Japanese Government

RTKL Associates Inc. of Baltimore said yesterday that it has been awarded part of the second-biggest Japanese government contract ever awarded to a non-Japanese architecture firm, as it joined a venture that will design a suburban Tokyo office complex that could be worth $500 million or more."

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is planning to start passing the tin cup overseas once again, seeking a new round of financial contributions from foreign governments to help pay for the mounting costs of the U.S. troop deployment in the Persian Gulf, administration sources say.The ability to raise new money abroad could prove critical in determining whether the administration can maintain the multinational coalition in the gulf over a long period of...

WASHINGTON -- Japanese government officials might target U.S. aircraft, computer and agricultural products for retaliatory sanctions if the White House imposes steep tariffs on imported Japanese luxury cars next week, trade officials in Washington and Tokyo said yesterday.A Japanese foreign trade ministry official in a telephone interview from Tokyo said the retaliation talk is meant to go beyond short-term pressure tactics by Japan."President Clinton doesn't think we'll retaliate, but we will if we're pushed and pushed, as is happening now," the official said on the condition his name wasn't used.

Quietly and without fanfare, Asian markets are slowly being closed to U.S. products. This is no accident. Working closely with their government, Japanese multinational firms are being cloned in other Asian countries. This has resulted in the intricate web of governmental, industrial and distribution ties called "keiretsu,", which has made Japan so difficult to penetrate, being mirrored along the Pacific Rim.Unless this trend is recognized and countered, foreign firms including U.S. companies will be at a serious competitive disadvantage with Japanese "insiders" in Asia, a region that will continue to grow steadily despite recent setbacks.

"The Comfort Women: Japan's Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War," by George Hicks. Illustrated. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. 303 pages. $25 Once again, the Japanese government has sought to right a wrong of its wartime past - apologizing to the Asian women who were rounded up and forced into satisfying the sexual needs of the Japanese Armed Forces. Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama's July 18 acknowledgement of Japan's complicity in the sexual enslavement of the so-called "comfort women" is not the first apology offered to the victims, the majority of whom were Korean.

TOKYO -- Japan's next government should clearly apologize for World War II and "inform our children what their forefathers did in the past," Tsutomu Hata, who is expected to become the country's deputy prime minister, said yesterday.Such action is needed, he said, to end constant foreign demands for apologies and continuing suspicion that Japan is bent on seeking military dominance again in Asia.Mr. Hata, 57, is a leading figure in the eight-party coalition that is expected to begin governing Japan when Parliament elects a prime minister tomorrow.

I had always wished that my great-grandmother, who lived in Maryland during the Civil War, had written some personal notes as to what it was like for her at the time. They would be especially interesting for us now. With that thought in mind, I wrote some of my memories of World War II for my grandchildren. I attach the article for your review since Dec 7 is today, it puts a human touch on the anniversary date. Some things you never forget, and those of us living with memories of WWII recall with great sadness a quiet Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941.

TOKYO -- The idea was simple: Shower the Japanese with free shopping coupons and they would spend some life into the economy.Not cash, which could be stashed under a futon. Not a tax cut, which would only end up in savings banks.Local shopping coupons worth $6 billion would be good for virtually anything but securities or sex. Every man, woman and child over 65 or under 15 would be given 20 coupons in easy-to-fritter denominations of 1,000 yen -- about $8.This was the opening round of the Liberal Democratic Party's grand economic stimulus package announced last fall to rekindle the consumer demand that has gone cold as this country plods through its nearly decade-long recession.

WASHINGTON -- Any U.S. business pondering whether to take a crack at the bountiful market of Japan might first consider the pile of debt burying New Jersey inventor Sal Monte.A dozen years ago, Mr. Monte's small company, Kenrich Petrochemicals, set out to conquer Japan armed with 15 patented chemical additives that did such things as juice up the performance of audio recording tapes.One by one, the Japanese knocked his products off the market, citing environmental regulations and other fine print -- although those rules never affected the Japanese-made products that sprung up in their place.

Hey, Mr. Mayor! The city's disease clinics are in chaos! Don't just stand there! You are the CEO of that outfit!No one believes in laissez-faire. The Japanese government protects the auto, camera and computer industries. The U.S. government advertises the surgical rubber industry.