Search - about-us

 
 
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2000

Pressure mounts for Mori to dump top aide Nakagawa

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa came under heavy fire Thursday over scandals involving a rightist figure and an extramarital affair, with some ruling bloc officials joining the opposition's calls for his resignation.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2000

Firms with taxable income drop to record low of 30.7%

The proportion of companies nationwide declaring taxable income hit a new record low for the ninth consecutive year between July 1999 and June, falling to 30.7 percent from 31.6 percent a year earlier, the National Tax Administration said Thursday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Oct 27, 2000

How to find the very best goat eggs

"Any goat eggs today?" I asked with mock anxiety, and a face to match.
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2000

NTT unit to enter local-call market

NTT Communications Corp., the long-distance and international services arm of the NTT group, plans to enter the local-call market as early as May, company officials said Thursday.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Oct 27, 2000

The highs and lows of izakaya dining

The ethereal, powder-blue fiber-optic lights that illuminate the entrance to Yui-an give a remarkable sense of stepping into another dimension -- a sensation heightened by the high-speed elevator ride to the top of the Sumitomo Building. With your brain suitably befuddled before you even get through...
JAPAN
Oct 27, 2000

Train crash laid to many factors

The March subway collision in Tokyo that killed five passengers and injured 63 others was caused by a combination of factors, including a wheel load imbalance and improperly ground rail surfaces, a Transport Ministry investigative panel concluded Thursday.
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2000

The coalition loads the dice

A few months ago, leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party were concerned that the party could suffer a shocking setback in the Upper House election next year if Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori remained in power then. There were also widespread fears that the ruling coalition of the LDP, New Komeito...
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2000

Time for a reality check

The courtship of Pyongyang continues. After Britain and Germany expressed interest in opening diplomatic relations with North Korea last weekend, the United States upped the ante with the two-day visit of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. If there is progress in the relationship, Ms. Albright held...
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2000

Former chief of Net firm held in exec's abduction

A former president of Liquid Audio Japan, an Internet-based music delivery firm, was arrested with four other people Wednesday on suspicion of kidnapping and confining a former executive of the firm.
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2000

Nine stores to close in Sogo revival plan

The Sogo department store group unveiled a comprehensive revival plan Wednesday that includes the closure of nine of its 22 existing stores and the slashing of the group's workforce by 3,100 employees to 6,000.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 26, 2000

Everyman Redgrave anything but in boat

LONDON -- From across a crowded room, Steve Redgrave hardly looks like a legendary athlete. He's lanky, excessively polite and his hair is thinning at an alarmingly quick rate. He walks around wearing a sheepish grin and his laugh is loud and long. If you didn't know any better, you'd swear he's the...
ENVIRONMENT
Oct 26, 2000

Eco-farm points way to sustainable agriculture

Orderly rows of plump, green tea bushes march across the slope above Kiyokazu Shitara's farm. By comparison, his fields look like a weedy, tangled mess.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Oct 26, 2000

Who decides on who decides?

When I interviewed Terry Venables in June, I asked him the obvious questions about his future: "Do you want to manage again?" and "Would you manage England again?"
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2000

Mori fights criticism during Diet debate

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori was forced to fight back Wednesday as opposition leaders urged him to resign during a terse Diet debate that centered on the latest in a growing string of gaffes.
COMMUNITY
Oct 26, 2000

Hair today, gone tomorrow

With a father and grandfather who were both completely bald, sports journalist Nobuya Kobayashi had always suspected that he would turn out the same way. Yet, when he actually started losing hair in his late 20s, he was shocked and found himself unable to accept his fate.
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2000

Police raid Todai lab linked to apprehended Aum cultist

An Aum Shinrikyo member under arrest was recently hired as a contract employee by a corporation affiliated with the Science and Technology Agency and had been involved in the development of computer systems at the University of Tokyo's graduate school, police said Wednesday.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Why do some doctors anesthetize brain-dead patients?

Tetsuo Furukawa, professor emeritus of neurology at Tokyo Medical and Dental School, is a rarity in Japan: a neurologist who has been crusading against the practice of transplanting organs from brain-dead donors. Furukawa worries that patients in a supposedly brain-dead state may nevertheless feel pain,...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Mori recants as friends, foes slam abduction plan

Retracting comments made earlier by his government, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori admitted during Tuesday's Diet session that a controversial proposal for finding Japanese nationals allegedly abducted by North Korean agents was not merely the personal opinion of a ruling party lawmaker.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Grade crossings taking time, taking lives

The mercury was already testing its upper limit when 83-year-old Kane Moritani left her Yokohama home one morning last summer to visit the neighborhood dentist.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Net-based group helps NPOs rake in donations

LOS ANGELES -- A San Francisco-based foundation is raking in donations over the Internet for nonprofit organizations -- and paving the future path for Japanese NPOs in the process.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Kondo set to resign over solar blunder

OSAKA -- Sanyo Electric Co. President Sadao Kondo expressed his intention to resign Tuesday in an effort to take responsibility for the sale of defective solar cell systems by a subsidiary.
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

G8 to tackle disposal of Russian plutonium

The Group of Eight countries will begin full-scale talks on an international financing scheme for Russia's disposal of weapons-grade plutonium as part of an effort to curb the global proliferation of nuclear weapons, government sources said Tuesday.
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2000

When leaders fail to lead

LONDON -- Countries and peoples that make peace after years or even generations of enmity require very strong leaders. Just as it needed a Charles de Gaulle to tell the French to stop fighting the Algerians, a Konrad Adenauer to tell the Germans to love the French, a Harry Truman or a Douglas MacArthur...
JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

It's a matter of life and death

Staff writer Brain death: It's a phrase we hear every day. In Japan, the public has been exposed to it to the point of numbness through nationwide campaigns for more organ donors. "Brain death is human death, and organ donation saves lives," we are exhorted. In the United States, the world's leading...
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Oct 25, 2000

A Thrush perches between two worlds

One foot in the past, one foot in the present.
COMMENTARY
Oct 25, 2000

Western policies ignore Serbia's history

Japan can be criticized for its simplistic, one-track mind at times. But over problems like Yugoslavia, the one-tracked Western mind, hardened by ideology and moralistic bias, can do far more harm.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan