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LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 16, 1999

Vocal as we wanna be

"The process of tying two items together is the important thing," wrote Vannevar Bush in a seminal essay titled "As We Think," published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1945. Bush described a hypothetical device that would allow the storage and retrieval of data, the memory of mankind. It would be constructed...
JAPAN
Jun 16, 1999

Leaders agree to extend Diet by 57 days

Leaders of the government and Liberal Democratic Party-Liberal Party coalition formally decided Wednesday to extend the Diet session by 57 days until Aug. 13 to pass legislation on jobs creation and reviving industrial competitiveness.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 1999

Dream school shuns educational norms

ONNA, Okinawa Pref. — A healthy techno beat pounds against the walls of the studio where dancers groove, their motions sharp as they study their moves critically in the mirror.
JAPAN
Jun 15, 1999

Ethnic Korean says alien card law should be replaced

A permanent resident of Tokyo who refused to be fingerprinted in 1980 and triggered an antifingerprinting movement on the basis of discrimination, called on the Justice Ministry Tuesday to create a new law for ethnic Koreans that supersedes the Alien Registration Law.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 1999

Come clean on defense policy

In July last year I took issue with an article written by former Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa ("Japan-U.S. Security Treaty: A kind of insurance policy" July 11, 1998). In his recent May 31 article "A de facto treaty revision," Hosokawa called for "a full dress debate on se curity issues, including...
JAPAN
Jun 11, 1999

Osaka's last quake refugees move

OSAKA — The last household living in temporary facilities set up in Osaka Prefecture after the Great Hanshin Earthquake has moved out, officials said Friday.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 1999

DKB tightens grip on securities units

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank announced Friday it will strengthen its securities business unit by raising its stake in affiliate Kankaku Securities Co.
JAPAN
Jun 11, 1999

Business, labor groups elated

The nation's five major business and labor organizations expressed appreciation Friday for the government's package to boost the job market and improve industrial competitiveness, according to government officials.
EDITORIALS
Jun 10, 1999

Peace and priorities in Kosovo

With peace tantalizingly close in Kosovo, it is important to remember why NATO has waged its air war against Yugoslavia: Over 1 million ethnic Albanian Kosovars have been murdered or driven from their homes in a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. Yugoslav security forces were the instrument of oppression;...
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

Aoba posts first fiscal year earnings

Aoba Life Insurance Co. logged premium revenues totaling 64.9 billion yen for fiscal 1998 ended March 31, the firm said in its first full-year earnings reports, released Thursday.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

Edo freighter replica to be tested in Osaka Bay

OSAKA — A replica of an Edo Period cargo vessel is nearly complete and will be tested in Osaka Bay early next month, according to city officials.
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

Panel urges simplifying port service regulations

Regulations on port services should be gradually simplified, according to a recommendation made Thursday by an advisory panel to the transport minister.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 10, 1999

Rockers get down for Tibet Freedom weekend

What do an 11th-century Tibetan saint and a member of one of the world's more popular hip-hop groups have in common?
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

Analysis: Life insurers' credibility shaken

Major and second-tier life insurers' dismal earnings reports for fiscal 1998 have cast yet another shadow over the industry, already shaken by the recent collapse of midsize Toho Mutual Life Insurance Co.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

C&W wins IDC stakes

Toyota Motor Corp. and Itochu Corp. on Wednesday announced their decisions to sell their 17.7 percent stakes in International Digital Communications Inc. to Britain's Cable and Wireless PLC.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

Maki, others awarded Praemium Imperiale

The Japan Art Association on Wednesday announced this year's winners of its Praemium Imperiale awards, including Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, who is widely known for his innovative and modern style.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

Upper House begins debate on wiretap bills

The House of Councilors on Wednesday began deliberating controversial bills that would allow law enforcement authorities to wiretap private communications during investigations into organized crime.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jun 9, 1999

High praise

A woman writes that last year she saw several subway advertisements for Hunter-Douglas window blinds and asks if I can find the company's phone number. She complains that local services are extremely expensive and leave a lot to be desired. Recently, for example, she contracted for similar work but as...
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

Reproductive technology yields 9,211 births

A record 9,211 babies were born in Japan through reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization in 1997, officials at the Japan Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology said Wednesday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 1999

The darkest shores of the soul

SHIPWRECKS, by Akira Yoshimura, translated by Mark Ealey. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996, 180 pp., $21. Though Akira Yoshimura, born in 1927, is the author of some 20 novels, this is the first to be translated into English. Perhaps the reason for the delay is that he is better known as a historian...
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

New Toho Mutual team to probe liability of execs

The newly appointed administrators of the failed Toho Mutual Life Insurance Co. said Monday they will set up an internal committee to investigate if the firm's management is liable for its collapse.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Osaka scrubs IOC junket

OSAKA — The Osaka Municipal Government has canceled a public relations trip to an International Olympic Committee meeting in Seoul later this month.
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Enterprise Spirit: Internships turn jobless into entrepreneurs

28th in a series of occasional articles about venture businesses
JAPAN
Jun 7, 1999

Tokyo job fair sees 10% fewer firms

A two-day job interview fair with more than 650 companies began Monday in Tokyo in an attempt to help prospective university and junior college graduates in the metro area land work.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Uruguay ambassador lauds ties with Japan

Surveying her nearly six years in Japan, Zulma Guelman, Uruguay's ambassador to Japan, is most pleased to see the growing economic ties between the two countries.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

MSDF-coast guard hotline OK'd

Cabinet ministers Friday approved government-proposed sea patrol measures that call for more communication between the nation's maritime authorities, following a failure in March to capture two suspected North Korean spy boats.
JAPAN
Jun 3, 1999

Obuchi takes competition woes to industry leaders

Japan needs to promote joint projects between the government and the private sector to strengthen its industrial technology, government and business leaders agreed Thursday at a state panel on beefing up industrial competitiveness.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 1999

France's Corsican question

PARIS -- "France," according to one of its best-known poets and political thinkers, Paul Valery, "is the most heterogeneous country that ever existed." The present tragedy in Kosovo makes this sound hyperbolic, yet there is an element of truth in it. The French who live on the shores of the Mediterranean,...
EDITORIALS
Jun 1, 1999

Ratify the stand against torture

It was in 1984 that the United Nations adopted the "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment." More than 110 countries have since joined the treaty, but surprisingly Japan is not yet one of them. Finally, however, the government has decided to ratify the...
JAPAN
Jun 1, 1999

Competitiveness Commission to hear smaller firms' views

To reflect broader business opinions on the nation's industrial policy planning, the government will ask nonmanufacturers to participate in ongoing meetings of its joint advisory panel with the private sector, trade chief Kaoru Yosano said Tuesday.

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