Mainichi Daily News articles from November 2001, page 4

Mainichi Daily News archives from November 2001

Another Kabukicho blaze forces 30 to evacuate.
November 9, 2001... Some 30 people were evacuated from a building in Tokyo's Kabukicho entertainment district Thursday after a small fire broke out in the early morning, police said. No one was injured in the incident that occurred at around 5:45 a.m. ...

Sony chairman collapses while conducting orchestra.
November 9, 2001... BEIJING -- Sony Corp. chairman Norio Oga was hospitalized after collapsing while conducting the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported. The 71-year-old suffered a brain hemorrhage but his condition is stable...

4 kids die in fire after party turns tragic.
November 9, 2001... KOSHIGAYA, Saitama -- Overheated cooking oil was the likely cause of an inferno that claimed the lives of four children here on Wednesday night, firefighters said Thursday. Firefighters received an emergency call at about 8:20 p.m....

Search of Ehime Maru ends with one still missing.
November 9, 2001... HONOLULU -- U.S. Navy divers have completed their search of the submerged Ehime Maru training vessel with one body of the nine victims still missing, officials said Wednesday. Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces will conduct a final...

Orangutan trader handed 32-month jail term.
November 9, 2001... OSAKA -- A man who bought orangutans and other endangered species he knew had been imported illegally was Thursday handed down a 32-month jail term and fined 2.5 million yen. In handing down the Osaka District Court ruling on the former...

'Serious' radiation leak spooks Shizuoka.
November 9, 2001... NAGOYA -- Steam containing radioactive material eight times above the natural level leaked inside a nuclear power plant in Hamaoka, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Wednesday, Chubu Electric Power Co. admitted. No radioactive material escaped...

Failed credit union bigwigs accused of hiding bad loans.
November 9, 2001... A former president and three bigwigs of a failed pro-Pyongyang credit union were arrested Thursday for trying to impede officials by hiding financial documents during a local government inspection, police said. Chong Gyong Saeng, former...

Forced confession of accused poisoner quashed.
November 9, 2001... KYOTO -- A court tossed out the confession of a physician accused of poisoning his colleagues, ruling Thursday that a police investigator had threatened the suspect's child to obtain the admission. "The questioning officer intimidated the...

Painter-abductor gets 8 years behind bars.
November 9, 2001... TOYAMA -- A debt-ridden painter who kidnapped a 25-year-old man and robbed his house was hit with an eight-year jail term on Thursday. Justice Masakatsu Kamisawa of the Toyama District Court slammed the abductor, Katsuhiro Sawada, for his...

Bereaved battered in Niigata temple collapse.
November 9, 2001... NAGAOKA, Niigata -- Six mourners waiting for a funeral to start on the first floor of a local temple were injured Thursday after the second floor and eight priests crashed down on them. Police reported that the bereaved suffered bruises...

Two die after knife fight at meat disposal center.
November 9, 2001... TOKUSHIMA -- A meat wholesale company president and another man died after one fatally stabbed the other and then apparently knifed himself following a row Thursday, police said. Three other people were injured during the mayhem that...

Robbers pull off huge bank heist with diversions.
November 9, 2001... FUKUOKA -- A team of robbers pretending to be customers stole some 37 million yen Thursday from under the noses of distracted bank staff, police said. The four criminals used two diversions to pull off their heist at Saga Bank's Fukuoka...

Tokyo, Beijing still at odds over import row.
November 9, 2001... The nation's "safeguard" trade restrictions on Chinese agricultural products expired on Thursday, but Tokyo and Beijing have yet to reach agreement to stop another flood of cheap imports from China. With the high tariffs on Chinese...

Drugs suspect at large after duping Aichi cops.
November 8, 2001... KOMAKI, Aichi -- A handcuffed drugs suspect was on the run Wednesday after tricking four arresting officers into letting him get back into his still-idling car. Red-faced Aichi Prefectural Police were searching for Yutaka Watanabe, 28,...

Cabinet gives nod to 5.8 tril. yen extra budget.
November 8, 2001... Massive government funds for measures to foil terrorists, counter mad cow disease and bail out the jobless edged towards reality Wednesday with the Cabinet approving a 5.8 trillion yen supplementary budget. The extra funding, which sticks...

Mizuho pumps up debt write-off plan.
November 8, 2001... Banking colossus Mizuho Holdings Inc. has almost doubled the amount of bad loans it plans to write off this fiscal year to a monstrous 1.8 trillion yen, company sources revealed. The sources said that the latest revision was spurred by...

Japan, China, South Korea need trilateral summit.
November 8, 2001... Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, and South Korean President Kim Dae Jung held an informal breakfast meeting on Monday in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. Unfortunately, Japan's efforts to elevate the meeting into an...

AUM survivors plead for no alteration to guru's trial.
November 8, 2001... Survivors and bereaved families of victims of AUM Shinrikyo's terrorist attacks urged a court Wednesday not to suspend the trial of cult founder Shoko Asahara for a year. "I can't allow the trial to be further delayed because we are...

Dangerous chemicals detected at former Tokyo Gas plant.
November 8, 2001... High-levels of cancer-causing chemicals have been detected at a land lot in Tokyo where a Tokyo Gas Co. plant once stood, the company said Wednesday. Tokyo Gas officials said the chemicals will not affect the local environment, but the...

Ex-PM Miyazawa to replace Tanaka at U.N. meet.
November 8, 2001... Former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa will attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly session as a proxy for Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, the government's top spokesman told reporters Wednesday. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo...

Ex-Sogo boss denies hiding assets after collapse.
November 8, 2001... Sogo Department Store's former chief has rebuffed prosecutors' charges that he concealed hundreds of millions of yen when the massive firm collapsed last year. Addressing the charges Wednesday on the first day of his trial at the Tokyo...

Impersonator jailed for killing sibling.
November 7, 2001... YOKOHAMA -- A man who strangled his older brother then assumed his identity so that he could live off his old age pension has been jailed by the Yokohama District Court here. Fumio Arakawa, 55, a former taxi driver from Atsugi, Kanagawa...

Local plebiscites complement indirect democracy.
November 7, 2001... The devolution of political power from the center to the regions, and the rise in political consciousness at the local level have contributed to the push for more local plebiscites around the nation. The town of Miyama in Mie Prefecture, for...

Teenage boy nabbed for strangling underage hostess.
November 7, 2001... OSAKA -- A teen-age boy was arrested Tuesday for strangling an underage bar hostess at her apartment in downtown Osaka in late October, police said. The killer, a jobless 17-year-old of no fixed address, has reportedly admitted murdering...

Afghan refugees walk free after court decision.
November 7, 2001... The detention of five Afghan asylum seekers by immigration officials is against "international order" and they must be released, a Tokyo court ruled Tuesday. Lawyers representing the Afghans had been seeking a court injunction at the...

Koizumi says ASEAN leaders back dispatch of SDF abroad.
November 7, 2001... BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei -- Asian leaders voiced support Tuesday for Japan's plan to dispatch Self-Defense personnel to support the U.S.-led fight against terrorism, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi claimed. "Japan's policy of not...

Tottori gov. aims to sabotage Tokyo hotel tax.
November 6, 2001... TOTTORI -- Tottori Gov. Yoshihiro Katayama has snapped at plans for a hotel tax floated by Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara, branding it a "message that the capital wants nobody to come." Katayama added that he would urge the national...

Dud date of dig site blamed on academic error.
November 6, 2001... TSUKIDATE, Miyagi -- Suspicion surfaced Monday about the estimated age of an archaeological site where a notorious expert planted fake tools, but this time investigators think that error and not fraud was the culprit. A team inspecting...

Business must battle global warming.
November 6, 2001... With talks on global warming treaty under way in Marrakesh, Morocco, businesses in Japan need to act to cut emissions that are heating up the Earth. Tokyo can help by leaning on corporations. The most important objective of the Marrakesh...

Fugitive arrested after sushi bar bottle brawl.
November 6, 2001... NAGOYA -- A Japanese man who fled to South Korea after smashing a lawyer with a beer bottle at a sushi bar and seriously injuring him was arrested upon his arrival at an international airport here, police said Monday. Iwamitsu Oki, 45, a...

50 evacuated after another fire in Kabukicho.
November 6, 2001... About 50 people were evacuated after a fire broke out at a karaoke establishment in the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo in the predawn hours of Monday, police said. Nobody was injured in the blaze -- the third in Kabukicho in...

Power failure causes chaos on Nagano Shinkansen.
November 6, 2001... A power failure forced the cancellation of five Nagano Shinkansen trains and delayed two others early Monday morning, inconveniencing approximately 5,000 passengers, its operators said. At around 5:30 a.m., a power failure occurred...

Saitama gov't bigwig pinched for teen-age prostitution.
November 6, 2001... A high-ranking official at the Saitama Municipal Government who paid 70,000 yen to a high school girl for sex has been arrested, local police said Monday. Masao Shinohara, 57, deputy head of the municipal government's environment...

Rules for firing workers spark controversy.
November 6, 2001... MATSUYAMA -- Laws should be drawn up defining the conditions under which workers can be fired from their jobs, according to Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Chikara Sakaguchi. Sakaguchi is apparently aiming for clarity under the law to...

Fatal abuse trial hears of bashing, force-feeding.
November 6, 2001... AMAGASAKI, Hyogo -- A young couple admitted Monday to fatally torturing the woman's 6-year-old son, stuffing his body in a garbage bag and dumping it in a canal, as their trial opened here. Takeshi and Tomoko Seta, both 24, told the...

Funny money strikes Nagoya subway machines.
November 6, 2001... NAGOYA -- Thirty-seven bogus 10,000 yen notes have been slipped into prepaid card vending machines at eight subway stations here, local police said Monday. The fake bills, discovered over the weekend, are obviously fake to the human eye,...

Budget cuts sink Coast Guard's hopes for faster ships.
November 6, 2001... Despite the threat of sea-based terrorist attacks, Japan Coast Guard officials are up in arms because they are unable to buy high-speed patrol boats. Japan Coast Guard patrol boats are already being out-run and though the coast guard...

Tokyo moves to strengthen ties with Beijing, Seoul.
November 6, 2001... BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei -- Japan, China and South Korea reached an accord Monday to beef up political and business dialogue by launching regular meetings of their foreign and economic ministers, government officials said. Reached on...

Convicted lender slapped with 1.6 bil. yen tax bill.
November 6, 2001... A convicted lender suspected of cheating 6.8 billion yen out of customers in a direct-mail scheme has been ordered to pay 1.6 billion yen in back taxes, sources said Monday. The massive tax penalty strikes Seiji Kobayashi of Tokyo's...

Tokushima gov't guard reveals hand in toilet blast.
November 6, 2001... TOKUSHIMA -- The culprit behind an explosion rocking a toilet in prefectural government headquarters has admitted to the crime -- and he's a security guard at the facility. The confessed toilet-bomber, 37-year-old Eiji Nishino, was...

Embattled Tanaka faces more isolation from peers.
November 6, 2001... Outspoken Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka faces growing isolation not only in her own ministry, but in the entire political world because of what are called her "eccentric" remarks and behavior. The foreign minister has been excluded from...

Drunken rightist hurls Molotov cocktail at U.S. Embassy.
November 5, 2001... An intoxicated right-wing activist was arrested Friday after he threw a Molotov cocktail at the U.S. Embassy gates in Tokyo, police said. Masaru Onishi's alleged hurl of the firebomb fell short of the Embassy gates, flared briefly, but...

