Timeline of Japan 1980-2000
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1980 Jan 11,
Honda announced that it would build Japan's first US passenger-car
assembly plant in Ohio.
(HN, 1/11/99)
1980 Jan 16, Paul McCartney was
arrested in Tokyo for marijuana possession. He was released and
deported on Jan 25.
(www.taima.org/en/hemplib3.htm#mccartney)
1980 Jan 25, Paul McCartney
was released from Tokyo jail & deported.
(www.taima.org/en/hemplib3.htm#mccartney)
1980 May 22, The computer game
Pac-Man was first released in Japan. Pac-Man, with its characters:
Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde, epitomized the arcade games of the 1980s.
(SFC, 7/5/97,
p.E1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pac-Man)
1980 Jul 17, Zenko Suzuki
(1911-2004) was appointed prime minister of Japan. He resigned after 2
years.
(SFC, 7/21/04,
p.B7)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenko_Suzuki)
1980 The film "Kagemusha" was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1980 The Noda Shoyu Co. Ltd. was
renamed Kikkoman.
(SFC, 1/3/00, p.B7)
1980 Dr. Fujio Masuoka, a
researcher at Toshiba, filed a patent for a variation on floating-gate
memory. His invention was dubbed flash memory because it allowed entire
sections of memory to be erased quickly.
(Econ, 3/11/06, Survey p.28)
1981 Apr 9, The submarine USS
George Washington ran into the Japanese freighter Nisso Maru. 2
Japanese crewmen were killed.
(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,164904,00.html)
1981 Jul, Kenji Urada (37),
Japanese factory worker, was killed by a robot’s hydraulic arm becoming
the 1st recorded victim to die at the hands of robot. Details of the
accident were revealed for the first time on December 8, 1981,
following a government investigation.
(Econ, 6/10/06, Survey
p.18)(www.tslpl.org/art/811211.htm)
1981 Nov 12, The Double Eagle V
landed in California 84 hours and 31 minutes following its Nov 10
launch in Japan. It was the 1st balloon to cross the Pacific ocean.
Rocky Aoki (1938-2008), founder of the Benihana steakhouse (1964), was
part of the crew.
(http://www.benihana.com/ballooning_history.asp)(SFC, 7/12/08, p.B5)
1981 Nov 18, In Los Angeles
Kazuyoshi Miura and his wife (28), visitors from Japan, were shot in a
downtown parking lot. His wife went into a coma and later died in
Japan. In 1985 Miura was arrested on suspicion of assaulting his wife
for insurance money and in 1994 he was convicted of murder. In 1998 a
Japanese high court overturned the sentence. In 2008 Miura was arrested
in Saipan. He was extradited to the US and committed suicide by hanging
on Oct 10, 4 days prior to arraignment on murder conspiracy charges. He
was 61.
(SSFC, 2/24/08, p.B3)(SFC, 10/15/08, p.B4)
1982 Feb 9, On approach to Haneda
Airport a Japan Airlines DC-8 plunged into Tokyo Bay killing 24 people.
141 survived the crash caused when the captain pushed the nose down
prematurely and engaged in a struggle with the co-pilot.
(WSJ, 3/10/98,
p.A1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_350)
1982 Aug 11, Pan Am flight 830
from Tokyo to Honolulu was bombed. One boy was killed and 15 people
were injured. In 1998 Mohammed Rashid, a Palestinian national, was
turned over to the US by Egypt on charges related to the bombing.
(SFC, 6/4/98,
p.A4)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_830)
1982 Nov 26, Yasuhiro Nakasone of
the LDP was elected 71st Japanese prime minister.
(HN, 11/26/98)(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.10)
1982 Chalmers Johnson authored
"MITI and the Japanese Economic Miracle."
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A14)
1982 Konishiki, born Salevaa
Atisanoe in American Samoa, began competing in sumo wrestling. He
opened sumo wrestling to international competition and achieved the
2nd-highest rank. The 600-pound wrestler announced his retirement in
1997.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A23)
1982 Racketeering by a sokaiya was
outlawed. Extortion of Japanese firms by sokaiya had been going on for
almost a hundred years.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.D3)
1982 Honda, the first Japanese
auto maker to start production in the US, began making the Honda Accord
at Marysville, Ohio.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)(F, 10/7/96, p.71)(WSJ,
4/1/09, p.A20)
1982 Japan’s Sony Corp. introduced
the 1st CD player.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1983 Feb 24, A US congressional
commission, the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of
Civilians, released a report condemning the internment of
Japanese-Americans during World War II as a "grave injustice."
(AP, 2/24/98)(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.A10)
1983 Mar, Compact Disc recordings,
introduced by Phillips and Sony in Europe in 1982, were introduced to
the US.
(www.iconnect.net/home/bsnpubs/cdhist.html)
1983 Apr 15, Tokyo Disneyland
opened.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Disneyland)
1983 May 26, A 7.8 earthquake
struck off the shore of Hokkaido, Japan, and a major tsunami followed.
Some 100 fatalities were due to the tsunami.
(http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119551140/abstract)
1983 Nov 11, President Reagan
became the first U.S. chief executive to address the Diet, Japan's
national legislature.
(AP, 11/11/03)
1983 Chio Uno wrote her memoir "I
Will Go On Living." It became a best seller and a TV movie.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A21)
1983 In Japan Kenshi Hirokane
created his Mr Shima, a salaryman manga (cartoon) character. By 2008
some 30 million Shima Kosaku books had been sold.
(Econ, 8/9/08, p.65)
1983 In Japan Koji Takahashi
founded the Life Space cult. His self-enlightenment seminars were an
instant success. The group believed that the human body never dies.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)
1983 The Green Cross Corp., a
major Japanese pharmaceutical firm, was later accused of having sold
unheated blood products at this time even after learning that they
could infect people with the AIDS virus. In 1996 prosecutors raided
their offices. Drug company executives, Renzo Matsushita (79), Takehiko
Kawano (69) and Tadakazu Suyama (72) pleaded guilty in 1997 and began
prison terms in 2000.
(SFC, 8/31/96, p.A14)(SFC, 2/25/00, p.D4)
1983 Japan’s Nissan began to
produce trucks in the US.
(WSJ, 6/19/96, Adv. Supl)
1983 Keiko Arimoto of Japan was
lured to N. Korea while job hunting in Denmark. In 2002 N. Korea
admitted to having kidnapped her and listed her as dead.
(SFC, 9/18/02, p.A10)
1984 The Japanese film "The
Funeral" by Juzo Itami (1933-1997) was produced.
(SFC,12/22/97, p.A19)
1984 In Japan Kazuo Inamori,
founder of the Japanese technology group Kyocera, established the
annual Kyoto Prizes for achievements in advanced technology, basic
sciences, arts and philosophy. The Inamori Foundation administered the
awards.
(SFC, 6/9/06,
p.B3)(http://en.kyocera.de/kyocera_n/english/news/kyotoprize2004.html)
1984 Sakura company rolled out the
first gel ink pen. By 1999 the gelly pen was a huge fad among kids in
the US.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A1)
1984 Shoko Asahara started a yoga
school in Tokyo. In 1987 he founded the Aum Shinri Kyo cult.
(WSJ, 9/28/01, p.A12)
1985 Jun 23, All 329 people aboard
an Air India Boeing 747 were killed when Flight 182 from Montreal to
London crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland, apparently because
of a bomb. An hour earlier, a bomb in baggage intended for another Air
India flight exploded in a Tokyo airport, killing two baggage handlers.
In 2000 Canadian police arrested 2 men of Sikh origin for the bombing.
In 2001 Canadian prosecutors filed murder charges against Inderjit
Singh Reyat. In 2003 Reyat was sentenced to 5 years for his role in
making the bomb. In 2005 a Canadian judge acquitted 2 men who had been
accused of conspiring in the case. Talwinder Parmar (1944-1992) was
later assumed to have been the mastermind behind the attacks.
(AP, 6/23/97)(SFC, 10/28/00, p.A13)(SFC, 6/6/01,
p.C3)(AP, 2/11/03)(AP, 3/17/05)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.47)
1985 Aug 12, The world's worst
single-aircraft disaster occurred as a crippled Japan Air Lines Boeing
747 on a domestic flight crashed into Mount Otsuka, 70 miles northwest
of Tokyo, killing 520 of 524 people onboard. A flawed splice made by
Boeing 7 years earlier was the probable cause. In 2006 Japan opened a
museum to remember the crash. Boeing and JAL paid undisclosed
settlements to each victim’s family.
(AP, 8/12/97)(WSJ, 7/27/06, p.A1)
1985 Sep 22, In NYC ministers of
America, Japan, West Germany, France and Britain (the Group of Five,
G-5) unified and adopted the Plaza Accord for currency intervention and
struggled to control capital exchange-rate movements. Led by the US
Treasury's Sec. James Baker, it was the first effort to restore some
semblance of order to the monetary system since the collapse of the
postwar Breton Woods gold-anchored finance systems in the early 1970s.
In the wake of the accord the dollar lost almost 30% of its value.
(www.g7.utoronto.ca/finance/fm850922.htm)(WSJ,
3/8/04, p.A2)(Econ, 10/9/04, p.72)
1985 The film "Ran" was directed
by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1985 The Studio Ghibli was founded
by film animators Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata in suburban Tokyo
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1985 Nintendo Co. of Japan
launched its first home video game console: the Nintendo Entertainment
System.
(Hem, 4/96, p.29)
1986 Mar 11, The Japanese probe
Sakigake flew by Halley's Comet at 6.8 million km.
(MC, 3/12/02)
1986 Nov 1, In Japan seven charred
bodies of women of the cult Friends of Truth were found on a beach.
Their leader had recently died in a hospital.
(SFC, 3/27/97, p.A19)
1986 Nov 20, The US Federal
Reserve Board approved a $500 million equity investment by Japan’s
Sumitomo Bank in Goldman Sachs.
(Econ, 5/19/07, SR p.20)(http://tinyurl.com/3xdm2q)
1986 The Japanese anime film
"Laputa Castle in the Sky" was made by Hayao Miyazaki.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1986 The Japanese anime film
"Nausicaa of the Valley of the Gods" was made by Hayao Miyazaki. It was
released as "Warriors of the Wind" in the US.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1986 The Japanese film "Tampopo,"
directed by Juzo Itami, was produced and released in the US in 1987. It
was about an enterprising widow who fulfills her aspiration to become
Tokyo's best noodle maker with the help of a truck driver who fancies
himself a cowboy.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1986 Takako Doi was elected the
head of the Socialist Party and became the first woman to lead a
political party in Japan.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1986 Japan began its H-2 rocket
program. The H-2 was terminated in 1999.
(SFC, 12/10/99, p.D8)
1986-1988 Kiichi Miyazawa served as finance minister.
He presided over a "bubble economy" period of inflated land and stock
prices.
(SFC, 7/31/98, p.A16)
1987 Mar 30, Vincent Van Gogh's
"Sunflowers" was bought for $39.85 million. The Vincent van Gogh
painting "Sunflowers" was presented by art teacher Claude-Emile
Schuffenecker at a 1901 Paris exhibition. It sold in 1987 for $40.3
million to the Yasuda Fire and Marine Insurance Co. and was reported in
1997 to be a possible fake. Van Gogh’s letters refer to only 6
paintings of sunflowers, and the Yasuda painting is a seventh.
(SFC,10/27/97, p.D4)(HN, 3/30/98)
1987 Apr 17, President Reagan
slapped $300 million in punitive duties on imported Japanese computers,
television sets and power tools, in retaliation for Japan's alleged
violation of a computer chip trade agreement.
(AP, 4/17/97)
1987 Sep, Eamonn Fingleton
authored an article in Euromoney titled “Why Japanese Banks Are Shaky.”
(www.fingleton.net/about_ef.php)
1987 Oct 31, Noboro Takeshita
(d.2000 at 76), leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, was elected
party president in his first official step toward replacing Prime
Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. He served as premier to 1989.
(AP, 10/31/97)(SFC, 6/19/00, p.E2)
1987 Nov 18, CBS Inc. announced it
had agreed to sell its records division to Sony Corp. for about $2
billion.
(AP, 11/18/97)
1987 Haruki Murakami authored
"Norwegian Wood." The novel experimented with reality and sold 2
million copies. An English translation was made in 1997.
(SFC, 1/1/01, p.B7)
1987 Robert Whiting published "You
Gotta Have Wa," a nonfiction work on Japanese baseball.
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.B10)
1987 The Japanese film "Tampopo,"
directed by Juzo Itami, was released in the US. It was about an
enterprising widow who fulfills her aspiration to become Tokyo's best
noodle maker with the help of a truck driver who fancies himself a
cowboy.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1987 The Aum Shinri Kyo (Supreme
Truth) cult was founded by Shoko Asahara. It was a combination of
Christianity and Buddhism.
(SFC, 3/21/00, p.A14)
1987 Japan gave its tentative
consent to co-develop a version of the US F-16 fighter jet.
(WSJ, 3/22/96, p.A-1)
1987 Japan began privatizing Japan
National Railways, the state railroad monopoly.
(WSJ, 1/10/05, p.A10)
1987 Japan privatized Japan
Airlines (JAL). By 2001 it required 3 state bailouts.
(Econ, 10/3/09, p.76)
1987 Toyota introduced All Trac
models, featuring 4-wheel-drive, of Camry and other cars.
(WSJ, 9/16/05, p.W12)
1988 Apr, The Japanese Red Army
bombed a US military recreational club in Naples. 5 people were killed.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
1988 Jun 8, Nippon Airways
announced that painting eyeballs on Jets cut bird collisions by 20%.
(MC, 6/8/02)
1988 Aug 10, President Reagan
signed the Civil Liberties Act, a measure providing $20,000 payments to
Japanese-Americans interned by the U.S. government during World War II.
(AP, 8/10/97)(SFEC, 8/9/98, p.A1)
1988 Yuji Ichioka (d.2002 at 66),
San Francisco born historian, authored "Issei," a study of 1st
generation Japanese-Americans.
(SFC, 9/21/02, p.A30)
1988 Clyde Prestowitz authored
"Trading Places." T prescribed a tough US trade stance to counter
Japan's economic challenge.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A14)
1988 The Japanese horror film
"Evil Dead Trap" starred Miyuki Ono and was directed by Toshiharu Ikeda.
(SFC, 10/25/98, p.D2)
1988 The Japanese anime film
"Grave of the Fireflies" was made by Isao Takahata.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1988 The Japanese anime film “My
Neighbor Totoro” was made by Hayao Miyazaki.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)(SFC, 8/7/09, p.E2)
1988 The Recruit Scandal exposed
leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who were accused of
accepting stock and cash bribes from the Recruit Co., a personnel
recruiting and publishing conglomerate.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 216)
1988 Yasumitsu Shigeta founded
Hikari Tsushim (light communications), a mobile phone franchise. His
assets were valued at $70 billion when his stock and internet assets
collapsed in 2000 and his fortune dropped to $2.5 billion.
(WSJ, 4/27/00, p.A1)
1988 Nintendo of Japan launched
its Nintendo Power magazine aimed at boys 8-15 years old. It claims a
subscription based circulation of 1 million.
(Hem, 4/96, p.30)
1988 Sony Corp. acquired CBS
Records. [see Nov 18, 1987]
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)
1989 Jan 7, Emperor Hirohito of
Japan died at age 87 after the longest reign in the history of Japan
(1922-89); he was succeeded by Crown Prince Akihito. Heisei, which
means Peace and Prosperity, was adopted as the new reign name. For the
first time since 1955, the Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority
in the Diet's Upper House. In 1989 Edward Behr authored "Hirohito:
Behind the Myth." In 2000 Herbert P. Bix authored "Hirohito and the
Making of Modern Japan." Hirohito was a marine biologist and collector.
His work included the illustrated book "Crabs of Sagami Bay."
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)(AP, 1/7/98)(WSJ, 8/30/00,
p.A24)(WSJ, 5/29/01, p.A20)
1989 Feb 24, A state funeral was
held in Japan for Emperor Hirohito, who died the month before at age 87.
(AP, 2/24/99)
1989 Apr 1, A Japanese 3 percent
consumption, or sales tax, took effect. It earned Sadanori Yamanaka
(d.2004) the nickname "Mr. Consumption Tax." Yamanaka led the ruling
Liberal Democratic Party's tax commission for eight years, beginning in
1979.
(AP, 2/20/04)
1989 Apr 25, Japanese Prime
Minister Noboru Takeshita announced his resignation in order to take
responsibility for his involvement in Japan's Recruit stock scandal.
(AP, 4/25/99)
1989 Jun 3, Japan’s Foreign
Minister Sousuke Uno was named prime minister. He replaced Noboru
Takeshita, who resigned to save his ruling Liberal Democratic Party
from further embarrassment over an influence peddling scandal.
(www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,957926,00.html)
1989 Jul 23, Japan's ruling
Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the upper house of the
Diet in parliamentary elections.
(AP, 7/23/99)
1989 Jul 24, Japan’s PM Sousuke
Uno (1922-1998) resigned in the wake of Japan's ruling party's defeat.
Uno resigned amid a scandal involving his geisha mistress. Criticism
focused on allegations that he treated her in a miserly fashion.
(http://openweb.tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/1989-7/1989-07-24-ABC-11.html)(SFC,
8/20/96, p.A18)
1989 Aug 9, Toshiki Kaifu was
elected prime minister of Japan, succeeding Sousuke Uno.
(AP, 8/9/99)
1989 Sep 27, Columbia Pictures
Entertainment Inc. agreed to a $3.4 billion buyout by Sony Corporation.
(AP, 9/27/99)
1989 Oct 30, Mitsubishi Estate
Co., a major Japanese real estate concern, announced it was buying 51
percent of Rockefeller Group Inc. of New York.
(AP, 10/30/99)
1989 Nov 4, In Japan Yokohama
lawyer, Tsutsumi Sakamoto, was kidnapped with his wife and infant son.
He had been leading a legal crusade against the Aum Shinri Kyo cult.
Later top members of the cult admitted to killing the family. In 1998
Kazuaki Okazaki (38) was sentenced to death for the murder. In 2000
Satoru Hashimoto was sentenced to death for the strangling deaths of
the Sakamoto family and for the 1995 sarin gas attacks.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 10/24/98, p.A12)(SFC,
7/26/00, p.A14)
1989 Dec 25, The Bank of Japan
raised interest rates to slow the heated economy.
(Econ, 7/22/06, p.66)
1989 Dec 31, The Japanese Nikkei
Index peaked at 38,915. The DJIA was at 2753.
(WSJ, 9/5/01, p.C1)
1989 The Japanese anime film
“Kiki’s Delivery Service” was made by Hayao Miyazaki.
(SFC, 8/7/09, p.E2)
1989 The Japanese police drama
film "Violent Cop" starred Takeshi Kitano, who also directed.
(SFC, 8/27/99, p.C3)
1989 Prime Minister Sousuke Uno
resigned over a scandal involving his geisha mistress. Criticism
focused on allegations that he treated her in a miserly fashion.
(SFC, 8/20/96, p.A18)(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1989 Shintaro Isihara and Akio
Morita, former chairman of Sony, co-authored "The Japan That Can Say
No." It argued that Japan should challenge US hegemony and act as a
geopolitical free agent.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A10)
1989 Nintendo Co. of Japan
launched its Game Boy product, a portable, hand-held game system with
interchangeable game packs. The game was designed by Gunpei Yokoi
(d.1997 at 56).
(Hem, 4/96, p.29)(SFC, 10/11/97, p.A19)
1989 The Showa Shinzan
snowball-fight championship was begun as a tourist attraction in
Sobetsucho, Japan.
(WSJ, 2/26/04, p.A1)
1990 Feb 18, In general elections,
Japan's conservative governing party held onto its 34-year-old majority
in the Parliament's lower house.
(AP, 2/18/00)
1990 Apr, The Aum Shinri Kyo cult
sent three trucks into central Tokyo to spray poisonous botulin mists.
The convoy then attacked US bases at Yokohama and Yokosuka. The botulin
did not work and the cult turned to use anthrax.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)
1990 May 15, The "Portrait of
Doctor Gachet" (1890) by Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) sold for $82.5
million to Ryoei Saito, Japan's second-largest paper manufacturer.
(www.vggallery.com/painting/p_0753.htm)
1990 Nov 26, Japanese business
giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. agreed to acquire MCA Inc. for
$6.6 billion.
(AP, 11/26/01)
1990 Shintaro Ishihara (b.1932), a
member of Japan’s House of Representatives, authored “The Japan That
Can Say No,” in which he outlines what Japan must do in order to be the
mainspring of the new world order.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shintaro_Ishihara)
1990 The film "Dreams" was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1990 Japan raised its interest
rates and ordered banks to curtail property lending. This resulted in a
major crash in land values. Speculation in domestic real estate,
stocks, overpriced overseas investments, and foreign pressure to force
the value of the yen upward causes a collapse of the "bubble economy."
(WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-1)(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)
1990 Chiyo Uno (1897-1996) was
awarded a title by the emperor and named a "person of cultural merit."
Her best know book was "Ohan" (1957).
(SFC, 6/11/96,
p.A21)(http://asian-literature.suite101.com/article.cfm/uno_chiyo)
1990 The Sakura Bank was created
from the merger of Mitsui Bank and Taiyo Kobe Bank.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A10)
1990 Fusako Sano (9) disappeared
while walking home in Sanjo in Niigita Prefecture. In 2000 she was
found held hostage at the home of Nobuyuki Sato (37), 35 miles away
from where she was kidnapped.
(SFC, 4/11/00, p.A12)
1990-2000 This was a period of economic stagnation in
Japan and later called "the lost decade." It resulted in the opening of
the Japanese economy to foreigners. In 2006 a trio of economists
authored a paper “Zombie lending and depressed re-structuring in
Japan,” which examined how subsidies to weak firms prolonged Japan’s
period of deflation.
(WSJ, 12/28/00, p.A1)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.62)
1991 Jun 3, Mount Unzendake in
southern Japan erupted and left 43 people dead and nearly 2,300
homeless. The dead included volcano experts Maurice and Katia Krafft.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(SFEC, 4/2/00, p.A17)(AP,
6/3/01)(WSJ, 4/18/02, p.D7)
1991 Jul 12, A Japanese professor
who had translated Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" was found
stabbed to death, nine days after the novel's Italian translator was
attacked in Milan.
(AP, 7/12/01)
1991 Dr. Junichi Saga authored
"Confessions of a Yakuza." It was based on the testimony of Eiji
Ijichi, a retired Japanese gangster. In 2003 it was noted that Bob
Dylan used lines from the book in his 2001 album "Love and Theft."
(WSJ, 7/8/03, p.A1)
1991 Christo created his
"Umbrellas" sculpture that lasted 3 weeks. 1,760 yellow umbrellas were
unfurled north of Los Angeles and another 1,340 blue ones in Ibaraki,
Japan.
(SFC, 3/2/97, p.E4)(SSFC, 2/13/05, p.A10)
1991 The Japanese anime film "Only
Yesterday" was made by Isao Takahata.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1991 The film "Rhapsody in August"
was directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was about a family who lost an uncle
in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1991 The sci-fi Japanese film
"Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer" was filmed. Shinya Tsukamoto starred in
and directed the film.
(SFC, 8/8/97, p.D4)
1991 Factional infighting brought
down Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu and his cabinet. He was replaced by
Kiichi Miyazawa.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)
1991 Ryoei Saito purchased 2
paintings by Van Gogh and Renoir for $185 million.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R4)
1991 Carbon nanotubules, formed
from hexagonal arrays of carbon atoms, were first discovered by Sumio
Iijima of NEC Fundamental Research Labs in Tsukuba, Japan. In 2001 IBM
scientists assembled transistors using carbon nanotubules.
(SFC, 4/27/01, p.B1,4)
1992 Jan 8, President Bush
collapsed during a state dinner in Tokyo; White House officials said
Bush was suffering from stomach flu.
(AP, 1/8/02)
1992 Jan 13, Japan apologized for
forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for
Japanese soldiers during World War II.
(AP, 1/13/98)
1992 Feb 3, Japanese Prime
Minister Kiichi Miyazawa sparked controversy by saying American workers
were losing the drive "to live by the sweat of their brow."
(AP, 2/3/02)
1992 Jun 11, Baseball owners
approved the sale of Seattle Mariners to a Japanese group.
(http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/S/Seattle_Mariners.stm)
1992 Oct 17, Japanese exchange
student Yoshi Hattori, 16, was shot and killed by Rodney Peairs in
Center, La., after Hattori and his American host mistakenly knocked on
Peairs' door while looking for a Halloween party. Peairs was acquitted
of manslaughter, but in a civil trial was ordered to pay more than
$650,000 in damages to Hattori's family.
(AP, 10/17/97)
1992 Oct 23, Japanese Emperor
Akihito began a visit to China, the first by a Japanese monarch.
(AP, 10/23/97)
1992 Yuko Iwanami, the
granddaughter of Hideki Tojo, published "My Grandfather Hideki Tojo."
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A15)
1992 Nobuhiro Watsuki first
published “Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story” in the boy’s magazine Weekly
Shonen Jump Special. He re-wrote it in 1994 and expanded the saga of
the Meiji Restoration of 1868 as a serial that ran thru 1999. In 2004
it became the top-selling graphic novel in the US.
(SSFC, 4/10/05, p.B3)
1992 The Japanese anime film
"Porco Rosso" was made by Hayao Miyazaki.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1992 The Japanese film "The
Winners" featured an old gent's quest to take his team to the national
gateball championships. Gateball, based on croquet, was invented after
WW II by Washin Suzuki, a former military policeman, as a game for
children. It was later promoted as good exercise for seniors.
(WSJ, 1/10/00, p.A1)
1992 Emp. Akihito opened a museum
devoted to the art and poetry collections of past rulers on his palace
grounds.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.E3)
1992 The government passed the PKO
bill. The controversial legislation allowed troops to be sent abroad on
peace-keeping missions.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)
1992 Japan passed a law that made
it a crime to demand that a securities company return investment losses.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.D3)
1992 Japan passed an anti-mob law
the clearly defined illegal behavior and penalized companies with
yakuza ties. This led to the practice of using former policemen to
replace yakuza for protection.
(Econ, 2/28/09, p.45)
1992 Ling Ling (d.2008), a giant
panda born at China's Beijing Zoo in 1985, came to Tokyo. He later
traveled to Mexico three times for unsuccessful mating.
(AP, 4/30/08)
1992 Juzo Itami, film director,
was slashed in the face and seriously injured by Japanese mobsters
upset over his unflattering portrayal of gangsters in a film.
(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1992 The Asahi Glass Foundation of
Japan began sponsoring the Blue Planet Prize, an award for
environmental work.
(SFC, 6/15/99, p.A20)
1992 Nicola Zappetti, American
gangster in Japan, died. He had told his story to Robert Whiting who
published in 1999: "Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of
an American Gangster in Japan."
(SFC, 8/14/99, p.B1)
1993 Jan 15, A 7.5 earthquake
struck northern Japan and 2 people died.
(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eq_depot/2003/eq_030925/)
1993 Feb 28, Ishiro Honda (81),
Japanese director, producer (Godzilla), died.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0393094/)
1993 Apr 15, The Group of Seven
nations unveiled a $28.4 billion aid package for Russia at the
conclusion of an emergency two-day meeting in Tokyo.
(AP, 4/15/98)
1993 Apr 16, At the White House,
President Clinton pressed Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa to
help ease Japan's persistent trade surplus with the United States.
(AP, 4/16/98)
1993 May 23, A jury in Baton
Rouge, La., acquitted Rodney Peairs of manslaughter in the shooting
death of Yoshi Hattori, a Japanese exchange student he'd mistaken for
an intruder. Peairs was later found liable in a civil suit brought by
Hattori's parents.
(AP, 5/23/08)
1993 Jun 9, As millions of
Japanese watched on television, Crown Prince Naruhito wed commoner
Masako Owada in an elaborate Shinto religious ceremony.
(AP, 6/9/98)
1993 Jun 18, In Japan, the
government of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa fell.
(AP, 6/18/98)
1993 Jun, The Aum Shinri Kyo cult
pumped a slurry of liquid anthrax into a sprayer and created a cloud
that would settle on victims, but it didn't work.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)
1993 Jul 6, On the eve of the
Group of Seven summit in Tokyo, President Clinton and Japanese Prime
Minister Kiichi Miyazawa expressed optimism about resolving a
contentious trade dispute between their countries.
(AP, 7/6/98)
1993 Jul 7, The Group of Seven
nations, on the first day of their economic summit in Tokyo, unveiled a
long-sought agreement on world trade. Prior to the summit opening,
President Clinton delivered a speech at Waseda University.
(AP, 7/7/03)
1993 Jul 8, Leaders of the Group
of Seven, in the second day of their Tokyo summit, warned against the
dismembering of Bosnia, but backed away from a threat to use force.
(AP, 7/8/03)
1993 Jul 12, 196 people were
killed when an earthquake measuring a magnitude of 7.8 struck northern
Japan.
(AP, 7/12/98)
1993 Jul 19, Szymon Goldberg (84),
Polish-born violinist, conductor, died in Japan. He became a US citizen
in 1953 and two years later founded the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.
(http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.200152693/default.html)
1993 Jul 22, Japanese Prime
Minister Kiichi Miyazawa agreed to resign, following big election
losses by the scandal-plagued Liberal Democrats.
(AP, 7/22/98)
1993 Jul, The Aum Shinri Kyo cult
again pumped a slurry of liquid anthrax into a sprayer and shot it near
the Imperial Palace and around central Tokyo without success.
(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)
1993 Aug 5, Japan's Cabinet
resigned, paving the way for the end of 38 years of rule by the Liberal
Democratic Party.
(AP, 8/5/03)
1993 Aug 6, Morihiro Hosokawa was
elected the new prime minister of Japan by the country's lower house of
Parliament. The Liberal Democratic Party was ousted after ruling since
1955. Hosokawa had formed the Japan New Party in May 1992. It ruled for
only 8 months.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.B-13)(AP,
8/6/98)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.52)
1993 The film "Madadayo" was
directed by Akira Kurosawa.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1993 The American Akebono was
promoted to yokozuna, the 1st rank of sumo wrestling.
(SFEC,11/23/97, p.A25)
1993 Japan’s government lifted a
four-year moratorium on capital punishment.
(AP, 9/16/05)
1993 The government of Japan
approved 7 foreign access zones to promote imports and foreign
investments.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.B-13)
1993 In Japan Shuji Nakamura, an
employee of Nichia Corp., invented the blue light-emitting diode (LED).
In 2001 Nakamura sued Nichia in a patent dispute that later settled for
$7 million.
(Econ, 2/7/04, p.60)(Econ, 9/23/06, TQ p.27)
1993 Kobo Abe, Japanese writer,
died. He wrote "Woman in the Dunes." In 1996 his last novel "Kangaroo
Notebook" was published.
(SFC, 6/23/96, BR, p.4)
1994 Jan 23, Treasury Secretary
Lloyd Bentsen, visiting Japan, met with Prime Minister Morihiro
Hosokawa, who promised to go through with a scheduled summit with
President Clinton.
(AP, 1/23/99)
1994 Jan 29, Japan's Parliament
approved watershed measures to stem political corruption.
(AP, 1/29/99)
1994 Apr 8, Japanese Prime
Minister Morihiro Hosokawa announced his intention to resign in the
wake of an ever-widening financial scandal. In 1998 Hosokawa abandoned
politics and began studying ceramics. In 2006 his pieces fetched as
much as $10,000.
(AP, 4/8/99)(SSFC, 2/19/06, p.A21)
1994 Apr 25, Conservative Tsutomu
Hata, former foreign minister, became prime minister of Japan,
succeeding Morihiro Hosokawa as political infighting continued.
(Jap. Enc., BLDM, p. 217)(AP, 4/25/99)
1994 May 24, The United States and
Japan agreed to revive efforts to pry open Japanese markets to U.S.
goods.
(AP, 5/24/99)
1994 June 21, Seven people died
and more than 200 were sickened by fumes from the lethal nerve gas
sarin in Matsumoto in Central Japan. The Aum Shinri Kyo cult (Supreme
Truth) was later charged with the attack.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 9/29/97, p.A13)
1994 Jun 25, Japanese Prime
Minister Tsutomu Hata, faced with certain defeat in a no-confidence
vote, announced his intention to resign after just two months in
office.
(AP, 6/25/99)
1994 Jun 29, Japan's parliament
chose Tomiichi Murayama to be the new prime minister, succeeding
Tsutoma Hata.
(AP, 6/29/04)
1994 Jun, Koken Nosaka (d.2004), a
top government spokesman under Japan's first Socialist prime minister,
helped end political turmoil by brokering a once-unthinkable alliance
between his party, the conservative Liberal Democratic Party and the
now-defunct Sakigake Party.
(AP, 4/18/04)
1994 Aug 7, The 10th International
Conference on AIDS opened in Yokohama, Japan.
(AP, 8/7/99)
1994 Aug 11, The Tenth
International Conference on AIDS concluded in Yokohama, Japan.
(AP, 8/11/99)
1994 Oct 1, The United States and
Japan reached a series of trade agreements, averting a threatened trade
war.
(AP, 10/1/99)
1994 Oct 13, Kenzabuto Oe,
Japanese novelist, won the Noble prize for literature. His work
included "An Echo of Heaven."
(SFC, 7/7/96, BR p.9)(AP, 10/13/99)
1994 Nov 25, Sony Corporation
co-founder Akio Morita retired as chairman of the electronics giant for
health reasons.
(AP, 11/25/04)
1994 Dec, Ichiro Ozawa helped form
the new opposition Shinshinto, New Freedom Party, through an alliance
of nine small parties opposed to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party,
LDP.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A12)
1994 Sheldon Harris (d.2002) wrote
"Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the
American Cover-Up." It was about Japanese medical units in Manchuria
that engaged in horrific warfare experiments on humans.
(SFEC, 12/1/96, p.C4)(SFC, 9/9/02, p.A22)
1994 The thriller film "Angel
Dust" was directed by Sogo Ishi.
(SFC, 7/18/97, p.D3)
1994 The 52-story Shinjuku Park
Tower in Tokyo, Japan, was completed. It was designed by Kenzo Tenge
and built for the Tokyo Gas Urban Development Company.
(www.tokyoarchitecture.info/Building/4035/Shinjuku_Park_Tower.php)
1994 The Asian and Pacific Trade
Center opened in Osaka as the first functioning foreign access zone.
(WSJ, 3/27/96, p.B-13)
1994 Tomiicchi Murayama of the
Social Democrats became the head of the government coalition.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A26)
1994 Japan introduced subsidies
for solar power technology. A typical system cost $16,000 per kilowatt,
of which the government paid half. The subsidies were phased out in
2005.
(Econ, 11/18/06, p.73)
1994 Aoyama, a Japanese-born North
Korean engineer, began spying for Japan. In 1997 as an industrial spy
in Beijing he confirmed that North Korea had developed a nuclear bomb.
(SFC, 11/28/02, p.F5)
1994 The Japanese were first
allowed to buy mobile phones.
(WSJ, 4/28/00, p.A6)
1994 Japan posted a record trade
surplus of $120.9 billion.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1994 Japan’s Sony Corp. launched
PlayStation.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1994-1997 Hisako Takahashi, a Labor Ministry
official, served on the Supreme Court. She was the 1st woman to serve
on the Japanese high court.
(SFC, 12/22/01, p.A2)
1995 Jan 11, President Clinton and
Japanese Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama held a low-key summit in
Washington, playing down differences over trade.
(AP, 1/11/00)
1995 Jan 17, A magnitude 6.9
earthquake hit the port city of Kobe, Japan. 5,502 people were killed
in the worst earthquake to hit Japan since 1923.
