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JAPAN
Feb 12, 1998

Kiosks yank monthly over decapitation confession story

Kiosks at Hankyu, Nankai and other railway stations in the Kansai region have halted sales of a monthly magazine that carries the depositions of a 15-year-old boy who last year killed an elementary school student and beheaded him, it was learned Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1998

Police bungling alleged in probe of Matsumoto gas attack

Police investigating the June 1994 sarin gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, improperly collected evidence, lawyers for Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara argued in court Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1998

Paralympics' legacy left in doubt

Last in a series
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1998

Founding Day rekindles annual debate

Citizens' groups gathered Wednesday to protest or express support for National Founding Day, the most controversial of Japan's annual holidays.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1998

Conservationists dissatisfied with Nagano's efforts

Eighth in a series
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1998

Government guide offers foreigners help in six languages

A 376-page guidebook to help foreigners cope with life in Japan will be published at the end of this month.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1998

Funaki scores silver in Olympic debut

Staff writer
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1998

Investor says timing's right for playing Tokyo property game

Fifteenth in a series of occasional articles on venture businesses
JAPAN
Feb 10, 1998

Supreme court issues protest on story of Kobe boy's confession

In an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court sent a protest letter Tuesday to the publisher of a monthly magazine that printed confidential prosecution documents on the Kobe boy who last year killed and beheaded an 11-year-old boy.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 1998

Red Army numbers still growing, prisoners say

The political wing of the Red Army guerrilla organization has grown "very strong, bigger than before," according to four imprisoned members of the group in a recent interview in Beirut.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 1998

Hitachi revises net profit forecast for '97

Hitachi Ltd. on Tuesday sharply revised its forecast for consolidated net profits for the 1997 business year from 89 billion yen to 20 billion yen.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 1998

Firms battle for visibility during Nagano hoopla

NAGANO -- Beyond the venues where some of the world's top athletes are competing for Olympic medals, another battle is under way in this city.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Takashimaya section chief sold customer data for 500,000 yen

OSAKA -- A section chief of Takashimaya Co., Ltd., a leading department store chain operator, sold data on about 500,000 customers in July 1995 to a mail list dealer in Tokyo for 500,000 yen, company sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Teens fall for 'fashionable' butterfly knives

Staff writer
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Peace Boat cruise to set course for better Japan-Korea ties

Peace Boat, a Tokyo-based organization that charters liners semi-annually, will host a unique cruise to encourage better understanding between Japanese and South Koreans this month.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Mitsubishi firms placed ads to pay off 'sokaiya'

Three Mitsubishi group companies placed advertisements in a publication produced by a flight attendant school at the request of "sokaiya" extortionist Taichiro Otake, police sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Osaka Games bid may be a costly pipe dream in development

Staff writerOSAKA -- Kazuhito Konishi is not likely to be on the list of people Osaka Mayor Takafumi Isomura hopes to meet during his trip to Nagano this weekend to promote Osaka's 2008 Olympics bid.
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

Hosting the Olympics -- boon or bust?

Fifth in a series
JAPAN
Feb 6, 1998

British torch bearer to show world land mines' cruelty

Staff writer
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1998

Election, not economy, seen as catalyst for rate hike talk

Would raising the Bank of Japan's official discount rate really be the right medicine for the ailing economy?
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1998

JTB discount plan may ignite fare war

Japan Travel Bureau, the country's leading travel agency, will start full-scale sales of discount overseas flight tickets beginning Feb. 16 to cope with the growing market for nonpackage-tour travelers, a spokesman for JTB said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1998

New forum to reduce corruption proposed by Hashimoto

Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto on Thursday unveiled plans to establish a new forum of exchanges between the Finance Ministry and the nation's financial firms as a way to cut down on corruption.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1998

Nagano Games' key challenge may be traffic

Fourth in a series
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1998

Shikoku's Buddhist pilgrimage remains popular

NARUTO, Tokushima Pref. -- More than 1,100 years after the death of legendary Buddhist priest Kobo Daishi, pilgrims continue to flock to the temples he founded in Shikoku.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 1998

Illegal aliens who built Nagano Games sites facing sweep

NAGANO -- Just as some venues for the Olympics were taking shape last June, six of Ramilo DeLeon's friends suddenly ended up in police custody after a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 1998

Dad faces prison in case of son's killing

Prosecutors demanded on Tuesday a five-year prison term for a 53-year-old man charged with killing his violent 14-year-old son as he slept by hitting him with a metal baseball bat and choking him with a rope.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 1998

Sanwa Bank chief Saeki gives Diet apology, denials

Sanwa Bank President Naotaka Saeki, who recently resigned as chairman of a banking industry federation, apologized Tuesday in the Diet over the scandal involving four major banks suspected of bribing Finance Ministry officials to obtain information about inspections.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 1998

Surveillance finds Aum back on line in big way

In the year since Aum Shinrikyo was spared disbandment under the Antisubversive Activities Law, the cult has expanded its activities by running successful computer shops and promoting its ideals on the Internet, the Public Security Investigation Agency said Monday.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 1998

Fewer foreigners studying in Japan

The number of foreign students studying in Japan declined for the second year in a row in 1997 to about 51,000, down 3.5 percent from the previous year, according to an Education Ministry survey released Wednesday.
JAPAN
Feb 2, 1998

Hamanaka betrayed Sumitomo, prosecution says

Prosecutors demanded a 10-year prison term Monday for Yasuo Hamanaka, a former Sumitomo Corp. trader, for inflicting losses of about $770 million on his firm through illicit copper trading.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes