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LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Aug 3, 2000

Lessons of the past inspire a future

Calligraphy by Nako Oizumi The evolution of a single human neither starts with their birth, nor stops with the end of their childhood. Each of us has been given pieces of the past by previous generations from which we make new meaning and, in turn, hand it on to the young.
LIFE / Style & Design / SIMPLY DIVINE
Aug 3, 2000

Dancing your way to fitness

Some medical experts claim a glass of wine is good for your heart, others believe chocolate is an excellent alternative to Prozac, but something they all tend to agree on is that adequate exercise is vital to a healthy life. However, if your idea of working out is a spot of intensive window-shopping...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2000

Bank worker embezzled 160 million yen

A 28-year-old former employee of the Bank of Kochi's Aki branch in Kochi Prefecture embezzled some 160 million yen from customers, bank officials said Wednesday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 3, 2000

Okinawa seen through the summit prism

It's a common belief that the annual G-7 or G-8 summits accomplish little more than allowing the leaders of the industrialized world to get together and make a show of global unity. Consequently, the only thing you can count on in the post-summit analyses is that they will dwell on what wasn't discussed,...
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2000

Train conductors left behind as Toei Subway becomes automated

In another verse from the machine-replaces-man songbook, Toei Subway is replacing the conductor on half of its Tokyo lines with a bevy of machines, including a safety wall that has been making its way through Toei Mita Line stations across Tokyo this summer.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2000

Trading sluggish in July on Nasdaq Japan

OSAKA -- Trading on the Nasdaq Japan equity market for growth companies was sluggish in July due to nationwide concerns about the economy, especially the collapse of major department store Sogo Co., the Osaka Securities Exchange said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2000

Financial law to stay despite sale of NCB, Aizawa says

The government will not meddle with the financial system revival law for the sake of renegotiating the sale of Nippon Credit Bank to a consortium led by Softbank Corp., Hideyuki Aizawa, newly appointed chief of the Financial Reconstruction Commission, said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2000

Three boys, man held in killing of homeless man

OSAKA -- Three high school students and a 20-year-old man have been arrested on suspicion of fatally assaulting a homeless man last month in Tennoji Ward here, police said Tuesday.
COMMUNITY
Aug 2, 2000

An unlikely affinity with a Japanese ghost

"Before I continue to pour out my soul, let me confide in you that Lebanon is one of those countries that produces nothing but its own periodic tragedies." --"Dear Mr Kawabata," by Rashid al-Daif
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2000

Cabinet approves 9.4 trillion yen for public works in new budget

The Cabinet approved guidelines for fiscal 2001 budget requests Tuesday that will allow policy-related spending to rise slightly above this year's 48.09 trillion yen.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2000

Taisho Life raises 4.5 billion yen with new share issue

Taisho Life Insurance Co. said Tuesday it has raised 4.5 billion yen through a third-party allotment of new shares with the aim of strengthening its capital base.
LIFE / Digital
Aug 2, 2000

'Zine zone

www.failuremag.com The immediate image that came to mind upon hearing there's something out there called Failure Magazine was of four California college students getting stoned in a cramped dorm room, trying to figure out how to catch up with all their classmates' e-commerce sites. The light bulb dims...
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 2, 2000

Part 2: Jealousies, revenges and tradeoffs

European soccer chief Lennart Johansson has never shied away from attacking FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, especially since being defeated in the race for the FIFA presidency two years ago.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 2, 2000

Sun, sand and surf are just a train ride away

Luckily for avid beachgoers, the Fukuoka Weather Bureau has predicted even more hot, sunny weather for August and September - as if it hasn't been enough of a sizzling summer already. In Kyushu, beachgoing choices range from long, curling waves at Miyazaki to the glorious peace a few hours away by ferry...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Aug 2, 2000

Nature bites back in the Everglades

There isn't another river like it anywhere else in the world.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2000

A decade of transformation

The 37th annual U.S.-Japan Business Conference that met in Tokyo last month reflected the vast changes that have taken place in the U.S.-Japan economic relationship over the past 10 years.
COMMUNITY
Aug 2, 2000

Making peace between humans and Earth

The upcoming Festival of Life (Inochi no Matsuri) in the mountains of Nagano Prefecture takes as its theme "symbiosis," or the coexistence of humans with all other life forms.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 2, 2000

'Grampa' walks among us

In most head counts my international family totals five: my wife and two sons, plus my mother-in-law and then yours truly. This reckoning, however, fails to include my father-in-law, who at times will visit for days on end.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2000

Lebanon's Daily Star does battle on a new front

BEIRUT -- The Daily Star did not need to send a reporter to the front line to cover the first salvos of the 15-year civil war that nearly broke Lebanon's back. The newspaper's offices were already there.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Aug 2, 2000

Little terns face big problem

Graceful and agile in the air, the terns are the slender cousins of the gulls. Where the gulls typically lumber and flap, the terns flutter and dash. Terns may hover, and with the sun behind them, shining through their translucent wing feathers, they appear like tiny angels.
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2000

Toyota to boost output at Derby plant by 30%

Toyota Motor Corp. will spend billions of yen to increase the output of its British factory in Derby by some 30 percent until it is making about 230,000 vehicles a year in 2001, company officials said Monday.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2000

Hasten slowly on ties with Pyongyang

Japan is moving to expedite negotiations on a peace treaty with North Korea, but it should be in no hurry at all. Famine-stricken North Korea has often asked foreign countries for food aid, and Japan has obliged by supplying a large amount of rice. There is no way of knowing if the Japanese-supplied...
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2000

Educational reform, not regression

It has long been recognized that Japan's educational system is badly in need of reform. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori repeatedly makes it clear that he agrees. The indications are plentiful: the collapse of classroom discipline in elementary schools; the rising rates of prolonged absenteeism and physical...
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2000

No request to change NCB deal

Ruling coalition legislators on Monday dropped a plan to ask a Softbank Corp.-led consortium to accept the removal of a bad-loan buyback clause from their sales contract for the nationalized Nippon Credit Bank, coalition officials said.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2000

Disneyland offers gays chance to come out in the sun

As is always the case at weekends during summer vacation, Tokyo Disneyland was packed by tens of thousands of visitors Sunday.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2000

Toyota, affiliate to merge logistics, forklift divisions

Toyota Motor Corp. and its affiliate Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd. agreed Monday to integrate their logistics and forklift divisions in April 2001, the two firms said.
BUSINESS
Aug 1, 2000

Shinsei reports billions spent on consultants

Shinsei Bank, formerly the nationalized Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan, concluded contracts worth about 5.7 billion yen with three consulting firms, two of which are headed by two Shinsei board directors, the bank said Monday.
JAPAN
Aug 1, 2000

Weak are victimized as loan guarantors

Yoshikazu Kudo (not his real name) and his wife have both been deaf from birth. For decades they have lived at ease in an old but neat house built by Kudo's brother in Musashino, Tokyo. But things changed after the husband of Kudo's late sister disappeared, leaving behind over 80 million yen in debts....

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’