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JAPAN
Oct 22, 1998

ANA changes course for Star Alliance

In an effort to pull in business class customers for its international routes, All Nippon Airways Co. will join the Star Alliance, a multilateral strategic linkup of international carriers, next October, ANA officials said Thursday.The alliance is made up of Air Canada, Lufthansa German Airlines, Scandinavian...
JAPAN
Oct 22, 1998

NTT to pay 5,000 yen share bonus; DoCoMo debuts

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. will offer a special dividend of 5,000 yen per share next year in addition to a regular dividend of 2,500 yen after profits made from releasing a part of its shares of NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc., the carrier announced Thursday.NTT had held 95 percent...
JAPAN
Oct 21, 1998

Action agenda for Africa targets poverty, illiteracy

African countries and their development partners pledged Wednesday to attempt to halve the extreme poverty on the continent and achieve universal elementary school education by 2015.To this end, Japan pledged 90 billion yen, mostly grants for educational and health facilities."The ultimate objective...
JAPAN
Oct 21, 1998

JNR Settlements' era ends without a bang

JNR Settlements Corp.'s 11-year history ended at midnight Wednesday as new laws to more effectively dispose of 28.3 trillion yen in debt left behind by the defunct Japanese National Railways took effect.The semigovernmental body was created in 1987 to tame debt of 22.6 trillion yen accumulated by JNR,...
JAPAN
Oct 21, 1998

Japan inks KEDO cost-sharing deal

Japan has lifted its freeze on financial contributions to an international project to build light-water nuclear reactors in North Korea.Terusuke Terada, Japan's ambassador to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO), signed the cost-sharing agreement Wednesday with other KEDO board...
JAPAN
Oct 20, 1998

FSA to pressure banks to apply for money

The Financial Supervisory Agency will strongly urge banks to apply for capital injection under the new bank recapitalization law, FSA Commissioner Masaharu Hino said Tuesday.The FSA will use various measures, including meeting unofficially with a group of banks, to talk them into accepting public funds,...
JAPAN
Oct 20, 1998

Seoul set to lift ban on most Japanese films, comics, videos

SEOUL -- South Korea announced on Tuesday that it will remove a decades-old ban so that international prize-winning Japanese films and others jointly produced by the two countries can legally be shown in the country.In announcing the decision to lift the longtime ban on Japanese cultural items, Shin...
JAPAN
Oct 20, 1998

Sakakibara backs Mahathir on currency controls

Sharing Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's concerns over capitalism, Japan's vice finance minister for international affairs supported Malaysia's foreign exchange controls Tuesday.At a Tokyo symposium, Eisuke Sakakibara said global capitalism backed by "market fundamentalism," or the belief...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1998

Atami's fortune no longer springs eternal

Staff writerATAMI, Shizuoka Pref. -- This used to be one of the most popular spa resorts in Japan, with streets packed with yukata-dressed tourists and hotel rooms fully booked for company parties.But such memories have been fading in Atami. Hard-hit by earthquakes and the recession, the city's central...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1998

E-money system could mean hassle-free concert tickets

To spare concertgoers the nuisance of buying tickets by phone and picking them up at the box office, major promoters have teamed up with an information technology firm to begin limited sales of tickets by use of electric money, officials said Monday.Late last month, the All-Japan Concert Tour Promoters'...
JAPAN
Oct 19, 1998

Tax cut details to be aired in December

The government will spell out by mid-December details regarding corporate and individual income tax cuts designed to stimulate sagging consumer spending, International Trade and Industry Minister Kaoru Yosano told major retailers Monday, according to a ministry official.During an hourlong meeting with...
JAPAN
Oct 16, 1998

Diet passes final bank bill

The Diet on Friday enacted the new bank recapitalization law after it was approved by an Upper House plenary session, giving the nation's capital-short banks a chance to have public funds injected into their bases through government purchases of their preferred and common stock.The bill's enactment,...
JAPAN
Oct 16, 1998

Japan to rejoin KEDO partners for reactor project

Japan will lift its freeze on participation in an international consortium providing nuclear reactors to North Korea as early as next week, government sources said Friday.Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi instructed Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka to forge a consensus...
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1998

JNR repayment plan wins Diet approval

Laws for disposing of 27.8 trillion yen in debts left behind by the now-defunct Japanese National Railways were enacted Thursday when the Upper House approved the measures by a margin of 129-113.Under the laws, the huge debts will be disposed of over 60 years, mostly by using taxpayer money and by requiring...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 1998

DPJ's Ikeda calls new bill 'opaque,' counterproductive

Staff writer The banking sector crisis will continue because of the "opaque" bank recapitalization bill, Motohisa Ikeda, a key member of the Democratic Party of Japan, said Wednesday. The bill, expected to be enacted Friday, will not enable accurate assessment of bank assets, sufficient injection of...
JAPAN
Oct 14, 1998

