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JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

More mobile phones being left behind in Tokyo

The number of mobile phones lost by their owners in Tokyo jumped 15.1 percent from over a year ago to 83,907 in 2000, or about 230 per day, the Metropolitan Police Department reported Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Jan 31, 2001

Investors' confidence up as stocks stabilize

Following the lead of the New York Stock Exchange, the Tokyo stock market has regained some stability, which has helped to improve investor sentiment.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jan 31, 2001

Castles in the sky

Here's a folk tale for the digital era.
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

Appeal rejection seals killer's fate

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a death-row inmate's appeal against lower court rulings that found him guilty of murdering a couple during a robbery in 1991, effectively finalizing his death sentence.
COMMUNITY
Jan 31, 2001

Kinder makes learning kanji fun

Slippery snow is turning to slush. It is midwinter in Kanto, time for bundling up in fleecy sweaters and heavy coats. But at the two Hikari Yochien schools in Kawasaki, boys and girls are playing outdoors wearing nothing more than gym shorts.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 31, 2001

A chaotic Southeast Asian haven

CEBU, Philippines -- Denis is a purple-nosed ex-con with yellow teeth, asterisk eyes receded deep in their sockets and tattoos covering his arms and knuckles.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 31, 2001

Britain's secondhand bookshop Mecca

Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross may be the book centers of London, but the Mecca for secondhand books in Britain is on the English/Welsh border. With more than 30 secondhand bookshops, tiny Hay-on-Wye bills itself as the "town of books."
JAPAN
Jan 31, 2001

Scope of embezzlement probe widens

Tokyo police investigating the alleged embezzlement of government VIP travel funds broadened their inquiry and questioned a senior Foreign Ministry official who was once based at the Cabinet secretariat and involved in the fund's operation, sources close to the investigation said.
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2001

The view from Davos

The pompous and the powerful are wrapping up their annual get-together in Davos, the Swiss alpine village made famous in recent years by the World Economic Forum. This year, there were as many police and security officials as attendees, an indication of the real dangers that threaten the global economy....
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Funeral rites held for men killed in failed station rescue

Funeral rites were held for two men who were killed by a train Friday night when trying to rescue a drunken man who had fallen off the platform onto the tracks at JR Shin-Okubo Station on Tokyo's Yamanote Line.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Japan more spacious, crowded

Japan's landmass continued to expand in 2000, a trend that began decades ago with the advent of reclamation projects.
BUSINESS
Jan 30, 2001

BOJ refuses to further ease monetary policy

Despite calls from politicians for the Bank of Japan to further ease its grip on monetary policy, BOJ Gov. Masaru Hayami reiterated Monday morning that the central bank will continue its present easy monetary stance and remain vigilant to downward pressures on the economy.
BUSINESS
Jan 30, 2001

Mycal to unload health club stake

OSAKA -- Mycal Corp. supermarket chain and game software developer Konami Co. said Monday they have agreed on the sale of a majority stake in People Co., a major health club chain belonging to the Mycal group, by late February.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Red Army fugitives' families seek visas to Japan

A group that supports the families of Red Army Faction fugitives who hijacked a Japan Airlines jet in 1970 and ordered it flown to North Korea has released to the media photos taken in December of five of the hijackers' relatives in Pyongyang.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Japan sends medical team to aid India's quake victims

The Japanese government decided Monday to dispatch a medical team to India to provide emergency aid to victims of last week's earthquake, the Foreign Ministry said.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2001

Otaku loose in a noirish world

Dark future movies are, by now, as established an SF subgenre as creature features or space operas. Their world view is usually a cross between an Orwellian nightmare and a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show: grim, oppressive and dangerous but sexy, radical and cool. In other words, you wouldn't mind visiting,...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Embezzling intolerable: Hashimoto

Administrative reform minister Ryutaro Hashimoto on Monday voiced regret over the alleged embezzlement of diplomacy funds by a former senior official at the Foreign Ministry, saying such wrongdoing should not be tolerated.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

People facing retirement seen increasingly looking overseas

More middle-aged and elderly Japanese are going abroad for long stays or permanent residence to seek a new life after mandatory or early retirement.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Mayors want end to night landing exercises

Mayors of cities hosting military bases where the U.S. Navy practices night landings gathered Monday in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture, and agreed that they will jointly call for an end to the exercises on mainland Japan.
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Indefinite term upheld for man, 20, in '99 killing

The Tokyo High Court on Monday upheld a lower court-imposed indefinite prison term handed to a 20-year-old man for his role in the strangling of a 19-year-old male in Tochigi Prefecture in 1999.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 30, 2001

Tokyo Stadium opening to public

The brand-new 50,000-seat Tokyo Stadium in Chofu City will be open to the general public on Feb. 10-12 ahead of its curtain-raiser with a J. League season-opening game.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 30, 2001

Ravens dominate Giants for title

TAMPA, Fla. -- For a while it looked like it might be a game, but in the end it turned into a blowout.
CULTURE / Music
Jan 30, 2001

Kitaro tunes in to a healing vibe

Kitaro, one of few Japanese musicians known internationally, has unshaken faith in his music. With enormous energy counterpointing his calm, modest and easy-going manner, he has handled huge projects in the past and has been called the pioneer of New Age music in Japan.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 30, 2001

The brocaded body beautiful

PEAU DE BROCART: Le Corps Tatoue au Japon, by Philippe Pons. Paris: Seuil, 2000, 142 pp., plates (color, b/w) 60, FFr 230 (cloth). Rene Magritte has spoken of someone clad "only in the robe of her skin," and this concept of surface as substance is observed by the tattooing tradition of Japan, the...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jan 30, 2001

Getting off on the art of noise

I got a beer in my hand and a slim bottle of Zubrovka vodka stuffed in my back pocket for back-up, but all this rock 'n' roll partying business seems rather inappropriate right now.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 30, 2001

When does a faith become a cult?

FALUN GONG'S CHALLENGE TO CHINA: Spiritual Practice or "Evil Cult," by Danny Schechter. Akashic Books, 2000, 225 pp., $24 (cloth). Last year about this time, I visited Tiananmen Square, mingling with tourists and day-trippers enjoying the warmth of the midday sun. As I reminisced about this historic...
CULTURE / Books
Jan 30, 2001

Eminently sensible remediesfor Japan's economic woes

CAN JAPAN COMPETE?, by Michael Porter, Hirotaka Takeuchi and Mariko Sakakibara. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2000, 208 pp., $27.50 (cloth). The title has got to go. "Can Japan Compete?" What sort of question is that? Of course Japan can compete. No one disputes that the country has world-beating...
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Aid to Angola to be medical: Mori

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Monday promised to offer 500 million yen in grants to Angola to help reduce polio and malaria in the southern African country.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years