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JAPAN
Feb 28, 2000

Arabian Oil loses drilling rights; Saudi aid canceled

The 40-year-old oil drilling rights of Arabian Oil Co., Japan's largest oil producer, in a major oil field in Saudi Arabia expired Monday morning as last-minute negotiations with Riyadh over the weekend ended in failure. Trade chief Takashi Fukaya expressed deep regret after the oil concessions officially...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2000

National oil development strategy questioned

Staff writer The expiration Monday of the 40-year-old drilling rights of Japan's Arabian Oil Co. to a Saudi Arabian oil field dealt another blow to Tokyo's long-term policy of expanding Japanese-explored oil sources as a precaution against emergencies like the 1970s oil crises. The expiration was a...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2000

If Taro is really going to speak English

Would you hire a typewriter repairman as a systems analyst? That's sort of what the Japanese Ministry of Education is doing. It set up a committee to study English-education reform that is about as up to date in what's needed to improve English teaching in this country as the poor repairman who thinks...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2000

Fair and flea market pot-hunting

"How can I learn more about Japanese pottery?" is a question I'm often asked. The answer is simple: Get out and see as much as you can.
COMMENTARY
Feb 26, 2000

The two faces of local power

A storm of controversy is raging over Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's Feb. 7 proposal to impose a tax on major banks operating in the metropolis. Despite strong objections raised by central government officials and bankers, Ishihara said he was determined to implement the proposal, which he said was carefully...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2000

Kono hints Dalai Lama will get visa

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono hinted Friday that Japan would issue a visa to the Dalai Lama, saying the spiritual leader's visa application would be screened "according to the due procedures of law." His comments were taken to indicate that Tokyo would not allow any political considerations regarding...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2000

Arabian Oil sends chief to Riyadh to make last plea

Arabian Oil Co. President Keiichi Konaga left Friday for Riyadh for last-minute negotiations in an effort to extend his firm's oil concession in a major oil field in the former neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. In an attempt to break the deadlock, Konaga is expected to propose an AOC offer...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2000

Particulate matter linked to urban lung tumors

Suspended particulate matter found in urban areas where air pollution is severe may be a factor that leads to lung tumors, according to the results of a recent study announced Friday. The study, conducted by researchers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Research Laboratory of Public Health, used lab rats to...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 24, 2000

JFA flash: Don't follow us, we're lost too

Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Boing! Yes, today we're playing ping-pong with Frenchmen.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2000

Nursing coverage denies smaller group home operators

Staff writer When the government first announced its planned public nursing-care insurance program, group homes were to be covered. The definition of "group homes," however, is causing problems for some small operators, including the Tanoshiya nursing home in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture. When the system...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

DPJ chief ready to testify over donations

The president of the Democratic Party of Japan said he is willing to give testimony if he is summoned over allegations in a magazine that he accepted illegal donations of 50 million yen. Yukio Hatoyama, president of the largest opposition party, made his announcement in response to a question during...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

Trade surplus plummets for 10th straight month

The nation' trade surplus in January plummeted 30.7 percent from a year earlier to 522.6 billion yen, marking the 10th straight month of year-on-year decline, the Finance Ministry said Wednesday. Rising oil prices helped imports, particularly those from the rest of Asia, outpace an expansion in exports,...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

Ishihara's bank tax plan leads charge for local autonomy

Labeling a controversial tax proposal submitted Wednesday to the metropolitan assembly "a challenge from Tokyo," Gov. Shintaro Ishihara opened the legislature's regular session with a call for local autonomy. He also blamed the nation's top-down political and administrative systems for what he called...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2000

Talks on drilling rights go down to the wire

Staff writer If Arabian Oil Co.'s last-ditch negotiations with Saudi Arabia to renew its 40-year oil drilling rights fail, the pioneer Japanese driller will be hard hit, but officials don't fear a national crisis. With his firm's rights in the Khafji oil field in the former neutral zone between Saudi...
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 23, 2000

Tsukiji or not, nothing fishy about Bellini's Bar

One usually doesn't go to Tsukiji to get a fine cappuccino or a poppy-seed sponge cake soaked in liqueur. Yet just a few minutes away from "Tokyo's Kitchen," where pricy cuts of maguro are noisily auctioned off to the highest bidder, Bellini's Italian Bar offers businesspeople and tourists alike a pleasant...
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2000

