Mainichi Daily News articles from February 2000

Mainichi Daily News archives from February 2000

EDITORIAL: Blood-product scandal.
February 29, 2000... The Osaka District Court has sentenced three former presidents of a now-defunct pharmaceutical company, Green Cross Co., to prison terms for professional negligence resulting in the death of a man who contracted AIDS after receiving...

MACBETH.
February 29, 2000... Associate Director of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Gregory Doran's "Macbeth" focuses on various psychological stages such as fear and ambition rather than supernatural powers such as the fulfillment of the witches' prophesy...

Consumers paying for gov't cuts.
February 29, 2000... Consumers are once more bearing the brunt of the nation's economic malaise as prefectural governments across the nation abolish or slash numbers at their consumer affairs sections to cope with tighter budgets. Prefectural authorities are...

Kanagawa schools to get LDP watchdogs.
February 29, 2000... YOKOHAMA -- The Lib-eral Democratic Party (LDP) chapter in Kanagawa Prefecture will send its prefectural assembly members to inspect whether prefectural high schools are flying the Hinomaru flag and singing the national anthem during...

Minister quits.
February 29, 2000... Controversial comments doom key gov't finance reformer Financial Reconstruction Commission Chairman Michio Ochi quit Friday over controversial remarks he made last weekend indicating his willingness to use his influence to pressure...

Ex-Hyogo Bank execs sued over bad loans.
February 29, 2000... KOBE -- The Resolution and Collection Corp. (RCC) filed a lawsuit against three former executives of the defunct Hyogo Bank on Friday for compensation of 900 million yen, part of 10.9 billion yen in bad loans the bank made to a mail-order...

Transplant girl passes away.
February 29, 2000... SAPPORO -- A 1-year-old girl died Thursday night following a canceled heart and lung transplant in the United States, her supporters said Friday. Akari Saino died at Sapporo Medical College Hospital a day after her return to Japan from...

Refugee aid group gives back 30 mil. yen.
February 29, 2000... A nongovernmental organization (NGO) helping refugees abroad repaid some 30 million yen in subsidies to the Foreign Ministry after it was discovered that the NGO had submitted false reports on aid projects, ministry officials said. The...

Adachi Museum of Art.
February 29, 2000... Located in a relaxing environment at the foot of beautiful mountains in Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture, the Adachi Museum of Art is well known for its excellent collection of modern nihonga Japanese-style painting and exquisite Japanese gardens....

EXHIBITIONS.
February 29, 2000... The work of Gyokudo Kawai, a modern master of nihonga (Japanese-style painting), is on display through March 5 in Osaka. Born in 1873 in Aichi Prefecture, Kawai studied the Maruyama-shijo School of painting and then the Kano School,...

Ex-Green Cross execs jailed.
February 28, 2000... The former bosses of defunct Green Cross Corp. copped jail terms in the Osaka District Court on Thursday for selling HIV-tainted blood products in the 1980s -- causing hemophiliacs to contract the AIDS-causing virus. Renzo Matsushita,...

Even AUM doesn't deserve this law.
February 28, 2000... The doomsday cult formerly known as AUM Shinrikyo has been put under constant monitoring since the introduction of a law against "groups that carried out indiscriminate mass-murder," which, in effect, was invoked to tame just one group. ...

EDITORIAL: Mie nuclear plan.
February 28, 2000... Chubu Electric Power Co. announced on Tuesday that it has abandoned a 37-year-old plan to build a nuclear power plant in the Ashihama district of Mie Prefecture, which is located in the towns of Kisei and Nanto. The company's decision is...

Sidelight: Big Macs and the Middle East.
February 28, 2000... Archimedes, the most famous mathematician and inventor of ancient Greece, was taking a bath when water spilled out as he placed his body into it. He was so excited that he ran into the street naked, shouting "Eureka!" (I have found it!). The...

Tokyo Stocks.
February 28, 2000... Share prices rose for the second straight day Thursday, led mainly by information and technology issues. The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei stock average rose 51.89, or 0.27 percent, to 19,571.44. The broader TOPIX index of all First Section...

Disgraced Kanagawa cops plead guilty.
February 28, 2000... Former chief and four others admit role in covering up drug use YOKOHAMA -- A former chief of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police and four other former high-ranking officials pleaded guilty on Thursday to covering up drug abuse by an...