(WSJ, 1/18/95, p.A1)(AP, 6/22/02)(SSFC, 4/16/06,
p.F4)
1995 Feb 26, Barings PLC,
Britain's oldest investment banking firm, was forced into bankruptcy
after an employee in Singapore, Nicholas William Leeson (28),
speculated in derivatives on Tokyo stock prices that resulted in losses
exceeding $800 million [$1.4 billion].
(WSJ, 2/27/95, p.A1)(AP, 2/26/00)
1995 Mar 2, Ted Truman, a top
int’l. staffer at the Federal Reserve, reported to Alan Greenspan that
massive dollar sales were driving down the US currency. In response the
Fed and Treasury bought $600 million in marks and yen and repeated the
action next day joined by 13 central banks.
(WSJ, 1/18/05, p.A13)
1995 Mar 3, The dollar plunged to
a new low against the Japanese yen. In response the Fed and US Treasury
bought more yen and were joined by 13 central banks. American and Japan
intervened in 1995 to halt the dollar’s slide against the yen. The
dollar stabilized.
(AP, 3/3/00)(Econ, 3/29/08, p.100)
1995 Mar 10, The book "Blindside:
Why Japan Is Still on Track to Overtake the US by the year 2000," by
Eamonn Fingleton, was published. He argued that the Japanese economic
slump was a ruse to lull rivals into complacency.
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A14)
1995 Mar 19, In Japan 5 people
died by poison gas in a subway. [see Mar 20]
(MC, 3/19/02)
1995 Mar 20, A gas attack by the
Aum Shinri Kyo cult on Tokyo's subways killed 12 people. More than
5,500 others sickened when packages containing the poisonous gas sarin
leaked on five separate subway trains. Masato Yokoyama, a cult leader,
was sentenced to death in 1999. In 2000 Robert Jay Lifton authored
"Destroying the World To Save It: Aum Shinrikyo, Apocalyptic Violence,
and the New Global Terrorism." In 2001 Haruki Murakami's "Underground:
The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche" was published in English.
In 2004 Shoko Asahara was convicted and sentenced to hang for
masterminding the deadly nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway and other
crimes that killed 27 people.
(SFC, 7/4/96, p.A10)(SFC, 5/27/98, p.A12)(AP,
3/20/97)(SFC, 9/30/99, p.D14)(SFEC, 1/16/00, BR p.9)(SSFC, 4/29/01, DB
p.81)(AP, 2/27/04)
1995 Mar 21, Thousands of Japanese
police raided the offices of a secretive religious group, Aum Shinri
Kyo, in connection with nerve-gas attacks on Tokyo subways that killed
12 people and sickened thousands. In ensuing weeks they found tons of
chemicals used to make sarin nerve gas and evidence of biological
weapons research.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(AP, 3/21/00)
1995 Mar 28, In Japan, Mitsubishi
Bank and the Bank of Tokyo agreed to a merger to create what was then
the world's largest bank.
(AP, 3/28/00)
1995 Mar 30, In Japan Takaji
Kunimatsu, chief of the National Police Agency, was seriously wounded
by a masked gunman. Two months later a police officer confessed to the
attack. He was a member of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult and said that he was
ordered to carry out the attack. The confession was kept secret until
anonymous newspaper accounts warned of a coverup in 1996.
(SFC, 10/30/96, p.A1,6)
1995 Apr 23, Hideo Murai, head of
the science ministry of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult, was stabbed and
killed. Police suspected that a cult leader ordered his murder so that
he would not testify about Aum's nerve gas production.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)
1995 May 5, Talks collapsed
between the United States and Japan on averting a trade fight over
automobiles.
(AP, 5/5/00)
1995 May 16, The Clinton
administration threatened punitive tariffs that would double the prices
for Japan's most popular luxury cars.
(AP, 5/16/00)
1995 May 16, Aum Shinri Kyo cult
leader Shoko Asahara was found hiding in a secret room at a cult
compound in Kamikuishiki and arrested. A letter bomb exploded in
Tokyo's city hall and injured an aid of the governor who had advocated
withdrawing Aum's religious permit. His teachings declared that he was
Christ, that meditation was required for enlightenment, and that
Armageddon is imminent.
(SFC, 4/24/96, p.A-8)(SFC, 11/2/96, p.A9)(SFC,
9/29/97, p.A13)
1995 Jun 15, The Summit of 7
leading industrialist nations, G-7, met in Halifax, Canada, for talks
on a unified front against terrorism. President Clinton met with
Japanese PM Tomiichi Murayama on the opening day of a Group of Seven
summit in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
(AP, 6/15/00)(SFC, 6/20/97, p.A16)
1995 Jun 22, Riot police stormed a
hijacked jumbo jet in Hakodate, Japan, freeing all 364 people on board
and capturing a lone hijacker.
(AP, 6/22/00)
1995 Jun, Japan's Fair Trade
Commission clamped down on Shiseido's business practices and
deregulated cosmetics imports. The FTC in this year had 220
investigators and a budget of ¥5.24 billion.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A10)(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.9)
1995 Sep 26, A bond trader at
Japan's Daiwa Bank was charged with doctoring records to hide $1.1
billion in losses.
(AP, 9/26/00)
1995 Sep 29, Three U-S servicemen
were indicted in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl and handed
over to Japanese authorities. They were later convicted.
(AP, 9/29/00)
1995 Nov 2, Daiwa Bank was
expelled from the US after it was learned that it tried to cover-up
illicit trades by bond trader Toshihide Iguchi who lost some $1.1
billion between 1984-1995. Mr. Iguchi was later sentenced to 4 years in
prison and fined nearly $2.6 million.
(WSJ, 1/8/97, p.A14)(AP, 11/2/00)
1995 Nov 7, In a Japanese
courtroom, three American military men admitted to the ambush-rape of a
12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl, an attack that outraged the Japanese
and strained security ties between Japan and the US. The men later
received prison sentences ranging from six and a-half to seven years.
(AP, 11/7/00)
1995 Dec 29, Japan's finance
minister (Masayoshi Takemura) announced the resignation of the deputy
finance minister (Kyosuke Shinozawa) over several scandals, including
the ministry's cover-up of trading losses at Daiwa Bank's New York
office.
(AP, 12/29/00)
1995 Dec, A government
advisory panel urges that a new capital be set up by the year 2010
within 180 miles of Tokyo.
(WSJ, 12/14/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec, Prime Minister Tomiichi
Murayama led the government plan to spend 6.7 bil to help cover the
losses of the Junes, seven housing-loan companies, which total 63
billion. Japan has a larger bad-loan crises of $367 bil.
(WSJ, 12/20/95, p.A-10)
1995 Dec 8, There was an accident
at the Japanese Menjou prototype fast-breeder nuclear reactor in
the Fukui Prefecture that forced closure. Two tons of non-radioactive,
but violently reactive liquid sodium leaked from the cooling system.
Japan had 51 nuclear power plants that produced 33.8% of its energy
needs.
(WSJ, 12/27/95, p. A-7)(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A12)
1995 Mammon Mimizuka a "living
national treasure of Japan," admired the work of Narrate Mochizuki
Goldsmith (d.1997), who had developed a new art form of calligraphic
brush writing on ceramics for refined renditions of medieval Japanese
poetry on abstract sculptural forms.
(SFC, 5/17/97, p.A20)
1995 The Etsuko and Joe Price
Collection: "Masterworks of Japanese Painting" is a CD that shows the
Japanese Edo paintings housed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
the greatest collection in the Western world.
(Civil., Jul-Aug., '95, p.85)
1995 The book “A Passion for
Success,” by Kazuo Inamori, founder of the Japanese technology group
Kyocera, was published in English.
(http://en.kyocera.de/kyocera_n/english/culture/success.html)
1995 A Japanese weekly comic book
featured the story "Initial D," which focused on a drifter named
Takumi, who honed his (car) sliding skills on early morning runs
delivering tofu to a resort hotel in the mountains.
(WSJ, 9/18/03, p.A10)
1995 The Japanese anime film
"Whisper of the Heart" was made by Yoshifumi Kondo (d.1998 at 47).
(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1995 In Japan a fad called
purikura began. Young people began taking color photos in booths with
customized backgrounds and digital decorations.
(SFC, 1/23/09, p.B9)
1995 American and Japan intervened
to halt the dollar’s slide against the yen.
(Econ, 3/29/08, p.100)
1995 In Japan executives of the
Takashimaya department store chain paid $730,000 to ensure a quiet
stockholders meeting. The money was paid to Isao Nishiura, the head of
a group of Japanese mobsters (yakuza) who practice "sokaiya'" a form of
extortion. Three executives and Isao were arrested in 1996. Payments
had been made for as long as ten years.
(SFC, 6/11/96, p.A14)
1995 For this year US official aid
donations were $7.3 bil. Japan’s was $14.5 bil. France’s was $8.4 bil.
Germany’s was $7.5 bil.
(SFC, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jan 5, Japanese Prime
Minister Tomiichi Murayama resigned.
(AP, 1/5/01)
1996 Jan 8, Trade Minister
Hashimoto was endorsed by the ruling coalition to become prime minister.
(WSJ, 1/9/96, p.A-1)
1996 Jan, Sadako Abe, a Shiseido
executive director, urged the company's board to consider acquisitions
to boost global business in the cosmetics industry.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A10)
1996 Feb 10, A slab of
mountainside crushed a highway tunnel on the Japanese island of
Hokkaido, killing 20 people.
(AP, 2/10/01)
1996 Mar 7, Three US servicemen
were convicted in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl and sentenced
by a Japanese court to six and a-half to seven years in prison.
(AP, 3/7/01)
1996 Mar 28, Shin Kanemaru, power
broker in the long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party, died at 82.
(WSJ, 3/28/96,p.A-1)
1996 Mar, The Health Ministry
removed barriers to imports of cosmetic products by unofficial
distributors.
(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A1)
1996 Apr 5, The state owned
Japanese National Railways Settlement Corp. owes $258 billion to banks,
bondholders and the government.
(WSJ, 4/5/96, p.A-1)
1996 Apr 13, The US agreed to
close the Futenma Air Station at Okinawa, Japan. The 1200 acre base is
surrounded by the densely populated city of Iowan.
(SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-8)
1996 Apr, Takafumi Horie (23), a
student at the Univ. of Tokyo, set up Livin’ on the Edge Inc., a
Web-site design company. In 2000 the company was listed on the Tokyo
Stock Exchange and in 2004 the name was changed to Livedoor, after an
Internet service provider that it took over in 2002.
(WSJ, 2/3/06, p.A1)
1996 Jun 14, Sumitomo Corp.
announced that it had lost $1.8 billion over the last ten years in
unauthorized trades done by head copper trader Yasuo Hamanaka. World
copper markets were thrown into turmoil following disclosure by
Sumitomo Corp. that a rogue trader had hidden multibillion-dollar
losses.
(WSJ, 6/17/96, p.A1)(AP, 6/14/97)
1996 Jun, In Japan the Diet gave
approval to set up a government council to formulate a proposal for a
new location for the nation's capital.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.B12)
1996 Aug 29, Authorities arrested
Dr. Takeshi Abe, a hemophilia expert, who headed a government panel on
AIDS in the 1980s when some 1,800 hemophiliacs were infected with AIDS
after using blood-clotting agents contaminated with the AIDS virus. He
had failed to recommend a heat treatment for the products more than 2
years after such treatment was approved in the US.
(SFC, 8/30/96, p.A18)
1996 Sep 27, In Japan the Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto dissolved the parliament and set new
elections for Oct. 20.
(SFC, 9/28/96, p.A8)
1996 Oct 8, It was reported that a
man's haircut costs $48.65.
(WSJ, 10/8/96, p.A17)
1996 Oct 20, The Liberal
Democratic Party under Ryutaro Hashimoto won a plurality in the lower
house. The vote marked a setback to reformers.
(WSJ, 10/21/96, p.A16)(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)
1996 Oct 22, Prosecutors arrested
Yasuzo Harmonica, the former Sumitomo copper trader accused of racking
up $2.6 billion in losses.
(SFC, 10/22/96, p.B1)
1996 Nov 6, Parliament re-elected
Ryutaro Hashimoto as prime minister.