Spurned American teacher stalks schoolgirl.
November 5, 2001... OSAKA -- An American English teacher has been arrested after he sent over 50 e-mail letters to a schoolgirl demanding she pay him money because she refused to become his lover, police said Friday. Part-time English teacher at a public...

Housewife heroin trafficker busted after making millions.
November 5, 2001... A Vietnamese housewife who tried to hide 3 million yen she made after buying several hundred grams of heroin and selling it at a profit has been arrested, police said Friday. The woman, Nguyen Thi Anh Thu, 39, was arrested for breaking...

Specialist docs swarm on Tokyo anthrax seminar.
November 5, 2001... Anthrax-seminar organizers were caught out after about triple the expected number of attendees showed up to hear talks in Tokyo on the disease spooking America. Most of the 900 listeners at the seminar on preventing the spread of anthrax...

Yokohama cops hunt for stranglers of elderly man.
November 5, 2001... YOKOHAMA -- Police were scouring for clues Saturday after an elderly man was apparently strangled in his own kitchen during a burglary of his Yokohama home. The wife of 70-year-old Hiroshi Kanbe found her husband collapsed in the kitchen...

Suspicion strewn on whole site stained by dirty digger.
November 5, 2001... TSUKIDATE, Miyagi -- Doubt was flung on the authenticity of a whole archaeological site where a disgraced expert has admitted to planting fake tools. A team investigating how the scandalized archaeologist, Shinichi Fujimura, buried phony...

Cover-up charges hover over pro-Pyongyang lender.
November 5, 2001... Criminal charges are looming over sacked executives of a failed pro-Pyongyang credit union who allegedly tried to dupe government inspectors by hiding documents, sources said Saturday. The Chogin Tokyo Credit Cooperative's former chiefs...

Neighbor confesses to missing woman's murder.
November 5, 2001... MIYAZAKI -- A slain woman's next-door neighbor was arrested Saturday for murdering and robbing the victim, who had been missing for days. Statements from the accused, barbershop operator Hitoshi Maehara, led prefectural police to the...

Law red-cards Fukuoka footballer over teen prostitute.
November 5, 2001... FUKUOKA -- A professional soccer player on the books of J.League club Avispa Fukuoka was arrested Saturday for hiring a teen prostitute earlier this year. The 19-year-old footballer, whose name is being withheld because he is a minor,...

Tokyo offers extended SDF role in war on terrorism.
November 5, 2001... Japanese officials have expanded the proposed area of the Self-Defense Forces' (SDF) contentious involvement in U.S. anti-terrorist operations, offering to help transport American supplies from Hawaii and Guam to the Indian Ocean. The...

Don't let the U.S. economy keel over.
November 5, 2001... With the U.S. economy wobbling, the world is in trouble -- and Washington and the rest of the globe, including Tokyo, have to find ways to fend off a major disaster. The figures are troubling. For the first time in 8-1/2 years, the U.S....

Old climber tumbles to death in Saitama.
November 5, 2001... OGANO, Saitama -- An elderly real estate agent plunged to his death during a mountain climbing expedition with companions in Saitama Prefecture, police said. Shigeharu Sekiguchi, from Nerima-ku in Tokyo, initially survived a...

Bar-murder suspect surrenders in Sapporo.
November 5, 2001... SAPPORO -- A jobless man wanted over the murder of his girlfriend at her Sapporo bar has turned himself in to police after vanishing for less than a week. Law enforcers said Sunday that they were questioning 38-year-old Shuji Onaka over...

Besieged Tanaka fights back against G-8 attendance ban.
November 5, 2001... Under-fire Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka has refused to bow to a ruling and opposition party ban on her attending this month's Group of Eight (G-8) meeting. "I think I'm obliged to attend at least the G-8 meeting, so I will ask ruling...

Survey: Leprosy patients fear return to society.
November 5, 2001... Despite being cured, less than 2 percent of some 4,300 Hansen's disease patients still living in state-run sanatoriums want to return to their old homes, a study shows. Many of those surveyed said they wished to remain where they were...

Locals to grade Shinagawa schools.
November 5, 2001... Schools will find themselves being tested under the glare of pupils' parents and local community members from next year as a part of an education shake-up for Tokyo's Shinagawa-ku. Controversial reforms will see each of the ward's 58...

Japan meet aims to save landslide-threatened ancient sites.
November 5, 2001... KYOTO -- The world's top geoscientists will gather in Japan next year to discuss stopping landslides demolishing invaluable ancient sites, Kyoto University officials have announced. Members of the university's Disaster Prevention Research...

All clear given after reactor blaze.
November 2, 2001... OARAI, Ibaraki -- A fire at a nuclear reactor here Wednesday night was soon extinguished and did not lead to a radioactivity leak, police said Thursday. Firefighters had the blaze under control about three hours after it broke out in a...

Lonely Hearts crimes skyrocket.
November 2, 2001... Crimes during the first half of the year stemming from people who met up through online personals sites have skyrocketed to three times the number of similar crimes in all of 2000, a shocking National Police Agency (NPA) report showed...

Gun-toting Buddhist priest busted.
November 2, 2001... NARA -- An elderly Buddhist priest has been arrested after he was found roaming around his temple brandishing a pistol, police said Thursday. Hisamitsu Yamada, the 70-year-old chief priest at the Fukugenji Temple in Kawakami, Nara...

PM rebuffs mass lawsuit over shrine trip.
November 2, 2001... OSAKA -- Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has shot back at a "preposterous" mass lawsuit targeting him and the government over Koizumi's controversial visit to Yasukuni Shrine. Hundreds of war-bereaved lodged the legal action at the Osaka...

Death cult manual sales booming.
November 2, 2001... Sales of a Tokyo Metropolitan Government bio-terrorism countermoves manuals drawn up in the wake of the lethal sarin gas attack by the AUM Shinrikyo death cult have boomed following the anthrax attacks on the United States. Hospitals and...

Viagra copycat importer subjected to hard crackdown.
November 2, 2001... A man who imported a Viagra copycat and made millions of yen selling it in the guise of a health food to impotent men has been arrested, police said Thursday. Yoshio Inamura was one of five men arrested for breaking the Pharmaceutical...

Mama-san fatally bashed in Sapporo bar.
November 2, 2001... SAPPORO -- A bar mama-san was fatally bashed in her establishment and her body left there for days until a worried customer finally found it, police said Thursday. Yumi Yamamoto, 51, died from a brain hemorrhage brought on by bludgeoning...

JR East ditches ban on cheap holiday tickets.
November 2, 2001... East Japan Railway Co. (JR East) has decided to scrap its system of not allowing passengers to use discount round-trip tickets during peak holiday periods, the company has announced. Company officials said the move would enable a large...

Persecuted man found dead.
November 2, 2001... A missing Saitama Prefecture man's body has been found along the banks of the Arakawa River just days after a man was arrested for threatening him, police said Thursday. Rikiya Kanda is believed to have drowned in the river. His...

Mom dies after brawl with son over fried rice.
November 2, 2001... HACHINOHE, Aomori -- A 13-year-old boy who hit his mother in the head because he didn't like her fried rice has been taken into custody after she died following his attack, police said Thursday. It's not known if the boy's blow caused his...

Terrorism slices into Sept. tourist trade.
November 2, 2001... The number of Japanese tourists and businesspeople traveling overseas plummeted in September by more than 20 percent because of the terror strikes on America, a tourism agency said Thursday. Concerns over further attacks frightened off a...

America, Japan dig in for SDF-role talks.
November 2, 2001... Japanese and U.S. officials, officially sketching out details for the first time of the Self-Defense Forces' (SDF) controversial role in the war on terrorism, agreed Thursday to create a high-level coordination committee. In Thursday's...

Answering the jobless riddle.
November 2, 2001... The unemployment rate hit a record high of 5.3 percent in September, according to public management ministry figures released Tuesday. The 0.3 percent rise from August was the biggest monthly jump since March 1967. It's a staggering...

Brazilian man nabbed over bank heist.
November 2, 2001... HAMAMATSU, Shizuoka -- A Brazilian man who robbed a bank here of 14 million yen has been arrested and an accomplice has been placed on a wanted list, law enforcers said Thursday. The man, Rodrigues Macio Santos, 23, unemployed, allegedly...

Yomiuri deals NTV affiliate a Giant-killing blow.
November 1, 2001... Frustrated Yomiuri Giants officials have responded to the team's worst-ever TV ratings game pounding by ending NTV's monopoly on coverage of the perennial powerhouse's home games. NHK, the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster, will be...

Deadly mom escapes jail.
November 1, 2001... KAWAGOE, Saitama -- A Tokyo club hostess who failed to breast-feed her newborn and refused to take the child to a doctor after it suffered a brain hemorrhage was found guilty of causing her death, but allowed to avoid prison. Minami...

Sumo stable manager mows down old woman.
November 1, 2001... FUKUOKA -- A sumo stable manager mowed down and killed a 77-year-old woman here Tuesday night, police said Wednesday. Yuichi Makita, 29, manager of a sumo stable, apparently failed to see Kazue Dan, a 77-year-old woman from Matsudo, Chiba...

Masked bandits raid bar.
November 1, 2001... SANO, Tochigi -- Three masked bandits burst into a bar here early Wednesday, bound and blindfolded its mama-san and made off with about 100,000 yen in cash, police said. Kayoko Muto, 53, the mama-san of the bar, escaped unscathed despite...

Osaka man fatally stabbed by neighbor.
November 1, 2001... OSAKA -- An Osaka man has died after he was apparently stabbed by a resident of the same apartment block where he lived, police said Wednesday. Yoshiharu Mahiko was found Tuesday night lying in a pool of blood in the barbershop where he...

Little old woman beats builder over 'untouchable' home.
November 1, 2001... KYOTO -- A tiny old woman has been awarded almost 5 million yen to refurbish her home after suing major construction company Shimizu House Corp. because the home it built her had features she couldn't reach. "I was furious when they told...

Teacher molests 7 schoolgirls.
November 1, 2001... SAPPORO -- A public high schoolteacher sexually molested seven schoolgirls during class over a roughly one-year period, Hokkaido Prefectural Board of Education officials said Wednesday. The teacher, a 29-year-old man whose name has not...

Sick man finds toddler in car stolen to see doc.
November 1, 2001... SAKAI, Osaka -- A man has been arrested after stealing a car to drive to a hospital only to discover a 3-year-old girl was still inside the vehicle, police said Wednesday. The 26-year-old man whose name is being withheld because he has a...

Cops let prisoner return home for sweater.
November 1, 2001... MITO -- Six police officers have been punished for allowing a prisoner awaiting trial on drugs charges to return to her home to pick up a sweater because she was feeling cold, the Mainichi learned Wednesday. It is believed the unnamed...

Truncheon-hurling officer sacked.
November 1, 2001... OITA -- A police sergeant who hurled his truncheon at a teen-age biker gang member, knocking him off the vehicle and breaking his pelvis, was Wednesday fired by the Oita Prefectural Police. And the unnamed, 28-year-old sergeant could also...

Elderly numbers overtake youth.
November 1, 2001... The population of elderly people over 65 exceeded the number of those under 15 for the first time because more and more people prefer being single to marriage, a 2000 national census has revealed. The census learned that the number of...

Gang-bashing schoolgirls prompt report to police.
November 1, 2001... HIGASHIOSAKA, Osaka -- A group of public junior high schoolgirls who repeatedly bashed younger pupils have been reported to the police, Higashiosaka Board of Education officials said Wednesday. Two of the four girls repeatedly beaten by...