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JAPAN
Sep 16, 1999

Execs' arrest to reveal Kofuku's idea of 'family business'

OSAKA -- The arrest of former top executives of the failed Kofuku Bank is expected to unveil the dubious nature of the bank's "family-run" business, which is believed common among many second-tier regional banks.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 1999

Kanazawa to get wired in experiment

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. will begin a one-year joint experiment on a community-based information network in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, from April 2000, the companies said Thursday.
JAPAN
Sep 16, 1999

Road to closed captions no freeway for hearing impaired

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 16, 1999

Nikkei drops 700 at one point as dollar tumbles

Tokyo share prices plummeted broadly Thursday amid concerns about a preceding tumble in New York share prices and the yen's rise against the dollar.
EDITORIALS
Sep 15, 1999

Cautious optimism on the economy

Japan's economy in the second quarter of this year, April through June, expanded slightly at an annualized rate of 0.9 percent. This is a far cry from the 8.1 percent surge in the first quarter. But two consecutive quarters of positive growth make it reasonably clear that the protracted economic slump...
JAPAN
Sep 15, 1999

Report on faulty MOX fuel slow to reach Japan

Four days passed before concerned parties in Japan were told that mixed plutonium-uranium oxide fuel pellets to be shipped to Japan were improperly checked in Britain, it was learned Wednesday.
JAPAN
Sep 15, 1999

Office Depot tinkering to get it right

Staff writer
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Sep 15, 1999

Scarecrows are sprouting in Shitamachi

Over one hundred jauntily clad figures line the street where the Koto Ward Office once stood.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 15, 1999

Turn-of-the-century frolic shows nothing new under the sun

Postmodernism is a publisher's dream. Copy out "Don Quixote" verbatim and you get a cultural reinterpretation, joked Jorge Luis Borges; give an old book a new cover and you get a tribal reclamation, proclaim the editors of this Race in the Americas imprint.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Sep 15, 1999

The family that surfs together ...

There is something mildly unsettling about the cyberpolice's fixation with child pornography. At the Internet Content Summit, held last week in Munich and hosted by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, kiddie porn was repeatedly denounced by participants. To judge from the general tone of the comments, it embodied...
JAPAN
Sep 15, 1999

Don Quijote sees itself as lord of discount 'jungle'

Staff writer
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Sep 15, 1999

Roaming the world's watery dunes

As the typhoon season cuts between summer and autumn, many species are on the move. This is the season of migration for land birds and seabirds. While the land birds island-hop between Northeast and Southeast Asia, some of the seabirds are embarking on journeys that may span entire oceans. Streaked shearwaters...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 15, 1999

Young at heart, but never free of Johnny

On Aug. 30, former idol singer and tell-all autobiographer Hiromi Go staged an unannounced live show from the back of a tractor trailer parked near the Hachiko intersection in Shibuya. The five-minute performance, which featured four other dancers, stopped traffic and clogged up the area as pedestrians...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 15, 1999

Obtrusive nails, squeaky wheels

Not so very often I recall the following words of advice from my dear old mother, a tiding of the heart delivered straight from parent to child.
COMMENTARY
Sep 15, 1999

A growing appetite for safety

LONDON -- Genetic biologists -- especially those working for big U.S. companies such as Monsanto -- and U.S. trade negotiators are furious with Europeans because they are not prepared to accept that hormone-injected beef and gene-modified soybeans, rape-seed oil and other genetically modified crops are...
JAPAN
Sep 15, 1999

Runners hit by heatstroke in Tachikawa relay

Fifteen men and women fell victim to heatstroke Wednesday while running in an "ekiden" relay marathon in Showa Kinen Park in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, shortly after noon. Thirteen were taken to the hospital.
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

Ford to focus on image rather than numbers

In a move to change its marketing strategy, Ford Japan Ltd. will concentrate on building its brand image rather than pursuing numerical sales targets, senior officials of the company announced Tuesday.
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

Regional Focus: Hokkaido

Otaru pins revival hopes on mega-mall complex> Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

Airlines prove Y2K-compliance with test flights

Test flights conducted at midnight Monday proved Japan's major airlines and aviation control systems can cope with the Year 2000 computer problem, Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Sep 14, 1999

Japan, China consider upgrading security forum

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Work starts on contentious Kobe airport

KOBE -- Nearly 30 years after it was first proposed, construction of the controversial Kobe airport officially began Monday morning off Port Island amid protests and doubts about its economic feasibility.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Hayami warns firms to prepare for forex fluctuations

Corporations should take measures to become less vulnerable to fluctuations in the yen-dollar exchange rate, Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami reiterated Monday.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Taiwanese youths becoming Japan fans

Staff writer
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

BOJ senses revival in exports, output

The economy is showing some improvements in exports and production, but clear signs of a self-sustained recovery have yet to be observed, the Bank of Japan said in its monthly report released Monday.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Japan welcomes Pyongyang proposal, offers talks

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka expressed willingness Monday to resume talks with Pyongyang toward normalizing relations between Japan and North Korea.
JAPAN
Sep 13, 1999

Man arrested over bogus bank accounts

OSAKA -- Osaka police have arrested a 31-year-old man on suspicion he used forged health insurance certificates to open bank accounts under false names, officials said Monday.
EDITORIALS
Sep 12, 1999

Fashion and its victims

How does one get inside a girl's head? This rueful question must have occurred to many people recently on hearing reports of the death of a 25-year-old woman in Kanagawa Prefecture after she tripped and fell while wearing sandals with 10-cm-high cork soles. To observers of the elevated-shoe fad over...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 1999

Permanent bureaucracy in Washington

WASHINGTON -- There is nothing as permanent in Washington as a federal agency. Once created, government bureaucracies are almost impossible to kill, no matter how outdated. Consider the desperate attempt of the Selective Service System and its allies to reverse the House Appropriation Committee's decision...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Sep 12, 1999

Praiseworthy

My earliest memories of Honolulu include my introduction to Japanese food; it had not yet become a cuisine. It was at a tiny Waikiki restaurant where each day a cook created four or five special lunches on two gas burners. One was for sauteing and frying, the other for simmering, steaming and warming....
JAPAN
Sep 10, 1999

Analysis: Kan's fading star may reflect DPJ's fate

Staff writers

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’