(SFC, 11/7/96, p.a13)
1996 Dec 17, In Peru guerrillas
took over a party at the house of the Japanese ambassador in Lima. They
identified themselves as members of the Tupac Amaru guerrilla movement
and demanded the release of imprisoned guerrillas. Nestor Cerpa
Cartolini was later identified as the leader of the 20 or so
guerrillas. Cerpa’s common-law wife, Nancy Gilvonio, was one of the
imprisoned guerrillas whom he demanded be released. Pres. Fujimori’s
brother was one of the hostages. All but 72 hostages were later
released; the siege ended April 22, 1997, with a commando raid that
resulted in the deaths of all the rebels, two commandos and one hostage.
(SFC,12/25/96,p.A12)(SFC,1/7/97,p.A10)(SFC,1/17/96,
p.A12)(AP, 12/17/97)
1996 Dec 26, Honda Motor Co.
announced the first human-shaped robot that can move independently and
do basic tasks. It stood 6 feet and weighed 462 lbs. and took 10 years
of engineering.
(SFC, 12/26/96, p.B10)
1996 Dec 26, Former Prime Minister
Stoma Hata took 12 members of the opposition party Shinshinto (New
Frontier Party) with him to form the new Sun Party.
(SFC, 12/27/96, p.B3)
1996 The film "Shall We Dance" by
Masayuki Suu won 13 national awards and created a ballroom dance craze.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, DB p.33)
1996 Japan introduced a new tax on
alcohol.
(Econ, 3/26/05, p.43)
1996 Katsuhiko Kawasaki began
running the investigation division of the Tokyo Public Prosecutor's
Office.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1996 The Penndel Co. of Tokyo
introduced its Milky Gel Roller. The gelly pen became a huge fad among
kids by 1999 for its ability to write on skin and be easily rubbed off.
(WSJ, 6/15/99, p.A1)
1996 Knife crimes by juveniles
increased by 30% to 431.
(SFC, 2/10/98, p.A12)
1996-1998 In Japan an incipient economic recovery
during this period turned into a fresh recession.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.3)
1997 Jan 2, The Russian oil tanker
Nakhodka broke in two 90 miles off the coast of northwestern Japan. It
carried 5 million gallons of fuel oil. The bow of the ship ran aground
5 days later and much oil was spilled.
(SFC, 1/8/96, p.C1)
1997 Jan 10, From Tokyo it was
reported that scientists had successfully implanted micro-robotic
backpacks onto cockroaches in experiments to control their movements.
(SFC, 1/10/96, p.B2)
1997 Jan 10, The Nikkei had fallen
more than 16% over the last five weeks due to gloomy economic news and
the government's recent vow to reduce its role in the economy.
(WSJ, 1/10/97, p.A1)
1997 Jan 29, Tatsuo Tomobe, member
of the upper house of parliament, was arrested and accused of fraud. He
had raised $75 million by offering high yields on deposits and using it
to finance political ambitions.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, p.A17)
1997 Feb, Lebanon detained 5
members of the Japanese Red Army.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
1997 Mar 7, Japanese PM Ryutaro
Hashimoto was sued by 5 people, because his smoking had violated the
constitution guaranteeing a wholesome life.
(MC, 3/7/02)
1997 Mar 11, A nuclear fuel
reprocessing plant experienced 2 fires and an explosion 70 miles
northeast of Tokyo. There were no injuries. The chief investigator
destroyed photographs of the accident. Debris was also removed and then
replaced.
(SFC, 3/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 5/1/97, p.A13)
1997 Mar, Lebanon granted Kozo
Okamoto, Japanese Red Army member, political asylum and deported 4
others to Japan. [see Jun 9]
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
1997 Apr 2, Tomoyuki Tanaka (86),
producer (Godzilla), died of a stroke.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1997 Apr 21, In Japan drilling on
the world's longest stretch of undersea highway (about 6 miles) was
completed across Tokyo Bay to link the cities of Kawasaki and Kisarazu.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A8)
1997 Apr 24, In Japan the lower
house of parliament voted to make heart transplants possible by
recognizing the concept of brain death.
(SFC, 4/25/97, p.A12)
1997 Apr, Japan raised its
national consumption tax from 3% to 5%. It was later seen as a move
that wrecked economic confidence and sparked the beginning of a
recession.
(WSJ, 8/13/98, p.A14)(Econ, 7/22/06, p.67)
1997 May 8, A law was passed to
preserve the culture of the aboriginal Ainu people who have inhabited
northern Japan since prehistoric times.
(SFC, 5/9/97, p.E3)
1997 May 27, In Kobe 11-year-old
Jun Hase was beheaded by a killer who left the note: "So, this is the
beginning of the game. I desperately want to see people die. Nothing
makes me more excited than killing." A 14-year-old boy was later
arrested for the murder. [see Jun 28]
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.C2)(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.D1)
1997 May, Shioro Takashima, head
of the Japan Harbor Transportation Association (JHTA) and known as "The
Emperor," died. He was succeeded by Mitsuo Masunaga.
(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A13)
1997 Jun 5, The film "Tokyo Skin"
by Urinary Hana was an Int'l. film festival award winner and premiered
in the Bay Area.
(SFC, 6/5/97, p.)
1997 Jun 9, Five Japanese Red Army
guerillas went on trial on charges of passport forgery and illegal
entry. The light charges prevented their extradition to Japan. [see Mar]
(SFC, 6/10/97, p.A16)
1997 Jun 16, Sue Sumii died at age
95 working on the 8th volume of her novel "The River With No Bridge."
It was about the plight of the burakumin (the untouchables) of Japan.
She published the first volume in 1958.
(SFC, 6/24/97, p.A19)
1997 Jun 17, In Japan lawmakers
rewrote the definition of death to allow life-saving transplants of
body parts. Brain death rather than heart death would be the new
criteria and would take effect in 3 months.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A9)
1997 Jun 18, It was reported that
Japan was paying 5 Caribbean nations extensive aid and investment in
order to gain support to block protections for endangered species.
Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent, St. Lucia and Dominica were
all reported to have been bribed.
(SFC, 6/18/97, p.A8)
1997 Jun 28, Police announced the
arrest of a 14-year-old boy for the murder and beheading of an
11-year-old on May 27. The 15-year-old boy was convicted and sentenced
to a juvenile prison, where he would be treated for mental illness. He
could be kept there until age 26.
(SFEC, 6/29/97, p.D1)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 2, The Panamanian
registered Diamond Grace oil tanker ran aground in Tokyo Bay and
spilled nearly 2 million gallons of oil.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A9)
1997 Jul 10, A mudslide in Izumi
on the island of Kyushu killed 21 people and injured 14.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.C1)
1997 Aug 29, In Japan the Supreme
Court upheld the government's right to control the nation's textbooks
but not to tamper with the truth. Japan's Supreme Court ruled that the
country's Education Ministry broke the law by removing mention of a
Japanese World War II atrocity from historian Saburo Ienaga's high
school textbook. Novelist Ryotaro Shiba was quoted: "A country whose
textbooks lie... will inevitably collapse."
(SFC, 8/30/97, p.A12)(AP, 8/29/98)
1997 Sep 8, Prime Minister
Hashimoto won re-election as head of the Liberal Democrats.
(WSJ, 9/9/97, p.A1)
1997 Oct 3, In Japan an
experimental magnetically levitated train, the MLX01, set a world speed
record when it reached 279.6 mph on a test track.
(SFC, 10/6/97, p.B8)
1997 Sep 22, Shoichi Yokoi
(b.1915), Japanese WW II fighter who only surrendered in 1972, died.
For 28 years he had hid in an underground jungle cave on Guam, fearing
to come out of hiding even after finding leaflets declaring that World
War II had ended.
(www.wanpela.com/holdouts/profiles/yokoi.html)
1997 Oct 15, The US set a deadline
for three Japanese shipping companies to pay some $4 million in fines.
The fines were imposed based on discriminatory Japanese harbor
policies. The deadline was missed and the US threatened to block
Japanese shipping from US ports. An agreement was later reached. The
problem was with the Japan Harbor Transportation Association (JHTA),
which was said to have ties with the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate. A
settlement was approved on Oct 27.
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/21/97, p.A1)(WSJ,
10/28/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 1, Russia's Pres. Boris
Yeltsin met with Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto at
Krasnoyarsk to discuss economic cooperation.
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A22)
1997 Nov 7, Shoichiro Toyoda (72),
chairman of Toyota, planned to address the captains of Japanese
industry and urge the severing of ties with the extortionists known as
"sokaiya."
(SFEC,11/2/97, p.A18)
1997 Nov 17, Authorities announced
that the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank Ltd., the country's 11th largest bank,
would be dissolved due to bad loans and that its operations would be
transferred to a regional bank. The news sent the Tokyo stock exchange
soaring.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A17)
1997 Nov 24, In Japan the Yamaichi
Securities firm, the nation's 4th largest, announced a shutdown due to
debts totaling $24 billion. It was the third, after Sanyo Securities
and Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, Japanese financial company to collapse in
a month.
(SFC,11/24/97, p.A1)(AP, 11/24/98)(Econ, 7/22/06,
p.66)
1997 Nov 26, In Japan Nomura
Securities admitted funneling $2.9 million in profits to Ryuichi Koike,
a suspected racketeer.
(SFC,11/27/97, p.B5)
1997 Nov 27, Japan launched the
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite (TRMM) in a joint venture
with NASA. Funding ended in 2004 a controlled de-orbit was planned.
(SFC, 7/19/04, p.A4)
1997 Dec 1, In Japan international
talks on global warming began in Kyoto.
(WSJ, 12/5/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 5, The WTO ruled against
the US claim that Kodak Film was unfairly blocked from the Japanese
market.
(SFC,12/5/97, p.C3)
1997 Dec 8, At the UN conference
on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, US Vice President Al Gore signaled a
willingness on the part of the US to compromise and perhaps raise the
amount of greenhouse gases it is willing to cut.
(SFC,12/897, p.A1)
1997 Dec 11, In Kyoto, Japan,
negotiators at the conference on global warming reached a compromise
with a commitment by some 38 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse
gas emissions by an average of 5% from 1990 levels over the next 10-15
years. Over 160 nations endorsed the treaty that binds industrialized
nations to cut greenhouse gases. It was signed by 171 nations. Int’l.
aviation was excluded from the protocol on condition that by 2007
countries and airlines of the Int’l. Civil Aviation Organization (ICOA)
come up with a way of reducing emissions through a trading scheme.
(SFC,12/11/97, p.A1)(WSJ, 12/11/97, p.A1)(SFC,
5/29/98, p.A2)(Econ, 6/10/06, p.67)
1997 Dec 12, Japanese train
builders (Maglev) claimed world speed record at 332 MPH.
(www.rtri.or.jp/rd/maglev/html/english/maglev_introduction_E.html)
1997 Dec 16, Prime Minister
Hashimoto proposed a one-time cut in the national income tax of about
$15.38 billion.
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A18)
1997 Dec 16, Hundreds of Japanese
children went to the hospital with spasms and nausea caused by a TV
cartoon show, "Pokemon."
(SFC,12/17/97, p.A26)
1997 Dec 19, Masaru Ibuka
(b.1908), co-founder of Japan’s Sony Corp), died at age 89.
(www.pbs.org/transistor/album1/addlbios/ibuka.html)
1997 Dec 20, Juzo Itami (64), film
director, jumped in suicide from his 8th story office, just before a
magazine report about an affair. He made 10 films in 13 years that
included "A Taxing Woman" and "Tampopo," which was released in the US
in 1987.
(SFC,12/22/97, p.A19)(SFEC, 1/25/98, Z1 p.2)
1997 Dec 24, Toshiro Mifune (77),
actor, died in Mitaka. His career included more than 130 films and
television dramas.
(SFC,12/25/97, p.A25)
1997 Dec 26, Ichiro Ozawa, leader
of the opposition Shinshinto, New Freedom Party, announced that the
party would be disbanded.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.A12)
1997 Dec, Toyota introduced its
new hybrid car, the Prius, in Japan. The $17,000 car sold some 3,500
units in the first few weeks.
