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COMMENTARY
Jan 27, 2001

KSD places Mori in peril

Dark clouds hang over Japanese politics. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been jolted by allegations that some of its leading members took payoffs from the mutual-aid organization KSD. The scandal came after Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori reshuffled his Cabinet last month and the restructured central...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2001

GOP keeps its faith in the Confederacy

President George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, John Ashcroft, must wonder why he's gotten so much heat for comments he made about the Confederacy. After all, in the ultra-conservative circles he frequents, there's nothing taboo about his unreconstructed opinions -- even his likely future boss...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2001

Academics indicted over exam leak

Prosecutors indicted two academics Friday on charges of leaking questions from last year's national dentistry examination in violation of the Dental Practitioners' Law.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

LDP minister took bribe, KSD claims

As part of its influence-buying efforts in 1996, the former head of scandal-hit mutual-aid organization KSD gave a former Cabinet minister of the Liberal Democratic Party 10 million yen in cash, according to KSD sources.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 26, 2001

It's up to Japan to act on trade ties

The new administration of George W. Bush has placed low priority on trade policy toward Japan, making it crucial that Tokyo take the initiative in developing closer trans-Pacific economic ties rather than waiting for overtures from Washington, a U.S. think tank member told a symposium held just before...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2001

Fired Foreign Ministry official facing embezzlement charges

A senior Foreign Ministry official was fired Thursday for allegedly embezzling state funds and a criminal complaint was filed against him with the Metropolitan Police Department, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono said.
EDITORIALS
Jan 25, 2001

Scandal threatens the Mori Cabinet

An unfolding bribery scandal surrounding an insurance group for small business led to the resignation of Mr. Fukushiro Nukaga, state minister for economic and fiscal policy, on Tuesday. Just a week earlier, Mr. Takao Koyama, a Liberal Democratic member of the Upper House, was arrested on charges of receiving...
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Waseda fears final exams stolen

Officials at Waseda University's School of Political Science and Economics said Wednesday that some final examination papers for about 100 courses may have been stolen from its office.
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Kamei implicated in KSD scandal

Shizuka Kamei, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Policy Research Council, asked the former Labor Ministry to increase government subsidies for a technology institute affiliated with the scandal-hit mutual aid foundation KSD, an official of the ministry said Wednesday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Jan 25, 2001

Best time of year to savor the joys of heated sake

Warm sake. It's hard to think of anything more appealing on a cold winter evening. As we trudge through the depths of one of the coldest and snowiest winters Japan has seen in years, warming oneself from the core out with a glass or bottle of a well-chosen heated sake settles and soothes like nothing...
JAPAN
Jan 25, 2001

Tokyo general budget to increase by 0.3%

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government's fiscal 2001 budget released Wednesday underscores that belt-tightening options have been exhausted, with the general expenditure portion of the package rising 0.3 percent from the initial budget for the current year.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 2001

Mr. Kim's tutorial

Mr. Kim Jong Il's "secret" trip to China was one of the worst-kept secrets in recent history. Although the Chinese government refused to officially confirm the visit by the reclusive North Korean leader, the news was out as soon as Mr. Kim's special train crossed the border into China last week. If much...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Jan 23, 2001

Artists with eclectic tastes dispute the 'healing' tag

Of all the nonsensical musical genres, perhaps the most irksome is one coined here in Japan: "healing" music.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2001

The clock is ticking for Gen. Musharraf

ISLAMABAD -- Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military ruler, has vowed to give Pakistanis a new life through the establishment a new political order. This promise will be put to test in the next few months.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jan 22, 2001

Hydrogen future: Iceland's quest for a clean, green energy legacy

The future is wherever people are "thinking outside the box," seeking atypical solutions to problems of the status quo.
JAPAN
Jan 21, 2001

More people urge less aid for developing countries

A record number of Japanese people hope to see a reduction in economic assistance to developing countries now that Japan itself faces economic difficulties, according to a government poll released Saturday.
COMMENTARY
Jan 19, 2001

Mori's fate hangs on Upper House election

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will face a moment of truth in the Upper House election scheduled for July. Results of the election could cause serious political turmoil.
JAPAN
Jan 18, 2001

Seirai, Horie win Akutagawa Prize

Yuichi Seirai and Toshiyuki Horie were chosen Tuesday evening as winners of the 124th Akutagawa Prize, one of Japan's most prestigious literary prizes, while the Naoki Prize for popular fiction went to Kiyoshi Shigematsu and Fumio Yamamoto.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 17, 2001

Arafat and the art of missing opportunities

If we Israelis had had a leader like the Palestinian Authority's Yasser Arafat, the state of Israel would never have come into being. Why? Because the test of a leader does not lie in his being swept up in his people's dreams; it lies in his pragmatic ability to accept what can be achieved. It is better...
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2001

Cabinet against using public funds to prop stocks

There was widespread opposition Tuesday in Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's Cabinet to the idea of using public funds to prop up the faltering stock market.
BUSINESS
Jan 17, 2001

Even weaker yen seen ahead

Despite the slowdown in U.S. economic growth, all underlying economic factors other than the U.S. trade deficit still favor the dollar relative to the yen.
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2001

Monkey exterminations on the rise

The number of municipalities exterminating monkeys reached about 500 in fiscal 1999, after the government revised a law to let prefectures eradicate harmful animals, a survey released Sunday shows.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 16, 2001

Three identities and one life

LIVES OF YOUNG KOREANS IN JAPAN, by Yasunori Fukuoka, translated by Tom Gill. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2000, 330 pp. It is estimated that there were 2.5 million Koreans living in Japan at the end of World War II. Although many returned home after the war, there are still approximately 600,000...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 15, 2001

Italian lessons for Japan

Japan's political landscape could change dramatically, depending on the outcome of July's Upper House elections. Mikio Aoki, a Liberal Democratic leader in the Upper House, says the three ruling coalition parties -- the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party -- must win...
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2001

LDP's Koyama facing questions over KSD cash

Prosecutors plan to question Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Takao Koyama as early as today on suspicion he received over 10 million yen in bribes from scandal-hit industrial insurance provider KSD, investigative sources said Sunday.

Longform

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