Gig Guide: Mariah Carey.
February 28, 2000... Somewhere over the rainbow, journalists ask Mariah Carey about her music. That somewhere ain't here, as contributing writer Katrina Damianou learned when the pop goddess came to Tokyo last fall to promote her SME Records release "Rainbow."...

Tokyo man arrested for speed stash.
February 28, 2000... KOBE -- A company employee from Tokyo has been arrested for possessing amphetamines, police said Thursday. Investigators questioned Takashi Iida, a 36-year-old company employee from Edogawa-ku, Tokyo, when he came out of a hotel in...

Police inspect Niigata kidnapper's house.
February 28, 2000... NIIGATA -- Police have inspected the house of the 37-year-old man where he allegedly confined a girl that he had abducted for nine years. Nobuyuki Sato, the suspect in the abduction of a then elementary school girl, was also present at...

Gettin' into the swing of things.
February 28, 2000... Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra keep the beat Contrary to popular belief, the United States has long had royalty -- at least in the realm of music. But before there was a king of rock 'n' roll or a prince of pop,...

Tokyo population hits all-time high.
February 24, 2000... The population of Tokyo reached an all-time high of 11.95 million last month, a metropolitan government report said Monday. According to the report, the Tokyo population stood at 11,953,198 as of Jan. 1, surpassing the previous high of...

Gov't questions Ishihara's new bank tax plan.
February 24, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun The government top spokesman, despite announcing doubts over Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara's controversial plan to tax big banks operating in the capital, said on Tuesday that the central government would not intervene in...

Editorial: Health-care reform.
February 24, 2000... The Council on Medical Service Facilities endorsed a Health and Welfare Ministry proposal for amending the Medical Service Law in a report issued on Monday. The report, however, is disappointing as a first attempt to revise a law that has...

Furthermore: One World Festival.
February 24, 2000... The One World Festival 2000 will be held at the International House, Osaka, on Feb. 26 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and on Feb. 27 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event is sponsored by NGOs, private and governmental organizations and companies based in...

Mie governor burns nuke plan.
February 24, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun TSU -- A 37-year-old plan to construct a nuclear power plant here has gone into meltdown after Mie's governor on Tuesday declared that the idea was untenable. Although Gov. Masayasu Kitagawa's decision is not legally...

Wakayama to demand waste-site cleanup: Prefecture wants heavily polluted disposal facility totally removed.
February 24, 2000... WAKAYAMA -- The prefectural government will order an industrial-waste disposal plant in Hashimoto to be removed and cleared after the detection of dangerously high levels of toxic dioxin at the site. Toxic chemical levels some 100 times...

Tokyo speeds up plan on toll for vehicles.
February 24, 2000... The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has dropped the pedal on a plan to slap a charge on all vehicles driving into designated areas of the capital during the daytime on weekdays. An in-house task force will be formed, aiming to propose...

Here's to working.
February 24, 2000... Members and supporters of a Tokyo labor union toast the opening ceremony of a bar in the capital's Taito-ku. The bar is designed to hire those who lost their jobs amid the nation's corporate downsizing boom. The bar, Risutoran Genki Kosaten,...

Briefly: Ex-Toho vice president hangs self.
February 24, 2000... A former vice president of the collapsed Toho Mutual Life Insurance Co. hanged himself at his home in Tokyo's Chofu, apparently due to concerns about the company's failure, police said on Tuesday. The body of Kunihiko Saito, 54, was found...

Briefly: Itoman scandal man finally back in court.
February 24, 2000... Heo Young-joong, the ringleader in one of the nation's biggest breach-of-trust cases who was recaptured after fleeing his criminal trial, went back on trial Tuesday after a hiatus of two years and five months. Heo, 52, who was believed...

Male chauvinism still dominates sumo world.
February 24, 2000... The irresistible force of sexual equality squared off with the immovable object of sumo tradition in Osaka -- and the big boys won, this time. The recent announcement by new Osaka Gov. Fusae Ota that she wanted to enter the dohyo ring to...

Life Space guru arrested.
February 24, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun NARITA, Chiba -- Koji Takahashi, leader of the mummy-making Life Space cult, was arrested Tuesday alongside seven of his associates in Oarai, Ibaraki Prefecture, on suspicion of letting a sick man die last year in a...

Fast-food culture under slow-moving attack.
February 24, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun NAGOYA -- A movement that arose as a reaction to today's fast-food culture has now spread to Japan where it is getting an eager, if not hungry, reception. The so-called "Slow Food Movement" was started 10 years ago...

Furthermore: Chrysanthemum dolls.
February 24, 2000... A new book on Japan's chrysanthemum dolls, exhibited annually at a number of venues around the country, has recently been compiled by a university researcher. It contains illustrations and explanations. According to author Yu Kawai, the...

Furthermore: Literary museum.
February 24, 2000... HIGASHI OSAKA, Osaka -- A museum commemorating the literary achievements of the late Ryotaro Shiba will open here in the spring of 2001. On display will be his books, hand-written manuscripts, notebooks and others articles. The facility...

EDITORIAL: US spy network.
February 23, 2000... A global eavesdropping system developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) of the United States is emerging as a center of worldwide controversy. The communications intelligence network, known as Echelon, was built in 1948 and has been...

'Brand-name' hashish hits the streets.
February 23, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun Tokyo customs officials say labeling of illicit drugs on the rise Tokyo customs authorities have revealed that some of the hashish smuggled into this country is labeled with figures and other marks that are supposed...

Kyoto doctor nabbed for peeping.
February 23, 2000... KYOTO -- A doctor in the dentistry department of Kyoto University has been arrested on suspicion of sneaking into a dressing room for nurses at Kyoto Prefectural University Hospital in Kamigyo-ku, police said Thursday. Izuru Tamura, 34,...

Convicted killer gets death sentence.
February 23, 2000... UTSUNOMIYA -- A 53-year-old man was sentenced to death by the Utsunomiya District Court on Thursday for killing his former employer and his wife, stealing their money, and setting fire to their house in Ichikai, Tochigi Prefecture, in 1994....

Phone-related car accidents falling.
February 23, 2000... The 1999 amendment to the Road Traffic Law, which prohibits the use of mobile phones and navigation systems by the drivers of moving vehicles is proving effective, according to statistics released by the Metropolitan Police Department on...

New find shakes up theories on Homo erectus.
February 23, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun URAWA -- A stunning archeological find in Saitama announced on Monday may shake up established theories about Homo erectus, the famous ancestors of modern humanity. Remains of structures thought to be 500,000 years...

EDITORIAL: Sidelight: Venturing into God's domain.
February 23, 2000... Last year a small company in the city of Higashi Osaka built a sophisticated DNA amplifier. The device attracted considerable international attention as it held great promise for helping decode the human genetic map. Early this year, a...

Tokyo Stocks: Share prices closed sharply lower across the board on Monday, dragged down by.
February 23, 2000... Friday's plunge on Wall Street. The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei stock average lost 245.28, or 1.24 percent, to close at the day's low of 19,543.75. The broader TOPIX index of all First Section issues fell 39.05, or 2.27 prcent, to...

Dollar: The dollar eased against the yen.
February 23, 2000... Monday on profit-taking, following its rise above the 111 yen line in New York last Friday. At 5 p.m., the dollar fetched 110.57-60 yen, down from 110.95-111.05 yen at 5 p.m. Friday in New York. It was most frequently traded at 110.65...

Anrakutei burning through rivals.
February 23, 2000... Market leading yakiniku restaurant's cheap prices drawing new customers like a magnet By Jonathan Goff Staff Writer Imagine for a moment a brand-new target of the type used in shooting competitions, with concentric circles rippling out...

Exhibition fetes Dutch connection.
February 23, 2000... Mainichi Daily News For many Japanese, the words "Dutch" or "the Netherlands" usually conjure up images of Huis Ten Bosch, a popular theme park in Sasebo, Nagasaki, containing realistic reproductions of various places in the Netherlands....

Exhibitions: TOKYO.
February 23, 2000... Opening Court calligraphy from the heian period Some 80 calligraphy pieces created during the Heian Period (794-1185) will be showcased on loan from the Shogei Bunkain institute, which specializes in calligraphy. Dates: Feb....

NPA to probe Kyoto cops in suicide case.
February 23, 2000... The National Police Agency (NPA) will probe Kyoto Prefectural Police over the suicide of a murder suspect last month right before investigators' eyes, the NPA chief told a Diet committee on Monday. The latest blow to the prestige of the...

Over 1,000 fake coins found in Miyazaki.
February 23, 2000... MIYAZAKI -- Over 1,000 forged 500-yen coins believed to be Korean won were discovered in several vending machines in Miyazaki Prefecture between Friday and Sunday, police said Monday. Police said 1,068 of the coins, whose surfaces had...

Streak that age right outta my hair.
February 23, 2000... As Samson at long last came to realize, a man's strength lies in his hair. But as middle-aged men who are going gray are discovering, dyeing their hair black to hide their signs of aging may not be their strongest defense. They're a long...