High-level deregulation talks to convene in Washington

Japan and the United States will hold high-level talks on deregulation Nov. 6 in Washington to exchange views on procedures of the deregulation dialogue between the two countries, Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday.At working-level talks on deregulation, the U.S. side said that it hopes to compile...
JAPAN
Oct 13, 1998

BOJ board maintains money policy, considers new moves

The Bank of Japan's Policy Board agreed Tuesday by a majority vote to keep its monetary policy unchanged, the central bank said.It is believed that the decision reflects a view shared by most financial experts that there is little room for another interest rate cut to spur the crippled economy.At a...
JAPAN
Oct 12, 1998

Bank bill nears passage as LDP gains two allies

A new bank recapitalization bill is expected to clear the Lower House today and the Upper House by the end of this week as at least two opposition parties have agreed to jointly propose the bill put forward by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
JAPAN
Oct 9, 1998

President Kim greets fellow Koreans in Kansai

After arriving in Osaka from Tokyo on Friday afternoon, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and his wife, Lee Hee Ho, met Korean residents of the Kansai region at an Osaka hotel.In front of more than 700 participants, Kim thanked Korean residents for the help they offered when the country was hard hit...
JAPAN
Oct 9, 1998

Military port shift OK elates Defense chief

Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga on Friday welcomed the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly's decision to support the relocation of the U.S. military port facility in Naha to neighboring Urasoe."I understand that local businesses (in Urasoe) want to gain the port facility. I will keep watching the situation...
JAPAN
Oct 9, 1998

LDP may bend on recapitalization plans

The government and the Liberal Democratic Party appeared ready Friday to accept some ideas proposed by the Democratic Party of Japan on a bank recapitalization bill.DPJ Secretary General Tsutomu Hata met with his LDP counterpart Yoshiro Mori and Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka in the afternoon...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 1998

Highlights of Kim-Obuchi declaration

The following are highlights of the joint declaration announced Thursday by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung:1) Obuchi and Kim expressed their shared determination to build a new partnership toward the 21st century.2) Obuchi expressed keen remorse and apologized for...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 1998

The Kim Visit: Leaders look ahead, vow cooperative ties

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and visiting South Korean President Kim Dae Jung put the past behind them Thursday, with Japan apologizing for its past colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula and both pledging to establish a new partnership in a variety of fields for the 21st century.Obuchi said at a joint...
JAPAN
Oct 7, 1998

Public funds the best medicine, U.S. chamber says

Staff writerIf you cut your arm and blood was flowing like a river, the first thing you would have to do is stop the bleeding, the head of the world's largest business organization in the United States said.In the same manner, Japan must expeditiously inject public funds into its ailing banking sector...
JAPAN
Oct 7, 1998

'Microcreditor' not for privileged

Staff writer Muhammad Yunus is not your typical banker. You won't catch him traipsing around in designer suits or marching briefcase in hand through the corporate halls looking for new clients.No, this simply dressed Bangladeshi banker marches to a different beat: he strives to lend money to the poor...
JAPAN
Oct 6, 1998

LDP ready to submit bank bills

Apparently convinced that bills to recapitalize financial institutions can be passed in the current Diet session, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party is set to submit the bills today.On Tuesday, the LDP presented a revised version of its new bank recapitalization scheme to the opposition camp, a scheme...
JAPAN
Oct 5, 1998

EU to present deregulation package next week

The European Union will present new deregulation proposals to Japan when the two sides hold ministerial-level meetings in Tokyo next Monday, a senior officials of the European Commission said Monday.Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Ove Juul Joergensen, head of the Delegation of the European Commission...
JAPAN
Oct 5, 1998

Investment firm puts trust in disclosure

18th in an occasional series on financial deregulationStaff writerAlliance Capital Investment Trust Management Inc. of Tokyo is attempting to calm anxious customers by fully explaining how their funds have been hurt amid global financial instability, company President Takahiro Fujino said.The severe...
JAPAN
Oct 1, 1998

Clinton slating trip to Japan

The United States has officially informed Japan of President Bill Clinton's plan to visit Japan and hold talks with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi next month, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka confirmed Thursday.The government's chief spokesman said Tokyo and Washington are now adjusting the specific...
JAPAN
Oct 1, 1998

DKB, J.P. Morgan form investment trust venture

Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank and J.P. Morgan and Co. of the United States has sealed a tieup agreement to sell investment trust products in Japan through DKB's sales channels, the two companies announced Thursday.The move is an attempt to gain a competitive edge over established alliances between rival financial...

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