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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.
EDITORIALS
Jan 7, 2000

Pyongyang on the offensive

The new year is starting out well for North Korea. On Wednesday, the country announced a breakthrough — the opening of diplomatic relations with Italy — and Pyongyang returned to the offensive in its dealings with its chief interlocutors in the region — Japan, South Korea and the United States....
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2000

Eyeing Lower House elections

It looks like 2000 will be a year of politics in the world and in Japan as well. In the United States and Russia, there will be presidential elections; in Japan, the Lower House will be dissolved for a snap election before its sitting members complete their four-year terms in October.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 7, 2000

Japan's cultural underground exposed in edgy new guide

The slow days of winter are upon us, making an evening on the couch with a good book or tune more enticing than the sweaty confines of a live house or club. As folks slowly stream back into town from the New Year's holidays, there isn't a lot happening in the first few weeks of January anyway, so kick...
EDITORIALS
Jan 6, 2000

Kashmir embroils a region

Celebrations over the release of prisoners on Indian Airlines flight 814, hijacked last month by Kashmiri militants and held for eight hellish days, were brief. Hours after India secured the release of the 188 passengers and crew, the recriminations began. Everyone, from the authorities at the Nepalese...
JAPAN
Jan 6, 2000

Pyongyang a gracious companion in food aid talks

BEIJING -- Japanese negotiators last month noticed something unusual when they sat down across the table from government and Red Cross officials from North Korea. The North Koreans, diplomatic sources now say, were being uncharacteristically gracious. While asking Japan for several years' worth of food...
BUSINESS
Jan 6, 2000

World markets entering corrective phase

New York share prices tumbled Tuesday, sending equity markets reeling around the world. After charging ahead in record territory for months, the steep corrections of U.S. indexes have come as no surprise.
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2000

NTT may halve monthly ISDN fee

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. is considering halving its fixed monthly charge designed for heavy Internet users -- now in a trial phase -- from the current 8,000 yen to around 4,000 yen as early as April, NTT officials said Tuesday.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 4, 2000

Asahi tops Kwansei to capture Rice Bowl

Yasumoto Sasaki recorded a game-high three quarterback sacks as the X League champion Asahi Beer Club Silver Star defeated the collegiate representative Kwansei Gakuin Fighters 33-17 in the Rice Bowl on Monday at the Tokyo Dome.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 4, 2000

The top 21 albums through bleary eyes and fuzzy logic

Here is a list of the best albums that have loitered on my turntables during 1999. It wasn't the best of years, so thank Buddha for Mogwai, Campag Velocet, Death in Vegas and, erm, some girl band . . . oh, what's the name? Maybe it'll come to me later.
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2000

Court translators to be given formal training from spring

The Supreme Court will introduce this spring a new system of training for interpreters who translate courtroom remarks by judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses for foreign defendants, court officials said Tuesday. The training sessions will be held at district courts around the country, with judges...
BUSINESS
Jan 4, 2000

Domestic banks embrace information technology

Domestic banks, lagging behind their American counterparts in the use of information technology, are stepping up their Internet banking operations and expanding services available to retail customers via the Net.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 4, 2000

The glorious mess of Bangkok

BANGKOK: Then and Now, by Steve van Beek. Bangkok: AB Publications, 1999, 132 pp, with numerous color and b/w photos, maps, drawings, etc. unpriced. Writing in 1900, the American consul residing in Bangkok marveled that only 35 years earlier there had been no streets in the capital, that all traffic...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 3, 2000

Planning cleaner, greener cities in Asia

The great cities of East Asia, such as Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul are mature in terms of development and offer little scope for major environmental planning. But within the smaller cities around them exists room for improvement. The port cities of Layonko, near Shanghai, Kaoshang in Taiwan and Yokohama...
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2000

New Year's return rush peaks

The rush of New Year's travelers returning from their hometowns reached its peak Monday, in time to return to work today -- when most companies reopen for business. However, the number of train and airplane passengers returning to Tokyo and other big cities was smaller than usual, probably because Y2K...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 3, 2000

