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EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 2001

Explain the collision

A troubling picture is beginning to emerge as details are revealed about conditions aboard the USS Greeneville when the submarine hit the training vessel Ehime Maru last week. That accident left nine students and instructors aboard the fisheries training ship missing -- they are presumed dead -- and...
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2001

Suspected embezzler made 'business trips' to base

A former senior diplomat who was fired last month for suspected embezzlement of secret government funds made business trips to an Air Self-Defense Force base in Hokkaido in 1994 and 1999, sources familiar with the case said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 23, 2001

Suspected embezzler made 'business trips' to base

A former senior diplomat who was fired last month for suspected embezzlement of secret government funds made business trips to an Air Self-Defense Force base in Hokkaido in 1994 and 1999, sources familiar with the case said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 22, 2001

JR group firms move closer to privatization

Three Japan Railway group firms moved closer to privatization Wednesday after Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) accepted a government bill that would strip away some of the vestiges of state control.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 22, 2001

Selling tax cuts to Congress

U.S. President George W. Bush continues his attempt to make friends and influence important constituencies. He has spent more time with the Congressional Black Caucus than with the Republican leadership. He has traveled to schools to promote his education priorities. He has been to small businesses explaining...
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 21, 2001

Tiny birds and dwindling treasure

BANGKOK -- Imagine for a moment that you are an edible-nest swiftlet. You are a dusky bird, tiny enough to fit in the palm of a hand. In southern Thailand, where you live, you soar above the turquoise waters and jungle-clad islands of the Andaman Sea. You build your nests inside island caves hidden by...
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2001

He ain't heavy, he's Beat Takeshi. And he likes real handguns.

Turning out to promote "Brother" were director "Beat" Takeshi Kitano, stars Omar Epps and Claude Maki, and producers Masayuki Mori (of Office Kitano) and Jeremy Thomas, who has worked in the past with Nagisa Oshima and Bernardo Bertolucci. Filmed on two continents, "Brother" is easily Kitano's most ambitious...
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2001

Cabinet set to approve two bills on PCB disposal

The Cabinet is expected to approve two government-drafted bills today that will encourage the processing of polychlorinated biphenyls with an eye to destroying known stockpiles in around a decade.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 20, 2001

Support for Asian filmmakers

Facing nonexistent government support, meager prospects for private-sector funding and even diminishing turnout at box offices, any aspiring filmmaker in Japan might lose sight of their movie-making dreams.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2001

More to it than meets the eye: the private world of 'manga'

ADULT MANGA: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society, by Sharon Kinsella. Curzon Press, 2000, 228 pp., $19.95 (paper). "Manga" leads a double life in Japan. Its popularity as entertainment for the masses is well-known: Subway riders furtively flip through its pages, young people crowd into...
JAPAN
Feb 19, 2001

Murakami may have pushed questioning

Upper House lawmaker Masakuni Murakami, who is suspected of receiving financial benefits from KSD, a scandal-tainted industrial insurer, may have urged fellow members of the Liberal Democratic Party to promote a KSD project during sessions of the Diet, according to informed sources.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 18, 2001

Okinawans have good reason to be angry

On Feb. 6, the morning edition of the Ryukyu Shimpo, one of Okinawa's two main dailies, reported that the commander of U.S. forces in Okinawa, Lt. Gen. Earl B. Hailston of the III MEF/Marine Corps, called Okinawa prefectural officials, including Gov. Keiichi Inamine, "nuts and a bunch of wimps" in a...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 18, 2001

Rainy days and Mondays won't dampen baseball

"Rainy Days and Mondays (Always Get Me Down)," Karen and Richard Carpenter's hit record out of the 1970s, might have been an anthem for baseball fans in Japan several years ago.
BUSINESS
Feb 17, 2001

Sales at department stores in Tokyo fell in January

Sales at department stores in Tokyo's 23 wards fell in January by 0.7 percent from the year before to 172.45 billion yen, the first decline in three months, the Japan Department Stores Association said in a preliminary report Friday.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2001

Friendly Asians Home: helping foreigners in need

A growing number of foreigners suffering from serious infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and AIDS, is putting pressure on a private social work agency based in Tokyo's Shin-Okubo, a district known for its mix of foreign residents.
JAPAN
Feb 17, 2001

Friendly Asians Home: helping foreigners in need

A growing number of foreigners suffering from serious infectious diseases, including tuberculosis and AIDS, is putting pressure on a private social work agency based in Tokyo's Shin-Okubo, a district known for its mix of foreign residents.
JAPAN
Feb 15, 2001

'Japan 2001' fest set to take center stage in U.K.

Several years ago, Foreign Minister Yohei Kono and former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind came up with an idea. Why not try, they asked, to think of ways for Japan and the U.K. to promote each other's image in a better light?
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Japan readies fresh ODA for Myanmar

Japan is considering the first large-scale official development assistance in four years for Myanmar to help relieve the impoverished Southeast Asian country's acute power-supply shortages, government sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 14, 2001

Japan readies fresh ODA for Myanmar

Japan is considering the first large-scale official development assistance in four years for Myanmar to help relieve the impoverished Southeast Asian country's acute power-supply shortages, government sources said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2001

LDP should return 'fees' from KSD affiliate: Kanzaki

The Liberal Democratic Party should return the money provided to it under the guise of party membership fees by an affiliate of the scandal-tainted industrial mutual aid organization KSD, the leader of the LDP's key coalition partner said Sunday.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Cartoon-inspired spinning tops enjoy boom

OSAKA -- A game of spinning tops called beyblade inspired by a television cartoon series launched earlier this year is enjoying huge popularity among Japanese children, according to the tops' maker.
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2001

Cartoon-inspired spinning tops enjoy boom

OSAKA -- A game of spinning tops called beyblade inspired by a television cartoon series launched earlier this year is enjoying huge popularity among Japanese children, according to the tops' maker.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 10, 2001

Suspense from fear of mundanity

Director M. Night Shyamalan couldn't make it to Tokyo since he and his wife have a newborn child to look after, but that didn't stop the enterprising PR people at Buena Vista from setting up a virtual press conference for "Unbreakable."
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2001

Public works bid-rigging said widespread

Takehiko Mori says he is confessing to his crime now that the three-year statute of limitations for the offense has expired.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2001

Coalition will complete plan to boost stocks today: Kamei

The ruling coalition will accelerate work on measures to revive share prices, compiling them by tonight, the top policy maker of the Liberal Democratic Party said Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2001

Banks' loan balance in 37-month fall

The balance of outstanding bank loans dropped 3.7 percent in January from a year earlier, marking a 37th successive month of decline, according to a Bank of Japan preliminary report released Thursday.
BUSINESS
Feb 9, 2001

Banks' loan balance in 37-month fall

The balance of outstanding bank loans dropped 3.7 percent in January from a year earlier, marking a 37th successive month of decline, according to a Bank of Japan preliminary report released Thursday.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami