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JAPAN
Mar 1, 1999

Recruit sells building to U.S. firms

Recruit Co., a major information service company, has sold its office building in front of JR Kawasaki Station to two U.S real estate firms as part of efforts to reduce its huge debts, informed sources said Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 28, 1999

Avoiding a N. Korean crisis

Will 1999 bring the second North Korean nuclear crisis in five years, perhaps leading to a military confrontation similar to the recent U.S. attack on Iraq, or can such a confrontation be avoided? Although heightened tensions may be inevitable in the coming months, the ability of policymakers in Washington,...
JAPAN
Feb 26, 1999

Opertti to tackle UNSC reform with principles, not seats

Reform of the United Nations Security Council should be based on the principles of equitable regional representation and contribution to U.N. activities, a senior U.N. official visiting Japan argues.
JAPAN
Feb 25, 1999

NCB bad loan numbers blamed on ministry

Nippon Credit Bank reported its "third-category" loans at 70 billion yen in its March 1997 request for public funds based on figures given by Finance Ministry inspectors, former NCB President Shigeoki Togo said in unsworn Diet testimony Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 1999

Pyongyang faces united U.S., Seoul policy: Roth

There is no policy difference between the United States and South Korea in dealing with North Korean underground activities, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth reiterated Wednesday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 20, 1999

Haunting the high street

As the Internet insinuates itself deeper into daily life, one key facet of its future role -- electronic commerce -- continues its explosive growth. Estimates of the amount of business conducted in cyberspace vary from $30 billion annually to nearly twice that. But one thing is certain: It is increasing...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 1999

Globalization, the world's whipping boy

For one brief moment less than a decade ago, the idea of "globalization" was viewed with more promise than peril. At the time, it represented an emerging economic reality: the merging of national markets into a single entity that traders and merchants anywhere could access at anytime. This "24-hour,...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 17, 1999

Designing for dollars

Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, president of Amazon.com, but he is a savvy guy. He and his company may not be worth the gazillions of dollars that the market is throwing at them, but he deserves credit for making the market believe in him.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Impact of new bond issues must be studied: Miyazawa

The government must consider the impact of newly issued government bonds on the financial market and is currently studying ways to tackle the problem, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa reiterated Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Japan seeks WTO ruling on U.S. antidumping law

Japan has requested the World Trade Organization to rule on a U.S. antidumping law, charging that the law is not in compliance with WTO rules, government officials said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Feb 10, 1999

Encouraging signs in South Asia

The world was shaken last May when India and then Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests. Citizens of the two countries danced in the streets as the two governments declared themselves members of the nuclear club. Reaction elsewhere was just as heartfelt, but for entirely different reasons. The...
EDITORIALS
Feb 6, 1999

Ethical standards for bankers

In a landmark suit involving a bank's responsibility for bad loans, Sumitomo Bank earlier this week agreed to pay 3 billion yen to the Housing Loan Administration Corp., the public debt-clearing body for bankrupt home-loan companies. The HLAC had initially demanded 5 billion yen in damages, saying the...
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1999

AmEx exec sees silver lining to recession

While the nation's economy is reeling from years of recession, eroding the confidence of many players in the financial industry, Ian Marsh, president of American Express International Inc., Japan, says now is the time to invest in the Japanese market.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1999

Will government bonds help? It's a trick question

Debate on how Japan can pull itself out of its worst postwar economic slump has entered a new stage.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

FTC alleges pipe industry collusion

The Fair Trade Commission filed a complaint with the prosecutor general Thursday against Kubota Corp. and two other water- and gas-pipe makers for allegedly arranging a cartel to fix their market shares, officials said.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

OECD drafts corporate governance guides

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has completed a draft of international guidelines for good corporate governance that emphasizes, among other things, promotion and protection of shareholders' rights.
EDITORIALS
Feb 3, 1999

NATO's call to arms in Kosovo

The six nations that make up the Contact Group on Kosovo have demanded that the parties to the conflict attend a peace conference in Rambouillet, France this weekend. They have backed up that summons with the threat of NATO military intervention in the troubled province if the combatants fail to stop...
EDITORIALS
Feb 2, 1999

Giving power to the politicians

The government's top priority at the moment is to resuscitate the Japanese economy by stabilizing the shaky banking sector and pushing domestic business recovery through expanded governmental and consumer spending. At the same time, as the nation is poised to enter the 21st century, the urgent need to...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 1999

Credit-rating agencies, critics defend their views

Tokyo-based media recently met with rare opportunities to hear countering views on how credit-rating agencies operate and how they should operate, when officials from Moody's Investors Service defended their business and the head of a Japanese research institute detailed how it "rated" such agencies....
JAPAN
Feb 1, 1999

NCB concealed problem loans from BOJ

In its September 1997 report to the Bank of Japan, the now-nationalized Nippon Credit Bank pretended to have fewer bad loans than it actually had, it was learned Monday.
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 1999

Influenza on the rampage

With more cold days and severe winter weather still ahead in many parts of the country, Japan is already suffering a major outbreak of influenza. At the moment the epidemic appears heavily concentrated in the Tokyo metropolitan area, where close to 9,000 cases have now been registered, but many other...
EDITORIALS
Jan 27, 1999

Making real peace with Russia

Russia's political stability under the active leadership of President Boris Yeltsin is the most crucial factor in the success of the ongoing talks for a long-pending peace treaty with Japan. The track record of the bilateral negotiations is clear evidence of this. When Mr. Yeltsin was healthy and confident,...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 1999

Poll Preview: Celebrity governors in need of new shtick

Four years ago, comedian and Upper House member "Knock" Yokoyama entered the Osaka gubernatorial race three days before the official campaign started, saying he was angry about the collusion in the non-Communist ruling coalition in the prefectural assembly.
EDITORIALS
Jan 23, 1999

The state of the union is good

U.S. President Bill Clinton has done it again. Last year, against the backdrop of revelations of his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, Mr. Clinton presented a State of the Union message that managed to transcend the scandal already swirling around the presidency. This year, the president...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 22, 1999

Jordan wasn't NBA's 'greatest'

This column originally ran in the print edition of The Japan Times on Jan. 22, 1999, approximately nine months before Wilt Chamberlain died.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 1999

Obuchi vows to push merchandise coupons

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi pledged Friday that the government will do all it can to promote a merchandise coupon scheme and help revitalize local economies.
EDITORIALS
Jan 21, 1999

Another massacre in Kosovo

Yugoslavia's contempt for international opinion has been made perfectly clear over the last week. Last week, Serbian police, backed by the heavy weapons of the Yugoslav Army, allegedly massacred 45 civilians in the Kosovo village of Racak. When news of the attack leaked out, Yugoslav authorities were...
JAPAN
Jan 21, 1999

Osaka's Olympics bid outlays probed

As the bribery scandal smolders around the International Olympic Committee, the heat is increasing for Osaka Olympic officials over allocations of city funds to various Games-related functions, including meetings with IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch and payments to intermediaries for Osaka and various...
EDITORIALS
Jan 19, 1999

A regional test for Japan

If the International Monetary Fund today serves, in effect, as a tough lender of last resort globally, Japan last year gave itself the role of a friendly neighborhood bank in East Asia. That choice has proved timely, but it has become more challenging as the new year began. Unsettling news from two places...
EDITORIALS
Jan 16, 1999

Coalition's anticlimactic debut

The curtain rose Thursday on the new conservative coalition government to reveal just one more unimpressive performance of the same old political drama. Much had been said and written about the apparent significance of the realignment, but it seems to have ended up as essentially just another political...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell