Mainichi Daily News articles from June 1999

Mainichi Daily News archives from June 1999

LDP holding talks to widen coalition (447).
June 29, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Monday launched efforts to court the Komeito into joining the current coalition government with the Liberal Party. Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiromu Nonaka and LDP...

Komura nixes Yokota base plan (381).
June 29, 1999... Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Monday rejected a request by Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara for efforts to seek return of the U.S. Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo or the joint use of it for military and civilian purposes, a Foreign...

Kuroda to replace Sakakibara in July (161).
June 29, 1999... Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa has decided to replace Eisuke Sakakibara, vice finance minister for international affairs, and appoint Haruhiko Kuroda, head of the Ministry of Finance's International Bureau, as his successor, government...

Inn-spirational (753).
June 29, 1999... Margaret Price shares the best places to rest for a beautiful vacation By Desmond Hutton Staff Writer "After I discovered Japanese inns," writes Margaret Price "I became a different sort of traveler. I stopped searching for the sights...

Debris blamed for bullet-train damage (417).
June 29, 1999... Large concrete chunks apparently fell off a tunnel wall and smashed into the roof of a fast-running Shinkansen or bullet train, ripping off part of the roof, officials of the West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) said Monday. JR West has...

Ex-LTCB execs admit bad-loan chicanery (276).
June 29, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun Three arrested former executives at the failed Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB) have acknowledged that they underreported bad loans in order to pay illegal dividends to shareholders, sources close to the case said...

Teacher triumphs in Haiku contest (310).
June 29, 1999... A Kyoto Prefecture woman who would have preferred to buck tradition snared first prize in the international (English- and French-language) section of the third Mainichi Haiku contest on Monday. Inga Uhlemann, an English teacher from...

Tochigi city denies Asahara kids residency (225).
June 29, 1999... UTSUNOMIYA -- The Otawara Municipal government in Tochigi Prefecture decided on Monday to refuse residency registration to children of AUM Shinrikyo cult leader Shoko Asahara, municipal officials said. The municipal government will soon...

Tokyo gov't worker nabbed for rice theft (207).
June 29, 1999... KOSHIGAYA, Saitama -- A man was arrested over the weekend for stealing nearly 5 tons of rice from a shipping company apparently to exchange in payment for a housing loan, police said. Koji Miyayama, 31, a part-time employee of the Tokyo...

Oratory Results (142).
June 29, 1999... Noumi Oshima, a student at Osaka University of Foreign Studies, won the Liberal English Organization's (LEO) 12th English Oratorical Contest on Sunday at Osaka Gakuin University. The title of her speech was "This is the life." The second...

Sidelight: Prince's battle with cancer (441).
June 29, 1999... Prince Tomohiro Mikasa, a cousin of the Emperor, has sent Yoroku a copy of a book he published describing his ongoing fight against cancer of the esophagus. The prince has already undergone surgery six times. The prince apparently sent us...

Cult cans application to build Mie school cans (365).
June 29, 1999... TSU -- Kofukukai Yamagishikai, a collective in which members give up their personal belongings, withdrew on Monday an application filed with the Mie Prefectural Government to set up a private school, Yamagishikai and prefectural government...

Police raids follow up SDF bribery arrest (295).
June 29, 1999... NAGOYA -- Police began searching several locations on Monday, including an Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF) base in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, following the arrest on Sunday of an ASDF sergeant on suspicion of accepting bribes. Satoshi Goto,...

Bullet train's roof ripped open (199).
June 28, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun FUKUOKA -- A 12-meter-section of a Shinkansen bullet train's roof was ripped off on Sunday, apparently because devices on the roof twisted round metal fittings on the ceiling of a tunnel, company officials said. The...

Booster bras bringing new bounce to busts (749).
June 28, 1999... Latest titbits keep mammarily challenged abreast of the timesRyoko Ishimura Mainichi Shimbun Innovations in bra technology are allowing women across the nation to strut their stuff and do it in style with mammaries they can be proud of....

Japanofile: Kansai Scope (803).
June 28, 1999... Lives of South American workers in Japan still tenuous The Iga area of western Mie Prefecture is home to as many as 2,000 Brazilians and Peruvians of Japanese heritage, one of the largest concentrations of South Americans who are of...

Japanofile: MUSIC (240).
June 28, 1999... Conductor Yutaka Sado will give a series of Young People's Concerts in Kansai in early July. "Music has magical effects on our hearts that are much more powerful than the comfortable spaces or medicine created by today's high...

Japanofile: Early summer cinema in Kansai (1383).
June 28, 1999... Two films about Pablo Picasso will be shown in Osaka this month. "Le Myste Picasso" (dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot, France, 1956) is a unique documentary which reveals the master artist's creative process. Made at Picasso's behest, the film...

Hirakata scraps 24-hour helpers (410).
June 28, 1999... HIRAKATA, Osaka -- The Hirakata Municipal Government has given up sending helpers on an around-the-clock basis to elderly people in need because the state doesn't subsidize nondispatched workers, even if they were on alert, making the...

Miyazawa rejects promotion for Wakui (206).
June 28, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa has informally decided not to promote Yoji Wakui, director general of the Finance Ministry's Budget Bureau, to the post of vice finance minister due to his involvement in a series of...

Japanofike: NOH, CLASSICAL MUSIC & POPULAR MUSIC (1239).
June 28, 1999... NOH National Noh Theater will present the following productions in July: July 7 (1 p.m.): "Fusenaikyo," a humorous kyogen (comic noh farce) about priests who dare to use the term fuse (offering) to remind parishioners to give their...

Ishihara slams Mizuho mayor (315).
June 27, 1999... Labels plan to ban crematorium use 'barbaric' Mainichi Shimbun Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara again slammed a mayor who banned the use of his town's crematorium by a neighboring city's residents in connection with a proposal for joint use...

'Tora-san' movie studio faces ultimate cut (157).
June 27, 1999... KAMAKURA, Kanagawa -- The movie studio used to shoot the famous "Tora-san" movie series may be pulled down if a local college buys the land from its owner. Kamakura Women's College is considering building a new campus on the...

Savage competition stalls discount airlines (660).
June 27, 1999... Skymark forced to up prices in July after flying half-empty By Yasutaka Horii Mainichi Shimbun Discounts offered by major airlines have caused a sharp decline in seat-occupancy rates of two new competitors in the industry. Most of...

Japan pounds Nepal in Olympic qualifier (409).
June 27, 1999... Yosuke Kadota Staff Writer Japan opened the Tokyo round of its qualifying tournament for the Sydney Olympics on Saturday with a 9-0 victory over Nepal. Ace striker Atsushi Yanagisawa rediscovered his scoring touch in the Japanese...

250 major firms hold shareholder meetings (300).
June 26, 1999... About 250 major companies held their annual shareholder meetings Friday, with stockholders focusing on management's strategies to cope with the nation's worst recession since World War II. Among companies holding their shareholder...

Kochi landslide injures driver (271).
June 26, 1999... KOCHI -- The driver of a passenger car was injured Friday when a rock hit his vehicle during a landslide in Kochi Prefecture in seasonal heavy rain over southwestern and western Japan. Katsuo Nakagawa, 21, sustained minor head injuries in...

Railway workers charged with negligence (187).
June 26, 1999... Police arrested two men on Friday on suspicion of professional negligence in connection with last February's train accident in Tokyo, which killed five signal maintenance workers. Haruo Ide, 45, was in charge of signal maintenance work...

EDITORIAL: Life-insurance reform (595).
June 24, 1999... The life-insurance industry, which once enjoyed perpetual growth and seemed immune to the recession, has fallen on hard times. Financial statements for the fiscal year ended March 31 were dismal. For two years in a row, the 44 members of...

Shot fired at ex-JAL boss's home (528).
June 24, 1999... Corporate racketeers suspected of involvement Mainichi Shimbun A bullet was fired at the Tokyo home of a former Japan Airlines (JAL) president in the pre-dawn hours of Monday, police revealed on Wednesday. Investigators suspect...

Murayama delegation postpones visit to N. Korea (405).
June 24, 1999... Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said on Wednesday that an interparty group of legislators will postpone a visit to North Korea for the time being. "The schedule cannot be coordinated, and there is also room for coordination...

EDITORIAL: G-8 in a UN role (551).
June 23, 1999... The Cologne Summit in Germany focused on drafting a blueprint for the future of Kosovo and Southeastern Europe. Of course, if the bombing had not stopped, Japan would have been forced into a subordinate role. But the cessation of hostilities...

Sales of Vitz boost output at Toyota (588).
June 23, 1999... Toyota Motor Corp. was the only automaker among the nation's top five to boast an increase in domestic production in May thanks to brisk sales of its new subcompact car, according to preliminary data released on Tuesday. Toyota and two...

Zabzav -- a bridge to the Mediterranean (1029).
June 22, 1999... Location brings 'em in to see Tokyo's most famous 'rainbow' By Jonathan Goff Staff Writer There are bridges and then there are bridges. Some become famous for the remarkable feats of engineering that produced them. Others reach such...

EXHIBITIONS: AICHI (518).
June 22, 1999... ONgoing HUNDERTWASSER: FOR A MORE HUMAN ARCHITECTURE IN HARMONY WITH NATURE Some 70 works, including some 45 paintings, prints and sketches, as well as eight models of the artist's architecture. Hundertwasser is a well-known Austrian...

71-year-old racketeer nabbed for bank threat (584).
June 22, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun An elderly extortionist was arrested Monday for threatening to "wreak havoc" on Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank's shareholder meeting unless it halved the amount of debt he owed it, police said. Yukio Kimoto, 71, of Kawasaki,...

Kyoto cabbies rally against city project (311).
June 22, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun KYOTO -- A local taxi drivers union staged a demonstration on Monday in front of City Hall to protest a city project that cut an access road to a taxi stand in front of JR Kyoto Station. About 30 union officials...

NHK man sacked for love trysts in HQ (184).
June 22, 1999... A Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) employee has been fired after he persisted in meeting a woman with whom he was having an illicit affair at the public broadcaster's Tokyo headquarters, NHK officials said Monday. The dismissal of the...

EDITORIAL: Global safety (593).
June 22, 1999... The debt-reduction program for the world's poorest nations, adopted at the Cologne Summit in Germany, will be remembered as a turning point in the history of dealing with problems of globalization. The Group of Seven (G-7) countries...

Japanofile: The world of Japanese craftsmen (14) (816).
June 21, 1999... Although many of the traditional arts still being practiced today in Japan have their roots in the distant past, some are relatively young in comparison. One such art is Edo kiriko, or cut glass. Glass making got a relatively late start...

Japanofile: The Midori Foundation Inc. (777).
June 21, 1999... Early this summer about 2,800 fourth, fifth and sixth graders studying at Tokyo, Toyama, Nara, Shiga, Mie and Aichi prefectures participated in the educational program featuring lectures and concerts run by the Midori Foundation Inc., the...

Japanofile: EXHIBITIONS (967).
June 21, 1999... Japanese-style Painter Chikkyo Ono Exhibition A month long exhibition that will run through the end of July at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto features the work of noted painter Chikkyo Ono (1889-1979). Ono is famous for his...

Japanofile: Walk rally on Setouchi Shimanami-Kaido (559).
June 21, 1999... In celebration of the opening of a new stretch of the Setouchi Shimanami-Kaido expressway, a "Bridge Walk World Rally" will be held on Aug. 1. The Setouchi Shimanami-Kaido expressway is a series of bridges that connects the city of...

DPJ losing momentum against LDP (581).
June 21, 1999... Now that the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Liberal Party has pushed several major bills through the Diet with the cooperation of opposition party Komeito, the counterbalance provided by the largest opposition...

Knock countersues in harassment case (448).
June 21, 1999... The woman who accused Osaka Gov. Knock Yokoyama of sexually harassing her has decided to form a crack legal team to prepare for launching a civil suit against the comedian-turned-politician, sources said. Yokoyama has labeled...

Briefly: Aichi man nabbed for abducting boy (170).
June 21, 1999... TOYOHASHI, Aichi -- An unemployed local man has been arrested on suspicion of abducting a young boy on Friday and taking him around the city for 16 hours, police said. Yukio Mizukami, 31, accused of abducting a 7-year-old second-year...

KEPCO fails to declare 2.5 bil. yen in income (192).
June 21, 1999... The Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) has failed to declare about 2.5 billion yen in income over a two-year period until March 1998, sources close to the case said on Sunday. The Osaka Regional Taxation Bureau slapped the Osaka-based...

Teacher arrested for hit-and-run (184).
June 21, 1999... TSURU, Yamanashi -- An elementary school teacher was arrested on Sunday in connection with a hit-and-run accident that resulted in the death of the victim, police said. Yoko Nemoto, 44, a teacher at an elementary school in Fujino,...

Adachi voters reject ousted mayor (311).
June 21, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun Former Communist-backed Mayor Manzo Yoshida of Adachi-ku, Tokyo, who was unseated after the ward assembly approved two no-confidence motions against him, was defeated Sunday by a candidate fielded jointly by the parties...

2 gangsters wanted for smuggling Chines (192).
June 21, 1999... SAGA -- Police placed two high-ranking gang members on a nationwide wanted list on the weekend on suspicion of masterminding the mass smuggling of Chinese nationals into Japan. The arrest warrants accuse Tadaharu Hayasegawa, 54, leader of...

Soft drinks sicken 2 Nagasaki girls (134).
June 21, 1999... YAMATO, Saga -- Two schoolgirls in Nagasaki have reported becoming ill after consuming soft drinks made here, Saga Prefecture health officials said. The girls, one of whom is currently on a drip, drank a beverage known as Aka Ringo, Ao...

G-7 to waiver poor nations' outstanding debts (420).
June 20, 1999... COLOGNE, Germany -- The world's seven richest nations opened their purses to the world's poorest here Friday by deciding to waive the outstanding loans the destitute countries are burdened with. A joint statement by the Group of Seven...

JR East to post updated schedule info (201).
June 20, 1999... The East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) will release information on major changes to train schedules if accidents occur on the lines they operate in the Tokyo metropolitan area via electric boards and cellular phone services, officials of the...

Drug firms to offer 'pill' counseling (191).
June 20, 1999... Nine major pharmaceutical companies, including Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. and Meiji Seika Kaisha, Ltd., will jointly open a counseling office for the long-awaited contraceptive pills expected to go on sale this summer, officials of the...

Sanwa Bank plans to buy stake in Dai-ichi Securities (373).
June 20, 1999... Sanwa Bank plans to acquire a major stake in Dai-ichi Securities Co., a midsize brokerage house affiliated with the nationalized Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB), company sources said Saturday. Sanwa is now negotiating with failed...

IMF seeks cosmetic surgery for policy panel (309).
June 20, 1999... The policy-making panel of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will likely be renamed "International Finance and Monetary Committee,'' an international financial source said on Friday. The name change for the IMF's Interim Committee was...

Inoue drives in 5 as Chunichi pips Hiroshima 10-2 (402).
June 20, 1999... Ichiro hits 2-run homer to help BlueWave punish Buffaloes 9-0 japan pro baseball Kazuki Inoue went 2-for-4 and drove in five runs Saturday to pace the Central League-leading Chunichi Dragons to a 10-2 victory over the Hiroshima Carp at...

Utilities scoff at talk of Y2K blackout (372).
June 20, 1999... Six major Japanese power utilities have said they have confirmed that a power blackout will not strike their customers as a result of computer malfunctions relating to any "millennium-bug" woes in their systems. The six are Tokyo...

Turning over a fresh new leaf (949).
June 18, 1999... Japanese fans are developing a taste for London-based quartet Spearmint By Wayne Gabel Staff Writer as'This song's dedicated to some of the best bands in the country," announces the singer. "Some of the bands we never got to hear....

Fukui approves use of new nuke fuel (407).
June 16, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun FUKUI -- The Fukui Prefectural Assembly has effectively approved a controversial plan allowing a nuclear plant to use a special fuel containing plutonium, giving the go-ahead to the nation's first "pluthermal" project....

Liver transplant goes well for 2-year-old (645).
June 16, 1999... 1997 law blasted for failing to allow organ donations from youngstersMainichi Shimbun KYOTO -- A 2-year-old boy on Tuesday became the first child to receive an organ transplant from a brain-dead donor in this country after a team of...

Victims' families want death for Hayashi (152).
June 16, 1999... Prosecutors read out statements in court on Tuesday from families of four people who died after eating poisoned curry last summer, demanding that accused mass-murderer Masumi Hayashi receive the death penalty for her offense. "I want her...

US judge lectures Kyoto students on future of justice (350).
June 16, 1999... KYOTO -- A U.S. Supreme Court Justice has told a gathering at Kyoto's Doshisha University on Monday that courts of the future will have to deal with an increasingly interdependent world, and expressed regret over the U.S. Supreme Court's 1944...

Poll: Support for Cabinet remains steady (124).
June 16, 1999... Support for Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's Cabinet remains firm at 39 percent, according to the latest in a series of Mainichi polls. The figure is unchanged from last month. The telephone poll covered 1,238 randomly selected people from...

EDITORIAL: LTCB crimes (620).
June 15, 1999... With Thursday's arrest of three former top executives, the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB) became the second failed major bank, after Hokkaido-Takushoku Bank, whose management practices were so shoddy as to prompt a criminal...

Space Shower brunches out (1198).
June 15, 1999... 'Proposed lifestyles,' 'Music 100% channel' and rootcrop soup make for an intriguing cafe By Tetsuko Yoshida Staff Writer The prolonged recession is pushing people from other walks of business into the food-service industry. These...

EXHIBITIONS: TOKYO (825).
June 15, 1999... 1999 Wayne F. MIller Wayne F. Miller: The World Is YOung U.S. photographer Miller and his four children will be the focus of this show. Some 100 selected vintage prints produced in the 1950s will be showcased. Miller (b. 1918) was...

Dali in the light of the millennium (865).
June 15, 1999... Painter synonymous with surrealism back in the fold By Jennifer Purvis Staff Writer Despite being expelled from the surrealist group by the founder of the movement, Andre Breton -- who labeled him a "frivolous paranoiac Catalan,"...

Ibaraki man dies of poisoning (144).
June 15, 1999... KYOWA, Ibaraki -- A man died on Sunday after he drank agricultural chemicals contained in a health-drink bottle. At around 3 p.m., Kunio Inose, 77, drank a health drink at the house of his brother-in-law, Kikuo Obata, a 68-year-old farmer...

Man sentenced for Fukuoka double murder (202).
June 15, 1999... FUKUOKA -- The Fukuoka District Court sentenced a 52-year-old man to death on Monday, as demanded by prosecutors for murdering a female pub operator and a taxi driver, court officials said. According to the officials, Pak Il-gwang a South...

NCB's debts estimated at YEN3 tril. (454).
June 13, 1999... The total debt of the Nippon Credit Bank's (NCB) has been calculated at about 3 trillion yen, more than 10 times the estimate made before it came under state control last December, the Mainichi learned on Saturday. According to a report...

Koreas planning to hold PM-level talks (399).
June 13, 1999... SEOUL -- North and South Korea have agreed to hold talks at the prime ministerial level in the future concerning their relations, President Kim Dae-jung revealed to Japanese journalists. Kim, meeting with eight Japanese newspapers and...

EDITORIAL: Peace in Kosovo (606).
June 13, 1999... Yugoslavia and NATO have agreed to a plan calling for the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo. With the confirmation of the pullout, the air campaign against Yugoslav targets has finally halted. Now that the U.N. Security Council has...

Museum loses out as bank takes art (315).
June 13, 1999... TAKARAZUKA, Hyogo -- The city's plan to fill a proposed museum with modern Japanese and European masterpieces is in jeopardy, because the works have been seized by the collapsed Kofuku Bank as collateral, the Mainichi Shimbun has learned. ...

Fukuoka picks speech contest finalists (183).
June 13, 1999... Two finalists and an alternate were chosen on Saturday from seven orators in the Seibu district elimination round of the 53rd Annual National Intercollegiate English Oratorical Contest held at the Mainichi head office in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka...

Japan to send 3 police to East Timor for poll (187).
June 13, 1999... The government has decided to send three police officials to East Timor in August to monitor the region's referendum on independence, government sources said. This will be the first civilian mission dispatched under a law governing the...

LTCB broke its own banking rules (186).
June 13, 1999... The collapsed Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB) abused its own preferential financing system in making loans to four affiliate companies without securing collateral, sources close to the investigation said on Saturday. The amount of...

LTCB chief fixed books to 'protect economy' (602).
June 12, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun A former president of the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB) told investigators that he illegally portrayed the bank's financial position as healthy in a bid to protect the Japanese economy, sources close to the...

Fukutoku Bank ex-president busted for illegal loans (417).
June 12, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun A former president of now-defunct Fukutoku Bank was arrested on Friday for extending nearly a billion yen in illegal loans last September, in an apparent attempt to conceal its nonperforming loans, prosecutors said. ...

Briefly: Hayashi to sue over courtroom picture (195).
June 12, 1999... WAKAYAMA -- Accused mass murderer Masumi Hayashi plans to sue a magazine for printing a picture of her taken during a courtroom appearance where she is on trial for murder and fraud, sources close to her said on Friday. Hayashi, 37, who...

Man gets 4 years for drowning incident (192).
June 12, 1999... The Osaka High Court on Friday sentenced a 27-year-old man to four years' imprisonment over the drowning of a homeless man, overturning the first ruling that the defendant had intentionally thrown the man into a river. Presiding Judge...

Kansai man busted for sex with minor (147).
June 12, 1999... A man was arrested earlier this week for performing sexual acts with a teen-age girl he met through an e-mail service, police said. Yasuyuki Harada, a 33-year-old company employee from Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, was arrested on Thursday...

Ex-LTCB chiefs arrested for cooking books (549).
June 11, 1999... Mainichi Shimbun Three former top executives of the failed Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan (LTCB) were arrested Thursday on suspicion of illegally under-reporting irrecoverable loans to give the bank the appearance of being financially...

Sidelight: Yes or No for Kosovo (496).
June 11, 1999... According to Genesis in the Old Testament, God created out of chaos the heavens and the earth and everything in them in six days. He created light on the first day, and waters and the firmament on the second. It was on the sixth day that he...