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JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

NPA targets rise in crimes by Chinese

Despite a 10 percent drop in crimes by foreigners in Japan in 2000, those committed by Chinese rose by 9 percent, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

Straining under their weight, bank behemoths strive to survive

All-out competition will break out among Japan's four major banking groups next month in an arena that will host some of the world's largest banks in terms of aggregate assets.
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2001

145 firms seek 'sokaiya' crackdown

A total of 145 companies across Japan have sought police protection for shareholder meetings to be held later this month in an apparent bid to thwart "sokaiya" corporate extortionists, the National Police Agency said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2001

Government pulls stops to rescue economy

The yen hit a 22-month low of 123.35-38 to the dollar late Monday as deepening pessimism about Tokyo stocks and Japan's banking system dominated the currency market.
JAPAN
Mar 22, 2001

BOJ's action lifts Nikkei above 13,000

Tokyo share prices soared virtually across the board on Wednesday, reacting positively to the Bank of Japan's moves to funnel more money into the ailing economy.
BUSINESS
Mar 22, 2001

Recovery stalled as exports drop

A decrease in exports is causing economic recovery to stall for the first time in eight months, the Bank of Japan said Wednesday in a monthly report that downgraded its assessment of the nation's economy.
JAPAN / GREENING PAINS
Mar 20, 2001

New appliance recycling plan poses question of where the buck stops

With the Home Appliances Recycling Law coming into effect April 1, Japan is taking a significant step in changing its waste disposal policy from burying discarded appliances to recycling as much as possible.
JAPAN
Mar 20, 2001

Maruya to attend UNCHR session

Parliamentary Foreign Secretary Kaori Maruya will travel to Switzerland and Poland from Tuesday to attend a U.N. Commission on Human Rights session in Geneva and hold talks with Polish officials, the ministry said Monday.
BUSINESS
Mar 20, 2001

Toshiba shifts output of all TVs to China

Toshiba Corp. will stop producing cathode-ray tube television sets at the end of March and transfer all TV production, including digital models, to China, beginning in April, company officials said Monday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Mar 18, 2001

Tsuyoshi Akiyama

According to Dr. Tsuyoshi Akiyama, until rather recently psychiatry as a branch of medicine did not receive in Japan the recognition it merits. He, however, made psychiatry his specialty. His reasons at the time were very specific.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Mar 18, 2001

Kan Mikami's 30 years of recording in a box

Kan Mikami has just released a CD box set to celebrate his 30-year recording history, here covered in 19 CDs.
JAPAN
Mar 18, 2001

Heir to reed traders promotes appreciation of the marsh grass

OMIHACHIMAN, Shiga Pref. -- When the wind blows, common reeds in front of Yoshihiro Nishikawa's house make a unique sound. Inside, the house is filled with all kinds of products made of the reeds. Nishikawa's head is also filled with reeds, or at least knowledge about them.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2001

State of deflation declared as assessment is downgraded

The government on Friday downgraded its overall economic evaluation for the second consecutive month, saying the nation's recovery appears to be stalling on weak production stemming from the U.S. economic slowdown.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Mar 17, 2001

The sonic richness of the nightingale's song

One of the simplest yet most profound pleasures of spring in Japan is hearing the nightingale's song. Even in the urban sprawl of Tokyo, these sonorous creatures find patches of greenery and manage to make their melodies heard in spite of the cacophony of traffic, trains and ubiquitous loudspeakers....
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2001

UFJ Group banks go into red

The three banks that will form the UFJ Group in April announced Thursday they will post pretax losses of 289 billion yen for fiscal 2000 due to writing off 1.13 trillion yen in nonperforming loans, around twice the amount they had earlier predicted.
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2001

All told, a strong rebound is in the offing?

There has been mounting alarm around the world that a global stock market rout might be developing.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 16, 2001

Post-rockers toil in obscurity and they like it like that

Anonymity is the nemesis of pop. History is filled with earnest, well-meaning bands who did whatever they could to keep the music up front and the personalities in the background, often to the point where they wouldn't even reveal their names (like early Pavement). But unless you intend to toil in obscurity...
BUSINESS
Mar 16, 2001

Part-time latte makers could own part of chain

OSAKA -- Starbucks Coffee Japan Ltd. will introduce a stock option scheme for 1,400 of its 5,000-strong workforce, including part-time workers, the subsidiary of the major U.S. coffee chain said Thursday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2001

The choice is North Korea's

WASHINGTON -- The curtain has come down on the first act of the Bush administration's Asia policy, and there are far more questions than answers about U.S. policy after President Kim Dae Jung's visit to Washington. The media feasted on the mixed messages from a skeptical President George W. Bush and...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2001

'Mori-bund' Cabinet survives latest censure motion

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori easily survived an opposition-proposed censure motion Wednesday in the Diet on the strength of the ruling bloc's numbers.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 15, 2001

Taking the long view on history

EAST ASIA AT THE CENTER: Four Thousand Years of Engagement with the World, by Warren I. Cohen. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 516 pp. You don't have to believe in the Asian Century or any other form of that nonsense to admit that Western understanding of Asia is woefully inadequate. The intellectual...
BUSINESS
Mar 14, 2001

LDP policy chief calls for extra budget

Shizuka Kamei, policy chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said Tuesday that a supplementary budget should be compiled to boost the economy.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2001

Troubled, short-lived leaders now the norm

Japan has had nine short-lived prime ministers over the past 12 years since the late Noboru Takeshita was forced to resign in 1989, having only two serve for two years or longer.
JAPAN
Mar 13, 2001

Ex-actress wins translation award

"The last profession I would recommend to anybody is translating contemporary Western plays," said actress-turned-translator Mayuko Tokizawa. The otherwise dissuasive comment is an encouragement coming from Tokizawa, cowinner of the eighth annual Yuasa Yoshiko Award, Japan's accolade for translators...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Mar 13, 2001

Checkered history lives in a motley crew

Chindon-ya (brass, wind and percussion bands peddling goods or services on the streets) might not immediately spring to mind as a part of Japanese musical "tradition." Indeed, chindon has never been fully recognized as even a legitimate form of music.
BUSINESS
Mar 13, 2001

Bill to revise JR law expected to pave way to privatization

Administrative vice ministers drafted a bill to revise the Japan Railway law at a meeting Monday, paving the way for full privatization of three JR group companies, government officials said.

Longform

"Shake hands with Lima-chan," a statue that shares the name of the Peruvian capital looks in the direction of Peru, where a sister statue, "Sakura-chan," is located. Erected in Yokohama's Rinko Park in 1999, it commemorates Peruvian-Japanese friendship.
The journey of Peru’s Nikkei: Finding identity in Japan