(SFEC, 7/21/98, p.A1,9)
1997 Richard Katz authored "Japan:
The System That Soured."
(WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A14)
1997 The Japanese film "The Eel"
was directed by Shohei Imamura and won the Palme d'Or at Cannes.
(SFEC, 9/20/98, DB p.50)
1997 The Japanese film "Maborosi"
was about a young woman who tries to recover from the death of her
husband.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, DB p.53)
1997 The Japanese animated (anime)
film "Princess Mononoke" was made with drawings by Hayao Miyazaki. In
1999 Helen McCarthy authored "Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese
Animation." Hyperion Press published "Princess Mononoke: The Art and
Making of Japan's Most Popular Film of All Time."
(WSJ, 10/29/99, p.W9)(SFEC, 10/31/99, DB p.9)
1997 The Japanese film "Village of
Dreams" was based on an autobiography of Kyoto-based artist Seizo
Tashima: "The Village of My Paintings."
(SFC,11/26/97, p.E8)
1997 Japan under Ryutaro Hashimoto
enacted the “big bang” financial reforms, which deregulated some
financial services and introduced more competition in Japan’s capital
markets.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.23)
1997 Japan under Ryutaro Hashimoto
increased consumption taxes.
(Econ, 9/17/05, p.24)
1997 Japan’s Sony Corp. launched
the Vaio personal computer.
(WSJ, 3/7/05, p.A8)
1997 Kihoshi Saito (b.1907),
Japanese woodblock artist, died.
(www.printdealers.com/artist_template.cfm?id=1330)
1998 Jan 12, Japan announced that
the nation's banks carried only about $580 billion in bad or
questionable loans.
(SFC, 1/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 26, Shinichi Suzuki (99),
pioneer of the 1950s Suzuki method for teaching music to young
children, died in Japan.
(SFC, 1/27/98,
p.A20)(www.suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki/)
1998 Jan 26, Public prosecutors
raided the Ministry of Finance and arrested 2 bank regulators, Koichi
Miyagawa (53) and Toshimi Taniuchi (48), on bribery charges.
(SFC, 1/27/98, p.A8)
1998 Jan 27, In Japan Hiroshi
Mitsuzuka, the finance minister, announced that he will resign
following the arrests of 2 senior officials on bribery charges.
(SFC, 1/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Jan 28, Two more finance
ministry officials resigned and a 3rd committed suicide. Separately the
lower house passed a $16 billion income tax cut.
(SFC, 1/29/98, p.A11)
1998 Jan 29, In Japan Finance Vice
Minister Takeshi Komura stepped down in the bribery scandal and said
"the responsibility is all mine."
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jan 31, The XVIII Winter
Olympic Games opened in Nagano.
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C3)
1998 Feb 3, A rocket attack on
Tokyo's Narita Airport did no damage but slightly injured a cargo
handler. Three rockets were involved. Later the leftist Revolutionary
Workers Association claimed responsibility
(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C3)(SFC, 2/7/98, p.11)
1998 Feb 6, The Olympic Games
began and for the first time curling was played as a medal sport.
(WSJ, 2/6/98, p.A20)
1998 Feb 8, Olga Danilova of
Russia won the first gold medal of the Nagano Winter Games in
15-kilometer classical cross-country skiing.
(AP, 2/8/99)
1998 Feb 9, At the Nagano Games,
German Georg Hackl won the men's luge for the third consecutive
Olympics.
(AP, 2/9/99)
1998 Feb 10, Speedskater Hiroyasu
Shimizu won Japan's first gold medal of the Nagano Olympics, in the
500-meter event.
(AP, 2/10/99)
1998 Feb 11, Skier Jonny Moseley
won the first U.S. gold medal at Nagano, in men's moguls freestyle;
Picabo Street won the women's super-G. Canadian snowboarder Ross
Rebagliati was stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for
marijuana. His medal was later reinstated.
(AP, 2/11/99)
1998 Feb 14, Russia's Ilya Kulik
won the men's figure skating gold medal at the Nagano Olympics.
(AP, 2/14/99)
1998 Feb 16, Skier Hermann Maier
of Austria won the Super-G and Katja Seizinger of Germany won the
women's downhill at the Nagano Olympics; Russia's Pasha Grishuk and
Yeggeny Platov won the ice dancing event.
(AP, 2/16/08)
1998 Feb 17, The U.S. women's
hockey team won the gold medal at Nagano, Japan, defeating Canada 3-1.
(AP, 2/17/99)
1988 Feb 18, The American hockey
team in Nagano lost to the Czechs. Members of the team that night
trashed their quarters in the Olympic Village, drained a fire
extinguisher and tossed it out their 5th story window.
(SFC, 2/20/98, p.A1,16)
1998 Feb 22, The Czech Republic
defeated Russia 1-0 to win men's hockey as the Nagano Winter Olympics
came to a close.
(WSJ, 2/5/98, p.A20)(AP, 2/22/99)
1998 Feb 26, Near Tokyo 3
businessmen hanged themselves in the suburban Le Piano hotel due
to economic difficulties and the resulting loss of face. Masaaki
Kobayashi, Masaru Sudo and Yoshimi Shoji were all presidents of auto
parts companies.
(SFC, 2/27/98, p.D4)(SFC, 2/28/98, p.A8)
1998 Mar 5, Prosecutors raided the
Finance Ministry and later arrested 2 officials, Takashi Sakakibara and
Toshio Miyano for accepting bribes in exchange for approving new
financial products.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Mar 11, The Tokyo Public
Prosecutor's Office raided the offices of the Bank of Japan. Yasayuki
Yoshizawa, director of the capital markets division, was arrested on
suspicion of leaking market moving information.
(SFC, 3/26/98, p.B2)
1998 Mar 12, Yoshio Sugiyama (46),
a Finance Ministry official, hanged himself following a widening
investigation in corruption.
(SFC, 3/13/98, p.A12)
1998 Mar 26, The ruling Liberal
Democratic Party announced a $124 billion economic stimulus package.
(SFC, 3/27/98, p.A13)
1998 Apr 1, The 3-year Big Bang
process was begun to create more efficient investment markets.
(SFC, 3/31/98, p.B1)
1998 Apr 3, Pres. Clinton warned
that Japanese officials "have to make a break" with their past
policies. Moody's Investor's Services changed its outlook on Japan's
government debt to "negative" from "stable."
(SFC, 4/4/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 5, The $3.8 billion,
12,906 foot Akashi Kaikyo Bridge linking the islands of Shikoku and
Honshu was opened. It was built to withstand an 8.5 earthquake and took
ten years to build.
(SFC, 4/6/98, p.A13)
1998 Apr 9, Japan abandoned
austerity policies and Prime Minister Hashimoto announced a $30 billion
temporary cut in taxes to encourage consumer spending. Pressure to
change was exerted by the US, int'l. investors and elite Japanese
business leaders.
(SFC, 4/10/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 19, Pres. Yeltsin held a
summit with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hasimoto at the Kawana resort.
Yeltsin promised to had over KGB documents of interrogations of
captured Japanese generals from WW II.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A14)
1998 Apr 20, The Goldman
Environmental Awards were presented to six winners in SF. The prizes
were increased to $100,000. Hirofumi Yamashita (64) won for his 25-year
struggle against the conversion of tidal flats to farmland on Ishaya
Bay on Kyushu.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A8)
1998 Apr 27, A court ruled that
Japan must compensate 3 South Korean women forced into sexual slavery
during WW II, and awarded the women $2,300 each.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A8)
1998 May 23, The film "Pride, the
Fateful Moment," about Gen'. Tojo was produced. It glorified Tojo and
portrayed the Japanese invasion of Asia as a just campaign to liberate
its neighbors from Western colonial rule. The film was supported by
conservative lawmakers.
(SFC, 5/12/98, p.A12)
1998 May 30, In Japan the
4-year-old governing coalition fractured and the Social Democratic
Party announced it would go it alone. The Liberal Democratic Party
continued to run the government.
(SFEC, 5/31/98, p.A26)
1998 Jun 20, Suekiku Miyanaga
(107), Japan's oldest person, died in Osumi.
(SFEC, 6/21/98, p.A25)
1998 Jul 2, Japan announced that a
string of bridge banks would be set up to run failed banks as bad loans
are sold and lending is continued.
(SFC, 7/3/98, p.A14)
1998 Jul 4, Japan launched its
Planet-B probe to Mars the Planet-B on its M-5 rocket, which is to
begin beaming back photographs and data from the Red Planet in October
1999.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A10)(AP, 7/4/99)
1998 Jul 12, It was reported that
Japan burns 38 million tons of garbage a year compared to 34 million
for the US. Japan's air was reported to contain 10 times more dioxin
that US air. Elections were held.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, Par p.16)(SFC, 7/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 13, In Japan Prime
Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto resigned after voters rejected his Liberal
Democratic Party.
(SFC, 7/13/98, p.A1)
1998 Jul 24, Keizo Obuchi, Japan's
foreign minister, won the ruling party nomination for prime minister.
(SFC, 7/24/98, p.A14)
1998 Jul 25, In Japan some 60
people at a festival in the Wakayama prefecture were sickened after
eating a curried rice dish. Four people died and police suspected that
cyanide was mixed in the food. A district court convicted Masumi
Hayashi in 2002 of deliberately lacing a pot of curry with arsenic and
serving it to neighbors at the festival. In 2009 Japan's highest court
upheld her death sentence.
(SFC, 7/27/98, p.A10)(AP, 4/21/09)
1998 Jul 29, In Japan the lower
house of parliament approved Keizo Obuchi for prime minister. The upper
house endorsed opposition leader Naoto Kan. The lower house had the
power to overrule any upper house decision.
(SFC, 7/30/98, p.A12)
1998 Jul 30, Japan's Parliament
declared Keizo Obuchi the country's next prime minister.
(AP, 7/30/99)(SFC, 9/21/99, p.A10)
1998 Jul 31, Asa Takii, the oldest
person in the country and a survivor of the Hiroshima blast, died at
age 114.
(SFC, 8/1/98, p.A19)
1998 Aug 4, Japan announced that
it will begin a new nuclear power plant in Higashidori in Dec. 51
nuclear power plants currently supply about 1/3 of the nation's power.
(SFC, 8/5/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 15, The week-long
Festival of the Dead, called "O-bon," ended. The holiday is capped off
with midnight visits to ancestral graves where incense and paper
lanterns are burned.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, p.A26)
1998 Aug 28, The money market
interest rates were reported to be 0.5 % as compared to 7.5% in 1991.
(WSJ, 8/28/98, p.A10)
1998 Sep 6, Akira Kurosawa, film
director, died at age 88.
(SFC, 9/7/98, p.A21)
1998 Sep 18, Japanese leaders
agreed to a plan to take over some of the biggest and weakest banks and
to use taxpayer money to dispose of some $606 billion in bad loans.
(SFC, 9/19/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 22, In Japan Typhoon
Vicki killed 9 people and injured over 100.
(SFC, 9/23/98, p.A12)
1998 Sep 29, Japanese Leasing, a
non-bank affiliate of the failed Long Term Credit Bank, announced that
it is filing for bankruptcy with liabilities of 2.2 trillion yen or
more than $16 billion. Two other affiliates of the LTCB are expected to
suffer the same fate. This was the country's biggest-ever bankruptcy.
LTCB was later renamed Shinsei.
(www.wsws.org/news/1998/sep1998/jap-s29.shtml)(Econ,
7/22/06, p.66)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.82)
1998 Oct 2, In Japan the
parliament passed bills to provide $74 billion in taxpayer money to
help banks recover from bad loans.
(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 3, The G-7 finance
ministers agreed to explore Pres. Clinton's proposed strategy for early
IMF intervention to support weak economies. Masaru Hayami, governor of
the Bank of Japan, said that capital supporting 19 major banks had
dwindled to dangerously low levels.
(SFEC, 10/4/98, p.A1)(SFEC, 10/5/98, p.A3)
1998 Oct 7, In Japan Pres. Kim Dae
Jung of South Korea urged the 2 countries to work together.
(SFC, 10/8/98, p.A12)
1998 Oct 8, In Japan Prime
Minister Obuchi issued an apology to the people of South Korea for 35
years of brutal colonial rule. Pres. Kim Dae-jung of South Korea
accepted the written apology, the first ever issued by Japan to an
individual country for its actions during WW II.
(USAT, 10/9/98, p.13A)
1998 Oct 12, In Japan the
parliament approved banking legislation that would allow the government
to nationalize failing banks.
(SFC, 10/13/98, p.A10)
1998 Oct 14, In the Philippines
Typhoon Zeb killed 21 people and forced some 31,000 from their homes.
The death toll went up to 70. It moved on to Taiwan where 20 people
were killed and Japan where 12 died.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C4)(WSJ, 10/19/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 16, In Japan the Diet
approved laws to pump $517 billion in public money into the country's
cash-strapped banks.
(SFC, 10/17/98, p.A14)
1998 Oct 30, David Bower (86) of
the US and Mikhail Budyko of Russia won the $427,600 Blue Planet Prize,
awarded by the Asahi Glass Foundation of Japan for their work in
solving environmental problems.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct, South Korea lifted its
ban on importing Japanese comic books, magazines, and movies. It was
the first phase of a gradual opening to Japanese pop culture.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A15)
1998 Nov 7, Japan offered more
than $9 million in aid to Cuba with most of the money as a direct
donation to buy rice. A 5 month drought followed by Hurricane Georges
caused heavy agricultural losses.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.A28)
1998 Nov 16, Japan announced a
$195 billion economic stimulus package. This was the 17th month in a
row that the number of bankruptcies increased.
(SFC, 11/16/98, p.A10)(SFC, 11/17/98, p.B3)
1998 Nov 19, Pres. Clinton began a
5-day trip to Asia and in Japan suggested that current efforts to end
an 8-year economic downturn may not be enough.
(SFC, 11/20/98, p.A16)
1998 Nov 21, Isao Okawa, chairman
of CSK Corp., and Sega Enterprises, donated $27 million to MIT for the
creation of a center for children founded on the belief that new
digital technology will drive fundamental changes in education. He was
at the Junior Summit where children created "Nation 1.0" as a forum for
expression: www.nation1.net.
(SFC, 11/23/98, p.A5)
1998 Nov 25, Pres. Jiang Zemin of
China and Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi decided not to sign a joint
declaration on the relationship between their countries during the
Jiang's 6-day visit, the first ever by a Chinese head of state. Zemin
wanted a written apology from Japan for WW II atrocities that began
with a 1931 Japanese invasion. Only verbal apologies were made.
(SFC, 11/26/98, p.B3)
1998 Nov 27, The World Heritage
bureau of UNESCO began a meeting in Kyoto, Japan.
(SFC, 11/27/98, p.A16)
1998 Nov, Prime Minister Keizo
Obuchi of Japan in a summit with Pres. Yeltsin agreed to give Russia
close to $1 billion with $100 earmarked for the Kuriles.
(SFC, 1/19/99, p.A8)
1998 Dec 3, In Japan it was
reported that the Jul-Sep quarter fell 0.7%. It was the 4th consecutive
decrease in GDP.
(WSJ, 12/3/98, p.A16)
1998 Dec 5, In South Korea the
first Japanese film since 1945 was screened. "Hana Bi" (Fireworks) was
the first film shown since a ban on Japanese work was lifted in Oct.
(SFEC, 12/6/98, p.A15)
1998 Dec 9, It was reported that
scientist in Japan had cloned several calves from an adult cow. It was
the 3rd mammal duplicated after mice and sheep.
(SFC, 12/9/98, p.A8)
1998 Dec 15, In Japan Nawaki
Hashimoto was found dead from cyanide poisoning. He had peddled cyanide
to suicidal Japanese over a web site and one Tokyo woman died the same
day from his cyanide.
(SFC, 1/9/99, p.A11)
1998 Risa Ishihara authored "Give
Me A Break: Full-Time Housewife." She said that stay-at-home wives were
"parasites" feeding on their husbands.
(WSJ, 3/26/00, p.A1)
1998 Richard Katz published
"Japan: The System That Soured." It was about the rise and fall of
Japan's economics following WW II.
(WSJ, 8/4/98, p.A16)
1998 Taichi Sakaiya published his
serialized novel "Japan: 2018," that describes a Japanese economic
decline beginning in the 1990s.
(WSJ, 5/4/98, p.A1)
1998 The Japanese film "Deep
River" starred Toshiro Mifune and was directed by Kei Kumai, based on
the novel by Shusaku Endo. It was about a group of Japanese tourists
visiting Benares, India.
(SFC, 5/20/98, p.E3)
1998 The Japanese film "Gonin"
starred Koichi Sato and was directed by Takashi Ishii.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.B3)
1998 The Japanese film "Mr. Nice
Guy" starred Jackie Chan and was directed by Samo Hung.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.D3)
1998 The Japanese film "Sonatine"
was written and directed by Takeshi "Beat" Kitano. he also starred in
the film of a gangster who helps another gang fight a rival mob.
The Japanese film "Fireworks" was the first film by director Takeshi
Kitano. He starred in the film under the name Beat Takeshi.
(SFC, 3/20/98, p.D3)(SFEC, 4/12/98, DB p.10)
1998 The Democratic Party of Japan
(DPJ) was created from former LDP members, former socialists and young
liberal newcomers. Yukio Hatoyama (b.1947) was one of the co-founders
of the DPJ.
(www.dpj.or.jp/english/about_us/dpj_profile.html)(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey
p.11)(SFC, 8/31/09, p.A3)
1998 By this year a new location
for the nation's capital could be determined.
(WSJ, 9/24/96, p.B12)
1998 In Japan private
certifying firms were allowed to sign off on new buildings to
supplement public inspectors.
(Econ, 12/10/05, p.46)
1998 Researchers in Japan, in an
experiment called SuperKamiokande, showed that muon neutrinos produced
by cosmic rays hitting the upper atmosphere had gone missing by the
time they should have reached an underground detector. This led them to
suspect that the missing muon neutrinos had changed flavor through a
process called oscillation, which required them to have mass.
(Econ, 4/8/06, p.77)
1998 In Japan workers’ pay equaled
about 73% of corporate earnings.
(Econ, 10/8/05, Survey p.4)
1998 Suicides attributable to
karoshi, death from over-work, rose from 32 in 1994 to 90 in 1998.
(SFC, 8/22/00, p.A10)
1999 Jan 14, In Japan the ruling
Liberal Democrats under prime Minister Keizo Obuchi formed a coalition
with the Liberal Democrats, a conservative rival.
(SFC, 1/15/99, p.A15)
1999 Jan 20, It was reported that
the TV show Denpa Shonen (Don't Go for It, Electric Boy!) was the top
rated variety show for the last 17 weeks. It featured Nasubi
(eggplant), a 23-year-old comedian, confined to a one-room apartment
without food or clothing working to win 1 million yen ($8,300) worth of
prizes in magazine competitions.
(SFC, 1/20/99, p.E4)
1999 Jan 27, From Japan it was
reported that thousands of fans welcomed back a hitchhiking duo who
traveled from the Cape of Good Hope to a lighthouse in Norway along
with a TV cameraman. The exploits began in 1998 and were aired weekly
on the show "Susunu."
(WSJ, 1/27/99, p.A1)
1999 Jan 27, The Health Ministry
approved Viagra in 6 months but still held back approval for the birth
control pill, which has been waiting 9 years.
(SFC, 2/11/99, p.A16)
1999 Feb 19, In Japan the lower
house passed a record $682.5 billion budget with huge spending
increases and tax cuts.
(SFC, 2/20/99, p.B1)
1999 Feb 28, Japanese doctors
performed their first legal organ transplant from a brain-dead patient.
A 1997 law allowed the standard for death to be the cessation of brain
activity. The last heart transplant was done in 1968.
(SFC, 3/1/99, p.A10)(WSJ, 3/1/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 3, In Japan the short
term interest rate fell to .02% as the central bank flooded the
interbank market with cash.
(WSJ, 3/4/99, p.A9)
1999 Mar 23, Japanese navy ships
fired warning shots at 2 suspected North Korean spy vessels that
entered its waters 180 miles northwest of Tokyo.
(WSJ, 3/24/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 28, It was reported that
Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi was preparing legislation to rehabilitate
the flag, hinomaru, and national song, "Kimigayo," to national emblem
status.
(SFEC, 3/28/99, p.A23)
1999 Mar 28, In Japan the exploits
of Nasubi, a 23-year-old comedian, came to an end as his producers
revealed him naked to a studio audience. For over a year he had been
shown on weekly TV, without his knowledge, trying to survive on prizes
from magazine competitions. He never won any clothes.
(SFC, 4/1/99, p.E5)
1999 Mar, In Tokyo the Showa Hall
museum opened after being transformed from a war memorial to an
exhibition of war time life.
(SFC, 7/1/99, p.A14)
1999 Apr 11, In Japan a
gubernatorial election in Tokyo showed conservative author
Shintaro Isihara (66) in the lead. Ishihara won with 29.6% of the total
vote.
(SFC, 4/10/99, p.A10)(SFC, 4/12/99, p.A12)
1999 Apr 29, In Japan Honda
announced that its last EV Plus electric car was built in March.
(SFC, 4/30/99, p.A1)
1999 Apr 30, The government issued
a report that said unemployment had reached a record 4.8% in March and
that spending by wage earners had declined by 3.6%.
(WSJ, 4/30/99, p.A13)
1999 Apr, The government announced
that it had allowed cloned beef to be sold unmarked for the last 2
years. The news sparked a nationwide beef boycott.
(SFC, 1/25/00, p.A7)
1999 May 7, In Japan the
parliament passed the country's first freedom of information act.
Requests would not be honored for at least 2 years.
(SFC, 5/12/99, p.C2)
1999 May 18, In Japan the
parliament enacted a law to ban child prostitution and child
pornography.
(SFC, 5/19/99, p.A14)
1999 May 24, Japan's upper house
voted to expand the country's military alliance with the US.
(SFC, 5/25/99, p.A8)
1999 Jun 2, In Japan the
government agreed to make the birth control pill available by
prescription.
(SFC, 6/3/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun, In Japan a
self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction occurred for 15 minutes at the
No. 1 reactor of Shika Nuclear Power Plant in Ishikawa prefecture.
Hokuriku Electric Power Co. failed to report the reaction to
authorities. In 2007 the company agreed to shut down the reactor for
inspection.
(AP, 3/15/07)
1999 Jul 3, It was reported that
29 people had died and 16 were missing over the past week following
flash flooding and landslides in southwestern Japan.
(SFC, 7/3/99, p.A5)
1999 Jul 23, In Japan Yuzi
Nishizawa (b.1970) attempted to hijack flight 61 from Tokyo and stabbed
to death pilot Naoyuki Nagashima (51). The hijacker was overcome and
the plane landed safely with 516 passengers. On March 23, 2005,
Nishizawa was found to be guilty, but of unsound mind and thus only
partly responsible for his actions. Presiding judge Hisaharu Yasui
handed Nishizawa a life sentence in 2005.
(SFC, 7/24/99,
p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANA_Flight_61)
1999 Jul 26, Japanese government
officials and US Sec. of State Madeleine Albright issued a threat of
economic and diplomatic consequences to North Korea if it fires another
rocket over Japanese territory.
(SFC, 8/3/99, p.A10)
1999 Aug 9, In Japan the
parliament adopted the Rising Sun flag as the national symbol and an
ode to the emperor.
(WSJ, 8/10/99, p.A1)
1999 Aug 12, In Japan lawmakers
gave police the power to use wiretaps against crime suspects.
(SFC, 8/13/99, p.D3)
1999 Aug 19, Japan and Russia
agreed to establish a military hotline.
(SFC, 8/20/99, p.A19)
1999 Sep 17, Japan inaugurated its
$400 million Subaru telescope on Mount Mauna Kea, Hawaii. Subaru is the
Japanese word for the constellation Pleiades.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A21)
1999 Sep 21, Japan’s PM Keizo
Obuchi easily won re-election as head of his party. This ensured that
public money would continue to be used to spur economic recovery.