Osaka supermarket robbed of YEN8 mil.
February 23, 2000... YAO, Osaka -- Police are on the hunt for four burglars who robbed a supermarket manager at gun-point of some 8 million yen in sales on Sunday evening, police said Monday. Police said the quartet rushed into the store in Yao, Osaka...

EDITORIAL: Party leader debate.
February 23, 2000... Debates between party leaders will become a regular feature of Diet sessions. There are high expectations for the new debates, which are supposed to focus on basic Cabinet policies and the policies of the various political parties. Events...

Asian disaster data bank to go online.
February 23, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun KOBE -- To help disaster rescue personnel work more efficiently, the Asian Disaster Reduction Center here will begin providing information on geography, population and important local contacts in 22 countries on its...

Name change gains Korean re-entry.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun KOBE -- A South Korean female owner of a sexual service shop, who was arrested for running the shop without authorization, has turned out to be the same woman deported back home last May but came to Japan after changing...

Support growing for Osaka gov.'s step into ring.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun Ishihara slams outdated thinking at the Japan Sumo Association More people are coming out in support of Osaka Gov. Fusae Ota's crusade to break tradition and step into the sumo ring to present a trophy to the winner...

Briefly: 21-year-old woman found murdered in Ota-ku.
February 22, 2000... A 21-year-old woman was found dead in her home on Saturday afternoon by her husband in Tokyo's Ota-ku, police said. As police found cuts to the neck of Junko Uno, they believe she was murdered. When her husband, Toshihiko, 21, came...

EAST: EVENTS / ANNOUNCEMENTS.
February 22, 2000... ANNOUNCEMENTS The International House of Japan (IHJ) will present a series of classic Japanese silent films entitled "The Art of the Benshi." From the beginning of cinema in Japan to the advent of the talkies, films were narrated by...

WEST: EVENTS / ANNOUNCEMENTS.
February 22, 2000... WINNERS WANTED (KANSAI) Postcards requesting tickets to the following exhibition should be sent to the MDN Osaka office, 3-4-5 Umeda, Kita-ku, Osaka 530-8251. Please write your name, address (with the 7-digit postal code), age, gender,...

The world of Japanese craftsmen (20).
February 22, 2000... Staff Writer "Have you ever seen a woodblock print?" asked printmaker David Bull, with a twinkle in his eye. Up until that point, I thought I had seen a fair few. He then turned off the light overhead and steered me toward the...

Cops let top doc off for road smash.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun HAMAMATSU, Shizuoka -- Police here turned a blind eye to a well connected doctor's involvement in a serious road accident in 1996, the Mainichi has learned. The officers tipped the doctor that he would escape...

Education system slammed.
February 22, 2000... Cram-school boss says new guidelines 'dumb down' schooling Mainichi Shimbun Starting from 2002, new education guidelines for elementary and junior high school students will come into place, promising pupils a lighter workload aimed at...

Haneda-Fukuoka flight offered for 950 yen.
February 22, 2000... Maverick carrier Skymark Airlines will offer one-way flights on its popular Haneda-Fukuoka route from April for a paltry 950 yen, company officials said Thursday. But just as the ploy aims to catch as many customers as possible for the...

Sidelight: Defining optimism.
February 22, 2000... "I admit that I am an optimist because people around me say I am, but I'm not the kind of optimist who waits idly for a piece of good luck to come my way." This is not a sentence gleaned from a recent policy speech labeled "an aggressive...

Tokyo Stocks.
February 22, 2000... Share prices rose for the second straight day on Thursday, led mainly by blue-chip issues. The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei stock average rose 192.22, or 0.98 percent, to 19,791.40, after moving between 19,518.08 and 19,803.69. The broader...

Dollar.
February 22, 2000... The dollar pierced the 110 yen barrier on Thursday for the first time since Sept. 10 last year on reports that U.S. credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service could downgrade government bonds. At 5 p.m., the dollar was quoted at...

Reel Talk with James Bailey: Promising space thriller succumbs to gravity.
February 22, 2000... The higher you are, the better you'll appreciate "The Astronaut's Wife." This reviewer, for example, was tens of thousands of meters above the Earth, in the business-class section of a Boeing 777, when he saw this 110-minute feature, and...

No harm in making waves.
February 22, 2000... The pet sounds of London's High Llamas hail from shores both far and near Staff Writer To hear some people talk, you'd be forgiven for thinking High Llamas front man Sean O'Hagan and Beach Boy Brian Wilson are twin sons of different...

World Music: Irish instrumentalists worth singing about.
February 22, 2000... In a country fairly bulging at the seams with superlative traditional musicians whose genre has charmed the globe, it must be difficult for a new Irish band to make themselves heard, never mind become one of the more sought-after groups to...

Gig Guide: Rhythm & Bay 2000.
February 22, 2000... A new R&B event for a new century, with Shanice supplying the rhythms, and Tokyo and Nagasaki providing the bays. A former child star who hit it big with "I Love Your Smile," Shanice Wilson is now a grown woman signed to Babyface's LaFace...

2 ex-Nichiei staffers arrested.
February 22, 2000... Pair accused of using coercive tactics to obtain cash from debtors Mainichi Shimbun Two former employees of Kyoto-based loan shark Nichiei Co. were arrested Thursday for using extortionist tactics -- including haranguing a debtor and...

Liver for 'domino' transplant ready to go.
February 22, 2000... A liver will travel about 400 kilometers from Tokyo to Kyoto aboard a bullet train on Monday for a "domino" transplant, in which organs are transferred from one patient to another in a chain of surgeries, doctors said Thursday. The...

Lower House panel begins Constitution debate.
February 22, 2000... Legislators began debate on the Constitution in an ad hoc panel in the House of Representatives on Thursday, with parties sharply divided over whether to revise the nation's supreme code. The unprecedented debate followed a similar...

Hatoyama facing donation scandal.
February 22, 2000... The leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), Yukio Hatoyama, has been accused by a former company executive of having received some 50 million yen through shady donations and the selling of tickets to political fund-raising...

Nagoya professor faces harassment suit.
February 22, 2000... NAGOYA -- A woman filed a damages suit with a local court here on Thursday, accusing a professor at Nagoya City University of sexually harassing her. In the suit filed with the Nagoya District Court, the 34-year-old woman, whose name is...

Cops catch suspect in ramming of police car.
February 22, 2000... Police on Thursday arrested a man for ramming a stolen vehicle into a police car in western Tokyo suburb of Machida last November and then fleeing the scene, prompting the officer to fire at him. Yutaka Anzai, 24, an unemployed man of no...

Knife-wielding teen quartet busted in Osaka.
February 22, 2000... Police have arrested a gang of four female teen-agers for allegedly attacking four people with knives in the Minami district of Osaka last month and robbing one of them. According to Osaka Prefectural Police, the four, who range in age...

Editorial: Jobs for retirees.
February 22, 2000... The decade-long economic slump has cast a shadow over the golden years of this country's retirees, and that helps to explain the brisk sales of books about life during retirement. According to an Economic Planning Agency survey on savings and...

Tokyo gov't to crack down on diesel polluters.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun Diesel powered vehicles without special cleaning equipment will be outlawed from Tokyo roads by 2006 following a recent announcement by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Starting from April 2003, all diesel powered...

Elderly woman dies in Kochi hospital mishap.
February 22, 2000... KOCHI -- An elderly woman died Thursday as a result of a medical mishap at the Kochi Red Cross Hospital here, it was revealed Saturday. The 69-year-old patient, who had been hospitalized since mid-January to treat pneumonia, died from...

Pop-star agency busted for hiding income.
February 22, 2000... A prominent entertainment agency failed to declare some 590 million yen in corporate income over the business year to Aug. 31, 1998, industry sources said Saturday. The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau found that Rising Production Co....

War on waste.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun Recycling bill gunning for companies generating large amounts of leftover food Major companies selling food will likely be required to recycle at least 20 percent of kitchen garbage they generate into fertilizers and...

Obuchi hints on election date.
February 22, 2000... MAEBASHI -- Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi hinted Sunday that he will decide on the timing of dissolving the House of Representatives for a snap general election after the fiscal 2000 state budget is passed into law. "After completing the...

Bomb threat delays sleeper train.
February 22, 2000... NIIGATA -- A bomb threat caused a delay of a luxurious sleeper train Saturday evening, railway officials said Sunday. According to the Niigata branch of East Japan Railway Co. (JR East), Nagaoka Station on the JR Shinetsu Line received a...

Kan demands Obuchi aide testify before Diet.
February 22, 2000... Mainichi Shimbun Naoto Kan, chief policymaker of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), demanded Monday that an aide to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi be summoned to testify before the Diet over the allegations that he defrauded a...