Ex-fugitive again denies Itoman breach of trust

OSAKA -- Former fugitive real estate developer Heo Young Joong, 52, on Tuesday pleaded not guilty again to charges of causing damage to the defunct trading house Itoman Corp. The Osaka businessman restated the plea when his Osaka District Court trial resumed Tuesday following a 28-month recess caused...
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2000

Japan, Iran slate arms talks

Staff writer Japan and Iran will hold high-level talks on disarmament and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction in Tokyo for the first time, probably during the first half of April, Foreign Ministry sources said Tuesday. The sources said the talks will be held between Norio Hattori, the Foreign...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2000

When paranoia is in power, prepare to be surprised

WHY VIETNAM INVADED CAMBODIA: Political Culture and the Causes of War, by Stephen J. Morris. Stanford University Press, 1999, 315 pp., $49.50/30 British pounds (cloth), $18.95/11.95 British pounds (paper). In July 1973, the Khmer Rouge launched an offensive against Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh....
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2000

Proposal would bolster crime victims' rights

The right of the accused to face his or her accuser is one issue at stake in a draft proposal aiming to better protect crime victims' rights that was submitted to the justice minister Tuesday. The Legislative Council submitted the proposed revision of the Criminal Procedure Act to Justice Minister Hideo...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2000

Penny-wise, pound-foolish

The Japanese government is reportedly planning to negotiate a cut in so-called "omoiyari yosan" (sympathy budget), or special host-nation support, for the U.S. forces stationed in Japan. The word "omoiyari" is left out these days, however, on the ground that it can create misunderstandings. The budget...
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2000

Home affairs minister talks tax with Ishihara

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara met Kosuke Hori, home affairs minister, at a Tokyo hotel Monday evening to hear the ministry's concerns regarding the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's plan to tax the gross profits of major banks in Tokyo. Following the 15-minute closed meeting, Hori told reporters that he...
JAPAN
Feb 21, 2000

Election timing to be set with coalition partners: Obuchi

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi said Monday that he will determine the date for dissolving the Lower House in close consultation with his two ruling coalition partners, keeping alive media speculation over the timing of the next general election.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 20, 2000

Great compositions ennoble performers, audience alike

Virtually all of Japan's symphony orchestras perform Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth and last symphony at the end of the year, as the general populace makes its annual affirmation of the noble qualities declaimed in the lyrics of the choral finale, Friedlich von Schiller's "An die Freude (Ode to Joy)."...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 19, 2000

Retracing Takemitsu's 'Steps'

In 1967 a performance occurred in New York City which changed hogaku forever. Under the direction of Seiji Ozawa, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra commemorated its 125th anniversary by commissioning pieces from composers around the world.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 19, 2000

The outsiders: uniformly nonconformist

There is a giant mass of a figure towering in the center of the room, all wrapped up in a surreal green and white outfit from the top of the head to the bottom of the stiletto heels, leaving only a heavily larded face to shine out in a playfully menacing manner. There is a half-naked, gender-bending...
BUSINESS
Feb 18, 2000

Yen's weaker trend could last till March

Foreign investors' stepped-up purchases of Japanese equities -- the main catalyst for the yen's rise last year -- are no longer playing a major role in daily market activity.
CULTURE / Music
Feb 18, 2000

The journey begins in Calexico

Concept albums are notoriously fiendish undertakings. Most often they are an embarrassment, the sort of thing that artists blush about and PR reps write off as youthful indulgence.
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...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2000

Japanese team set to sell Mexico unprecedented investment pact

Staff writer After five months of preliminary talks, Japan and Mexico will launch full-scale negotiations in mid-March on a pact aimed at protecting and facilitating Japanese investment in the Latin American country. The Japanese negotiating team will visit Mexico for the first round of full-scale negotiations...
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2000

Hatoyama accused of pocketing 50 million yen

The leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, denied allegations Thursday that he received around 50 million yen in shady donations and from fundraising party tickets about a decade ago. Speaking at a hastily arranged press conference, Hatoyama criticized the controversial magazine article...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
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