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BUSINESS
Jun 1, 2000

Daihyaku Life told to cease operations

The Financial Supervisory Agency announced Wednesday that it has ordered Daihyaku Mutual Life Insurance Co. to suspend operations -- the third collapse in the nation's life insurance sector.
JAPAN
May 31, 2000

Foreigners at record high

The number of registered foreign residents of Japan hit a record high 1.55 million -- or 1.23 percent of the population -- at the end of 1999, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
May 31, 2000

Sogo explains debt plan to shareholders

Sogo Co. on Tuesday held its first shareholders' meeting since it released a restructuring plan that involves some 73 creditor firms forgiving the ailing department store operator some 639 billion yen in debts.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Dai-ichi Hotel files for 125.5 billion yen bankruptcy

Dai-ichi Hotel Ltd. effectively failed Friday morning when the Tokyo-based hotel chain and its four group firms filed with the Tokyo District Court for protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2000

KDD pushes net balance into black for '99

KDD Corp. said Thursday that its consolidated net balance returned to the black in fiscal 1999, due to brisk earnings from domestic phone services and a number of one-off factors, including mammoth gains from securities sales.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2000

From Asian style to global style

"If mankind eradicates the habitat of the giant panda, then the panda ceases to exist in the wild. The IMF package is a mandate to eradicate the existing habitat of Asia's corporates." -- Russel Napier, a strategist at Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2000

The tragedy of another senseless war

NEW YORK -- The arms embargo on Eritrea and Ethiopia just imposed unanimously by the U.N. Security Council is a much needed measure that brings hope for an end to an irrational conflict between the two neighboring countries. The U.S.-initiated measure, later co-sponsored by Britain and the Netherlands,...
JAPAN
May 20, 2000

Life folds with debt of 966 billion yen

Saddled with massive liabilities, Life Co., one of Japan's six major consumer credit companies, filed with the Tokyo District Court for protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law on Friday.
BUSINESS
May 20, 2000

EPA revises downward March economic indicators

The Economic Planning Agency said Friday it has revised downward its three diffusion indexes of economic indicators for March from the preliminary figures released earlier this month.
BUSINESS
May 20, 2000

Banks return to winning circle

The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Sanwa Bank both returned to profitability in fiscal 1999, due largely to fewer bad-loan writeoffs than in fiscal 1998, according to the two major banks' earnings reports, released Friday.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 18, 2000

You too could be the target market of a new drug

Every time I visit the United States, I am increasingly alarmed at the number of TV commercials for prescription drugs, which is something I never saw when I was a child. As a matter of fact, between 1994 and 1998, drug manufacturers increased their spending on direct-to-consumer advertising in the U.S....
COMMENTARY / World
May 17, 2000

A grim future for China's hinterlands

A sense of deja vu comes over me when I read the Chinese government's proposals for the development of China's western, or hinterland, provinces.
BUSINESS
May 16, 2000

Deutsche Securities faces penalty

The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission recommended Monday that financial regulators punish the Tokyo branch of Deutsche Securities Ltd. for illegal soliciting and two other financial violations.
BUSINESS
May 16, 2000

Correction cloud has bargain silver lining

Major factors driving the corrections last month on the Tokyo stock market were steep reactionary price falls in the information technology sector and foreign investors' sales following tumbles in New York stock prices.
CULTURE / Books
May 16, 2000

Japan still has its strengths

PRODUCTIVITY IMPROVEMENT: How Japanese Enterprises Meet the Challenge, by Hirotoshi Shibuya and Hideyuki Kamiryo. The Japan Times, 2000, 209 pp., 3,000 yen (cloth). While corporate philosophies and principles may change from country to country, the basics of finance are constants. "Productivity Improvement"...
JAPAN
May 11, 2000

'Ekiben' gets global spin for the rail connoisseur

The business of making and selling "ekiben," packaged lunches sold at train stations throughout Japan, is going somewhat global.
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2000

Firing up Fukuoka's hippest corner

FUKUOKA -- A long feature on Fukuoka in a recent issue of Toyo Keizai magazine examined three different areas that represent development in the city. Two of these, the reclaimed land of Momochi, and the city's historic Kawabata area, have seen much growth in the last 10 years, boosted by giant government-funded...
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Economic growth in March was ninth straight expansion

The March coincident index of economic indicators, which gauges the current state of the economy, measured above 50 percent -- an indication of economic expansion -- for the ninth straight month, the Economic Planning Agency said Tuesday.
ENVIRONMENT
May 10, 2000

Trees and taste at Mito Botanic Garden

Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, is well known throughout Japan for natto (fermented soybeans), an acquired taste. It is also known for Kairakuen Garden, one of the Three Famous Gardens in Japan, which I've written about before. Just a couple of kilometers south of Mito in the lush green countryside, there...
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Five firms tie up on trust bank

Four Japanese financial institutions have teamed up with Deutsche Bank AG to acquire DMG Trust Bank, a Deutsche Bank subsidiary, with the intention of turning it into Japan's first trust bank specializing in administering corporate pension funds, company officials announced Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 9, 2000

NTT to buy U.S. Net firm

NTT Communications Corp. announced Monday that it will acquire Verio Inc. of the United States, a major Internet service provider, in order to become a "full-service player" in Asia, Europe and the U.S.
JAPAN
May 9, 2000

Osu survives with blend of old and new

NAGOYA -- Young people browse through the shirts and jeans at a used clothes store, while an elderly woman picks up some tea at a shop around back. On the street, a young couple eating ice cream pass a man with a computer.
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

'Manga' role-playing draws date-seeking 'otaku' together

The model who goes by the alias Ai O-totsu, or Bumpy Love, is dressed in the crimson high school uniform of her video game personality today, but instead of acting out pubescent fantasies on the computer screen like her electronic double, she's posing for pictures, smiling bashfully and giving out name...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Daiichi Mutual ordered to shut down

The Financial Supervisory Agency ordered financially troubled Daiichi Mutual Fire & Marine Insurance Co. to suspend its operations Monday. It is the first bankruptcy in the nation's nonlife insurance sector.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 18, 2000

Lessons of the Nanjing debate

THE NANJING MASSACRE IN HISTORY AND HISTORIOGRAPHY, edited by Joshua Fogel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; 238 pp, $49 (cloth), $15.98 (paper). Did the Nanjing Massacre really happen? In a review of Katsuichi Honda's excellent book on this subject last year ("The Nanjing Massacre:...
COMMUNITY
Apr 9, 2000

Financial services fly at Banner

Some loudmouth once said that anyone who was in Japan during the bubble years of the late 1980s and had not made money -- a lot of money -- was a fool. Well, that makes me a dunce of the first order.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 6, 2000

Commercial success -- and cultural

In advertising, success doesn't always mean the same thing to everyone involved. For the client, it means increased sales of his product, while for the copywriter it means cultural impact, and though there's nothing that says these two successes can't coincide, there's also nothing that says they have...
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Apr 6, 2000

Ayurvedic beauty adventures

On a recent trip to India it quickly became apparent that many foreigners seek out all that is Ayurvedic.
COMMUNITY
Apr 6, 2000

Sisters doing it for themselves at any age

Seiko Kuboi stops at the end of the catwalk and poses with hand on hip, showing off her gold lame-edged jacket, long black skirt and black bolero hat. The crowd goes wild. "Whoo-hoo! Looking good! Great hat!" they scream in raucous appreciation.

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building