Search - 2005

 
 
JAPAN
Dec 10, 2000

Katayama wants municipalities to amalgamate

Japan's 2,600 towns and villages should be amalgamated to reduce the number of municipalities to around 1,000 to tie in with the planned decentralization of administrative power, according to the new chief of the Home Affairs Ministry.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 10, 2000

U.S. presidential elections should go global

LOS ANGELES -- Americans watching events play out in Florida since Nov. 7 may feel a surreal sense of powerlessness; their president is being chosen by a handful of Palm Beach residents, it seems. In short, Americans have now gotten a taste of the way the rest of the world feels with each presidential...
BUSINESS
Dec 7, 2000

Retail chains under siege

Conventional Japanese supermarket chains, which are suffering dwindling sales and being cold-shouldered by consumers, will be dealt another blow with the advance of foreign retail giants wielding aggressive business plans into the Japanese market.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Dec 6, 2000

Ready for takeoff

The pipes are clogging. There are 377.65 million people online worldwide, and some analysts warn that figure could increase by as much as 25 percent annually for a few years to come. Traffic could reach 10 times the current level in a few short years, and demand for bandwidth might reach as high as 200...
JAPAN
Dec 2, 2000

Public-sector efficiency plan OK'd

The Cabinet on Friday approved an action plan to streamline and increase efficiency in the public sector and promote deregulation for implementation through 2005 following the reorganization in January of central government ministries and agencies, officials said.
BUSINESS
Dec 1, 2000

Reform touted in new five-year action program

The government compiled a five-year action program to promote structural reform and achieve economic progress while continuing to reflect the IT revolution and environmental concerns, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry announced Thursday.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 1, 2000

Are class differences widening in Japan?

Along with increased pressures for deregulation and a free-market economy have come wider questions of what Japanese society should be like in the new century. Has the Japan in which 90 percent of the people considered themselves middle class ended? Is Japan becoming a class society of winners and losers...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Japan IT strategy eyes more telecom deregulation

Japan's national strategy on information technology, scheduled to be adopted Monday, calls for greater deregulation of the telecommunications industry to promote competition, according to a final draft made available to Kyodo News on Saturday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 15, 2000

Ground the flying-tanker plans

With the government budget for fiscal 2001 now in preparation, a controversial question concerning defense procurement looms large: Do the Self-Defense Forces need in-flight refueling aircraft? The Defense Agency is requesting appropriations to purchase one such aircraft in the year beginning next April....
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Costly Kansai airport plagued by pullouts, rivals, debts, sea

OSAKA -- Six years after opening, Kansai International Airport is struggling to stay above water -- literally and figuratively.
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2000

Japan to promote commercial use of space station

The Space Activities Commission on Monday compiled a draft report that includes the promotion of commercial use as well as scientific and technological research at a Japanese laboratory to be built within the International Space Station, commission officials said.
JAPAN
Nov 12, 2000

Rokkasho to be site of MOX plant

Nine major power utilities and Japan Atomic Power Co. have selected the village of Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture as the site of a planned factory to manufacture mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel (MOX).
JAPAN
Nov 10, 2000

State pushes life science in draft of five-year plan

The government on Thursday compiled a draft of Japan's next five-year science and technology plans through fiscal 2005, emphasizing four fields, including life science and data communications, government officials said.
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2000

Ruling bloc eyes bill to cut state-funded corporations

The three ruling parties agreed Wednesday to submit to a bill to the Diet next week to slash the number of state-funded special corporations by the end of fiscal 2005 as a means of streamlining the administration, party officials said.
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Fiber-optic network viewed as road to economic revival

Japan should create one of the world's most advanced information technology infrastructures in the next five years so that far more than 60 percent of the public will have Internet access by then, a government advisory panel said Monday.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

Agency plans to improve SDF's welfare

The Defense Agency intends to include measures to improve the welfare conditions for members of the Self-Defense Forces in Japan's next five-year defense buildup plan for fiscal 2001-2005, agency sources said Friday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 1, 2000

Japan's new disarmament offensive

At the current meeting of the disarmament committee of the United Nations millennium assembly, Japan has presented a draft resolution calling for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons. The proposal, which lays out a timetable for total nuclear disarmament, marks a step forward from previous appeals...
JAPAN
Nov 1, 2000

Kono hopes for passage of nuclear ban proposal

Foreign Minister Yohei Kono expressed hope Tuesday that a nuclear elimination draft resolution Japan submitted to the U.N. Millennium General Assembly's committee on disarmament will be adopted in the upcoming vote.
JAPAN
Oct 31, 2000

Japan to create fauna, flora database

Japan will create a database covering 1.75 million species of plants and animals in Japan and 11 other Asian countries, Environment Agency officials said Monday.
JAPAN
Oct 30, 2000

Western Pacific declared free of polio

KYOTO -- The World Health Organization on Sunday declared the western Pacific region free of the virus that causes polio, an important step in international efforts to eradicate the crippling childhood disease from the world.
JAPAN
Oct 17, 2000

Zhu tones down stance on wartime atonement

Visiting Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji said Monday that Japan needs to admit its wartime aggression and be careful not to repeat the same mistake.
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2000

Taiwan shift away from reactors may deal blow to Japanese firms

Taiwan's Economics Ministry has taken a step toward loosening the island's reliance on nuclear power in a move that could be a major blow to Japanese firms in the atomic power industry.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past