(SFC, 9/22/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 24, In Japan typhoon Bart
hit wreaked havoc in the south and killed at least 26 people.
(SFC, 9/25/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 25, G7 leaders issued a
joint statement that said it was up to the Japanese to drive down the
value of the yen which had been strengthening against the dollar and
threatened Japanese economic recovery.
(SFEC, 9/26/99, p.A14)
1999 Sep 30, In Japan 3 workers
were hospitalized with radiation poisoning following an accidental
20-hour nuclear reaction at the JCO Co. nuclear processing plant in
Tokaimura, 80 miles northeast of Tokyo. Area residents were told they
could resume normal activity the next day. Production pressure was
later cited as the cause of the accident. Sumitomo Metal Mining Co.,
the owner of JCO, promised to pay damages to victims of the accident.
The number of people exposed was later raised to 69. Hisashi Ouchi
(30), one of the 3 workers, died from radiation exposure on Dec 21.
Masato Shinohara (40) died Apr 27, 2000.
(SFC, 10/1/99, p.A1)(SFC, 10/2/99, p.A1)(SFC,
10/4/99, p.A12)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.C16)(SFC, 10/16/99, p.A14)(SFC,
12/4/99, p.C1)(SFC, 12/22/99, p.C11)(SFC, 4/28/00, p.D6)
1999 Oct 3, Akio Morita,
co-founder of Sony Corp., died in Tokyo at age 78.
(SFEC, 10/3/99, p.C7)
1999 Oct 14, Japan’s Sumitomo and
Sakura Banks announced merger plans. In 2001 they fused into Sumitomo
Mitsui.
(WSJ, 10/15/99, p.A10)(Econ, 5/20/06, Survey p.22)
1999 Oct, The magazine Shukan
Bunshun began a 10-part series that accused Johnny Kitagawa, president
of the talent agency Johnny's Jimusho, of sexual liaisons with teenage
boys that he groomed for stardom.
(SFEC, 1/30/00, p.A26)
1999 Nov 15, In Japan the $95
million MTSAT satellite on the No. 8 H-2 rocket was aborted after
takeoff from the Tanegashima Space Center. A launch in Feb. had also
failed. In Dec. Japan announced that it would abandon the $4.14 billion
H-2 rocket project.
(SFC, 11/16/99, p.E4)
1999 Nov 22, In Japan a T-33 jet
crashed and killed 2 crewmen. The crash severed a 275,000-volt power
line and some 800,000 homes lost power in the Tokyo area.
(SFC, 11/23/99, p.A16)
1999 Dec 1, In Japan Tatsuko
Muraoka, acting leader of the Aum Shinri Kyo cult, took responsibility
for the 1995 gassing of Tokyo subways, led by former guru Shoko
Asahara, and promised some compensation to the victims.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.D2)
1999 Dec, Parliament passed a law
placing restrictions on Aum Shinri Kyo.
(WSJ, 9/28/01, p.A12)
1999 Dec, Japan executed 2 death
row inmates, Teruo Ono and Kazuo Sagawa. This made 32 prisoners
executed in the last 10 years with 50 still on death row. Executions in
Japan were unannounced and held 2 times a year.
(SFC, 12/21/99, p.C7)
1999 Ryu Murakami authored "Bubble
Fantasy – What Japan Could Have Done With That Money."
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A6)
1999 John Nathan authored "Sony:
The Private Life," a history of the 53-year-old Sony Corporation.
(WSJ, 9/30/99, p.A24)
1999 The book "Katte wa Ikenai"
(Don't Buy This ) was an ecological manifesto questioning the safety of
household goods.
(SFC, 11/5/99, p.A15)
1999 The Japanese film "Dr. Akagi"
was directed by Shohei Imamura. It was about Japan during the last days
of WW II.
(SFC, 3/5/99, p.C3)
1999 The Japanese film "Jubaku:
The Archipelago of Rotten Money" was based on a 1997 government
investigation of bank corruption.
(SFC, 12/28/99, p.A8)
1999 Japan enacted corporate law
that enabled the use of shares to buy firms.
(Econ, 12/1/07, SR p.7)
1999 Electronic trading replaced
the floor auction on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
(WSJ, 4/6/06, p.C1)
1999 The Japan National Large
Telescope (Subaru) and the Gemini Northern Telescope were scheduled for
completion on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. A twin of the latter was under
construction in Chile.
(Hem., 7/95, p.115)
1999 NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s top
mobile phone operator, pioneered internet access through its i-mode
service. In 2001 it pioneered 3G technology and in 2005 embedded a
credit card into a wireless chip enabling consumer financial payments.
(Econ, 7/23/05, p.71)
1999 Japan’s Sony Corp. began
selling the robotic dog AIBO. Production of the robot dog was cancelled
in 2006 as part of a restructure program.
(Econ, 12/24/05, p.59)(SFC, 2/2/06, p.C3)
1999 The Japan National Large
Telescope (Subaru) and the Gemini Northern Telescope were scheduled for
completion on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. A twin of the latter was under
construction in Chile.
(Hem., 7/95, p.115)
1999 The Institute of space and
Astronautical Sciences (ISAS) planned to launch its Lunar-A to measure
seismic activity on the Moon.
(SFC, 7/4/98, p.A10)
2000 Jan 21, In Japan 6 people
that included the daughter (16) of Shoko Asahara broke into the Aum
cult's Asashimura facility and kidnapped the 7-year-old son of Asahara.
Two of the kidnappers were arrested over the next 2 days. The boy was
found Jan 23 in the resort town of Hakone.
(SFEC, 1/23/00, p.A22)(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A7)
2000 Jan 23, Residents of
Tokushina on Shikoku Island voted against a $980 million dam proposed
by the government for the Yoshino River by a 10-1 margin. Prime
Minister Obuchi later said the decision was up to the construction
minister.
(SFC, 2/1/00, p.B1)
2000 Feb 6, In Japan Fusae Ota was
elected governor of Osaka, and the 1st woman governor in Japan.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 1, In Japan police
officials reported that the Aum Shinri Kyo sect had developed software
for at least 10 government agencies and for more than 80 major
companies in recent years. The sect had recently changed its name to
Aleph and denounced its violent past.
(SFC, 3/2/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar 13, In Japan the
government reported that the economy swung back into recession at the
end of 1999.
(SFC, 3/13/00, p.A11)
2000 Mar 30, Mount Usu erupted on
Hokaido following 22 years of dormancy. Evacuations from Date, Sobetsu
and Abuta preceded the eruption.
(SFC, 3/31/00, p.A17)(WSJ, 4/3/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 2, In Japan Prime
Minister Keizo Obuchi suffered a stroke and Mikio Aoki took over as
Acting Premier.
(SFC, 4/3/00, p.A8)
2000 Apr 4, In Japan the cabinet
resigned and allowed the Parliament to elect Yoshiro Mori as the new
Prime Minister. The former trade minister was elected as president of
the ruling Liberal Democratic Party earlier the same day.
(SFC, 4/5/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 21, The Russian Coast
Guard fired on a Japanese fishing boat near the disputed Kurile Islands
and took it back to Yuzhno-Kurilsk island.
(SFC, 4/22/00, p.A8)
2000 May 8, In Japan Hogen
Fukunaga, founder of the Hono Hana Sampogyo, cult was arrested on fraud
charges. Members were told that they would get cancer or die if their
feet were not inspected by Fukunaga.
(SFC, 5/9/00, p.A12)
2000 May 11, In Japan the Aum
Shinri Kyo cult, renamed Aleph, agreed to pay $37.4 million in
compensation to victims of the 1995 gas attack in Tokyo.
(SFC, 5/12/00, p.D2)
2000 May 14, Former prime minister
Keizo Obuchi died at age 62.
(SFC, 5/15/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 1, Stores across Japan
emptied beer vending machines to comply with a voluntary ban on beer
vending to help reduce alcoholism.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.B11)
2000 Jun 16, Empress Dowager
Nagako died at age 97.
(SFC, 6/17/00, p.A20)
2000 Jun 19, Noboro Takeshita,
former leader of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party and premier from
1987-1989, died at age 76.
(SFC, 6/19/00, p.E2)
2000 Jun 25, Prime Minister
Yoshiro Mori's LDP lost power to its coalition partners in
parliamentary elections. The coalition won 271 of 480 seats in the
lower house.
(SFC, 6/26/00, p.A1)
2000 Jul 1, Lucie Blackman (21), a
British citizen working in Tokyo, became the 8th Western woman to
disappear in the last 5 years. In 2001 police found her remains encased
in concrete near the residence of Joji Obara, a wealthy businessman and
prime suspect. Obara was formally accused Apr 6, 2001. Some 4,800 tapes
were found that linked Obara to some 400 rapes over 25 years [see April
24, 2007]. On Dec 16, 2008, Obara was convicted for the abduction and
dismemberment of Blackman, but acquitted of her murder. The court also
upheld an earlier conviction for the rapes of 9 other women.
(SFC, 10/17/00, p.A13)(SFC, 2/10/01, p.A11)(SSFC,
2/11/01, p.C2)(SFC, 4/7/01, p.A11)(SFC, 4/9/01, p.A7)(AP, 12/16/08)
2000 Jul 19, In Okinawa over
25,000 demonstrators formed a chain around a US Air Base to protest
American presence ahead of the G-8 meeting.
(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Jul 20, In Japan Prime
Minister Mori presided in informal discussions between G-8 leaders and
4 leaders from poor nations. Pres. Clinton arrived in Okinawa and went
directly to the Cornerstone of peace Memorial where the names of
237,318 people, who died in the battle of Okinawa, are inscribed.
(SFC, 7/20/00, p.A12)(SFC, 7/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Aug 18, The Mount Oyama
volcano erupted for a 5th time on the island of Miyake. The eruptions
began July 9 after 17 years of dormancy.
(SFC, 8/19/00, p.A9)
2000 Aug 22, In Japan Mitsubishi
Motors admitted that it had concealed tens of thousands customer
complaints about automobile defects since 1977.
(SFC, 8/23/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 11, In central and
southern Japan torrential rains left 7 people dead. In Nagoya the
Shinkawa River overflowed.
(SFC, 9/13/00, p.A14)
2000 Oct 5, In western Japan a 7.3
earthquake struck and at least 106 people were injured.
(SFC, 10/6/00, p.D6)(SFC, 10/7/00, p.A8)(SFEC,
10/8/00, p.A18)
2000 Oct 20, In Japan the Kyoei
Life Insurance Co. filed for bankruptcy. The failure of the
11th-largest Japanese live insurer marked the biggest corporate failure
since WW II.
(SFC, 10/21/00, p.D1)
2000 Nov 8, Fusako Shigenobu,
founder of the Japanese Red Army, was arrested in Osaka after 20 years
underground.
(SFC, 11/9/00, p.C2)
2000 Dec 5, Prime Minister Yoshiro
Mori appointed a new Cabinet that included 2 former prime ministers,
Miyazawa and Hashimoto.
(SFC, 12/5/00, p.A16)
2000 Dec 8, A 5-day mock trial was
organized by women's groups against forced sexual slavery during WW II.
(SFC, 12/8/00, p.D7)
2000 Dec 12, Tokyo opened its 12th
municipal subway, the Oedo Line.
(SSFC, 3/11/01, p.T3)
2000 Ryu Murakami authored his
novel "Exodus From Hopeless Japan." It was about renegade
schoolchildren who loose hope in the economic future of Japan and take
matters into their own hands.
(WSJ, 8/23/01, p.A6)
2000 Japan launched the “Project
X” TV documentary series. It was about engineers and other
overachievers who succeeded against the odds.
(Econ, 3/12/05, p.63)
2000 The Bank of Japan raised the
key interest rate from zero to .25% and lowered it after 6 months when
the increase made deflation worse.
(Econ, 12/23/06, p.109)
2000 Japan recorded the 1st known
case of two or more people using the Internet to form a suicide pact.
Hundreds of suicides, if not more, from various countries copied that
pattern in the following years.
(Econ, 6/23/07, p.66)
2000 Toyota released its Prius in
the US, the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle.
(WSJ, 12/22/08, p.B2)
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