It's not an easy trick to pick one out of 108 for best of year

It is time once again to look back over some of the most significant events of the previous year, 1999.
BUSINESS
Jan 1, 2000

The next loud bang could be in retailing

Just as foreign companies have accelerated reorganization of financial and automobile industries, powerful foreign chain stores are now gearing up to expand in the general merchandising market in Japan.
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2000

Public must face higher tax burden: Imai

Japan must act on its deteriorating financial health by launching discussions on fiscal reform and revealing the results to the public, said Takashi Imai, chairman of the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren).
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

Hotels, stores cashing in on Y2K scare

Staff writers Y2K wise men say, only fools rush out on New Year's Eve. Yet, as many stayed home for the definitive moment, tens of thousands of private company officials left their homes Friday to stand guard at their offices for possible Y2K problems, unwittingly providing a millennium windfall to...
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

Pyongyang 'spy' tied to hijackers

A man believed to be detained in North Korea entered the country as part of a group organized by a former leader of the Red Army faction, according to sources close to Tokyo-Pyongyang relations. The sources said a five-member group led by Takaya Shiomi, 60, left Narita airport Nov. 30 and arrived in...
JAPAN
Dec 31, 1999

2000 'pivotal' in ties with Pyongyang

Staff writer For better or worse, future historians may characterize 2000 as a pivotal point in Japan's foreign policy toward its hermetic neighbor, North Korea. This is mainly because one of Japan's long-standing diplomatic issues -- normalization talks with Pyongyang -- is likely to enter a critical...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Japanese consumers opting for riskier, more rewarding investments

Staff writer Are the Japanese changing the way they save money, turning to risky but potentially rewarding financial investments? The rising popularity of investment trusts may provide a clue. Net assets of investment trusts, or mutual funds, amounted to 53.3 trillion yen at the end of November, up...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Gay magazine Fabulous targets lifestyles of 'matured' community

Staff writer Five years working as supervisor of a mainly pornographic gay magazine convinced Toh Ogura, 38, that gays in Japan need a lifestyle magazine. Although a handful of pornographic magazines have been available, no lifestyle magazine targeted gays before Ogura started Fabulous in November....
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 1999

Cashing in on the new millennium fever

At the turn of the millennium, marketer Kenneth Walker will be seeing lots of zeros. Not only will he be seeing the numbers 01-01-00 everywhere, he'll be seeing lots of zeros coming behind dollar signs.
COMMUNITY
Dec 30, 1999

Le Nozze de video

Toss away your Love Getty and forget the formal o-miai (arranged meeting) -- matchmaking has gone hi-tech.
JAPAN / Media
Dec 30, 1999

A recap of 1999's top media: mavens, meddlers, madmen

By Philip Brasor
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Credit card firms prepared for Y2K

Staff writer Despite reports from Britain detailing Y2K problems with credit cards, Japan's credit card companies, now in the midst of last-minute preparations, claim their customers have no need to worry. Even before the clock ticks over to the new year, when Y2K problems are most likely to occur,...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Japan urged to consider free-trade pacts

Staff writer Japan should keep its commitment to trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization, but this must not prevent it from seeking free-trade agreements with its trading partners, according to Noboru Hatakeyama, chairman of the Japan External Trade Organization. Earlier this month,...
EDITORIALS
Dec 28, 1999

Confusion, as usual, in 1999

This has been a year of extremes. It began with the sad spectacle of the U.S. president's sexual escapades and verbal gymnastics exposed to international ridicule, and draws to a close under the shadow of millennial terrorism and computer-induced chaos. There were long-anticipated moments of peace, and...
JAPAN
Dec 28, 1999

Taiwan opts for Japan's bullet trains

TAIPEI -- A Japanese consortium has been awarded priority negotiation rights for contracts involving the construction of a high-speed railway between Taipei and Kaohsiung, the Taiwanese builder of the rail system announced Tuesday. The announcement by Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp. could pave the way...

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’