shibuya Station, looking at two giant television screens...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2000

Fertile soil for Japanese environmentalist groups?

ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS IN JAPAN: Networks of Power and Protest, by Jeffrey Broadbent. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 418 pp., $13.95, (paper). Given Japan's economic growth after World War II -- a period often termed "miraculous" -- it is not surprising that the worst problems of ecological...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2000

Three-bank tieup terms settled

Sanwa Bank, Tokai Bank and Asahi Bank formally announced Tuesday that they have reached a basic agreement to come under a joint holding company in April 2001, creating the world's third-largest banking group.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2000

Predictions cautious on economic recovery

The gross domestic product data for October-December released Monday sent mixed signals, with higher plant and equipment investment coupled with dismal consumer spending.
COMMENTARY
Mar 14, 2000

In praise of market heretics

During the 1980s and 1990s, waves of neoconservatism swept the world. The movement was sparked by two politicians: Margaret Thatcher, who became the prime minister of Britain in 1979, and Ronald Reagan, who became president of the United States in 1981. In Japan, a neoconservative administration headed...
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2000

Sanwa, Asahi, Tokai to merge

Sanwa Bank, Tokai Bank and Asahi Bank are expected to create Japan's second largest financial group through a merger, and an announcement could come as early as today.
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2000

Bank industry slams tax plan anew

The chairman of the Japanese Bankers Association on Monday again criticized a Tokyo draft ordinance that aims to tax the gross profits of large banks in the metropolis as "unfair and undemocratic."
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2000

Tokyo budget sidesteps asbestos

After having recently provoked outrage in the trucking industry over a controversial plan to regulate diesel cars, "environmentally friendly" Gov. Shintaro Ishihara has just submitted a budget proposal to the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly that has one less allocation for green initiatives: that for asbestos...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 14, 2000

Celtic music takes a sure-footed stand in Tokyo

For anyone interested in "world music," gigs in Japan have been comparatively thin on the ground during the last five years or so, compared to the first years of the '90s. This is a situation that is perhaps set to change.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2000

Sumitomo Bank, Hosei University on Aum-related PC firms' client list

Sumitomo Bank and Hosei University were among the clients of computer software companies believed to be under the control of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, it was learned Saturday.
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2000

165,000 graduates seeking jobs: survey

An estimated 165,000 university, junior college and high school students graduating this spring had not found jobs by the end of January, according to a survey by the Labor and Education ministries.
COMMUNITY
Mar 12, 2000

Retailer joins big boys with Little Me for kids

If there was one thing Ron Kessler was sure of growing up in Chicago, he was not the corporate type. Yet surrounded by uncles in business, he really liked the idea of being an entrepreneur, working for himself. The irony, he said, is that "success forces you to become a manager. Starting up something...
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Mar 12, 2000

Day of reckoning

The question of sexual harassment -- "seku hara" -- has, after years of neglect, become one of the hottest media topics. Not that suddenly men are beginning to harass women. It is that women are making accusations while before many tended to view it as inevitable, something that went along with employment...
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 12, 2000

Worries balanced with hope in 'State of the World 2000'

Attempting to evaluate the state of our world is an absurdly complex task. Nevertheless, that is what the Worldwatch Institute has done every year since 1984, and has done once again this year with "The State of the World 2000."
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 12, 2000

Muriel Jolivet

A year ago, Muriel Jolivet said, "Briefly, the subjects I studied up to now were, first, the social integration of Japanese male students through work. Then I focused more on women, and their social integration through work. I got interested in women and maternity in Japan, and wrote the book 'Japan:...
BUSINESS
Mar 11, 2000

Current-account surplus falls again

The nation's current-account surplus in January plunged 22.8 percent from a year earlier to 610.9 billion yen with the expansion of imports outpacing that of exports, the Finance Ministry said Friday in a preliminary report.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2000

Ministers to work on Atsugi dioxin case

Three Cabinet ministers reconfirmed Friday their plan to cooperate closely to resolve an air pollution problem at a U.S. military base in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2000

Upkeep eyed in wreck

The wheels of the last car of a subway train and the track it was running on may have been improperly shaved and polished, possibly contributing to Wednesday's deadly accident, informed sources said Thursday.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’