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EDITORIALS
Jul 27, 2001

Reviving 'PKO' for shares

The Financial Services Agency this month worked out a detailed plan to set up a quasi-public body to purchase surplus shares unloaded by private banks. A related bill is expected to reach the Diet floor perhaps during an extraordinary session that opens this autumn. The problem is that the plan is designed...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2001

Budget test for sacred cows

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reforms with no sacred cows" received a boost from the G7 economic summit in Genoa, Italy.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2001

Japan took more than it gave on Kyoto

After nearly four drawn out days of intense talks in Bonn, 178 signatories to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change forged an accord on operating rules for the Kyoto Protocol.
COMMUNITY
Jul 27, 2001

Tips on how to make your kanji garden grow

TO: Diane Grace Shimizu RE: Your Kanji Dream
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jul 27, 2001

Hawaiian JETs sing a new island song

The song "Neba Neba Natto" may never make the Japanese music charts, but it is becoming a classic of a sort. The song, by Nikkei Aloha, has a laid-back Hawaiian tempo and humorous lyrics paying homage to natto (fermented soybeans).
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 27, 2001

Racoon dog

* Japanese name:Tanuki * Scientific name: Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus * Description: Tanuki look a bit like fat foxes, with short legs and black and gray fur. They grow up to 60 cm long and have distinctive stripes of black fur under their eyes, a bit like pandas. * Where to find them:Standing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2001

Jihad-inspired bloodletting in Kashmir stifles all peace moves

NEW DELHI -- Recent massacres in Kashmir share one feature: they are massacres of innocents, of men, women and children who have no political affiliations or aspirations. Their only crime was that they chose to live in Kashmir or happen to be passing through the state.
EDITORIALS
Jul 26, 2001

No more compromises on Kyoto

The Kyoto Protocol, which was once pushed to the edge of collapse, has barely survived. On Monday delegates to the U.N. climate talks in Bonn — the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP6) to the Framework Convention on Climate Change — reached a last-minute agreement on rules for implementing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001

U.K. politics interferes with euro issue

LONDON -- It is a subject that most pragmatic politicians in Britain, including the prime minister and the front-runner for the leadership of the Conservative opposition, would prefer to ignore. Since the Tories were led toward electoral defeat in June by their obsession about Europe, the political establishment...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001

Legalization: The drug war's best weapon

LONDON -- In Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland it is practically impossible to get arrested for buying or using "soft drugs." In the Netherlands, users may buy up to five grams of cannabis or hashish for private use at 1,500 licensed "coffee shops," and they are opening two drive-through outlets...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jul 26, 2001

So much to see despite the cedars

Earlier this year, I hired a car at Miyazaki Airport and drove along the coast to Kagoshima.
ENVIRONMENT / IN BLOOM
Jul 26, 2001

Chosen asagao (Korean morning glory)

"Kae stretched out her hands and snatched the cold, wet flowers. One after the other she picked them in defiance, as she was too upset merely to contemplate their rapaciousness and beauty. 'Do you know the name of that flower?' inquired a voice overhead. Kae had been too engrossed to hear footsteps....
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Jul 26, 2001

The next big thing

www.sciam.com/2001/0801issue/0801scicit4.html Back in 1995, the domestic electronics and telecom industries were about to unleash the Pride of Japan on the world: PHS. Ooops. We just went with full cellular handsets instead. A few months later, a big consortium was telling us we wouldn't be able to take...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 26, 2001

The king is a beast, but the queen is a democrat

Imagine a place where all the females give birth at the same time, where grandmothers nurse their daughters' children and baby-sit for them, and where all children are raised in a protective nursery. Where females join together in defending the community against dangerous strangers and those of the same...
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2001

Missing the target on small arms

A United Nations conference last weekend approved a historic agreement to fight global trafficking in small arms. Despite years of preparation, agreement hinged on last-minute negotiations, largely to meet U.S. objections. Fortunately, delegates understood the magnitude of the problem and put progress...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2001

Why Japan won't back down on whaling

LONDON -- "They do not allow them free for a moment -- not even at cocktail parties," said Atherton Martin, former Environment and Fisheries Minister of Dominica, describing how the Japanese ride herd on the representatives of countries whose votes they have bought at International Whaling Commission...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Lost and found in a dream

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) Rating: * * * * * Director: Hayao Miyazaki Running time: 125 minutes Language: JapaneseNow showing Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli animators had their biggest-ever triumph with "Mononoke Hime (The Princess Mononoke)," an eco-fable set in premodern...
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2001

A nasty taste of things to come

LONDON — Conventional wisdom has it that the future is impossible to predict, or at least to predict with any accuracy.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Stranded on Planet Hollywood

Planet of the Apes Rating: * * Director: Tim Burton Running time: 120 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing Michael Clarke Duncan in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" -- (C)2001 Twentieth Century Fox Director Tim Burton is quite clear on this matter: His version of "Planet of the Apes" is no mere "remake"...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Something for everyone under the big blue sea

Dykkerne Rating: * * 1/2 Director: Ake Sandgren Running time: 91 minutes Language: DanishNow showing This is my second week in a row writing on a film from Scandinavia, so I'm suffering somewhat from Big Blonde People Overload. Especially since the latest involves apple-cheeked, sturdy-boned youngsters...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Pick a question, any question

Good news: We members of the Japanese masu-komi were privileged to attend the premiere press conference for Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes."
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 25, 2001

The Avalanches: 'Since I Left You'

According to the credits on their debut album, "Since I Left You," The Avalanches are six young men, only two of whom play instruments (guitar and piano/percussion). The rest are listed as "mixers," which makes sense when you consider that the record contains no less than 900 samples. Surprisingly, no...
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 25, 2001

On the origin of speciesism

That there's something menacing about the title "Planet of the Apes" says more about our ignorance than it does about the writer's ingenuity: Earth is already a planet of apes.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 25, 2001

Alex Sipiagin: 'Steppin' Zone'

Pity any young trumpeter having to play in the shadows of Wynton, Miles and Louis. All the innovation's been done, all the peaks have already been reached. Still, there's always room for good music. Alex Sipiagin's second recording, "Steppin' Zone," may not propel him up there with the masters, but it...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

The misanthropic genius of Ensor

Living in densely populated cities, we survive by ignoring the crowd, by refusing to acknowledge those forced into physical proximity with us. The artist, however, is excluded from this luxury. He is expected to be aware of everything around him, including the seething mass of humanity. The etchings...
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Labyrinth of Bombay

An exhibition of paintings and installations by Indian artist Atul Dodiya, depicting the kaleidoscopic changes to the city of Mumbai (Bombay), is being held at The Japan Foundation Forum in Akasaka, Tokyo.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

Gimmickry belies a true phenomenon

A survey of 20th-century art would identify few individuals with as remarkable a story as Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican painter whose life was one of those stranger-than-fiction phenomena. Already crippled by polio, the teenage Kahlo was impaled on a steel handrail in a trolley accident that shattered...
CULTURE / Stage
Jul 25, 2001

All the world's Miyagi's 'logos & pathos' stage

In the world of Japanese contemporary theater, the Ku Na'uka company is famed for its unique "logos & pathos" method, in which each role on stage is performed by one narrator/speaker (in the "logos" role) and one performer/mover (in the "pathos" role).
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 25, 2001

Iggy Pop: 'Beat 'Em Up'

Iggy Pop would take two tabs of LSD before a show (to get him in "the mood") and then during a chaotic performance by his band, The Stooges, the stage would be bombarded with beer bottles from irate punters. As the acid majorly kicked in, Iggy, no longer able to stand up, would writhe on the floor screaming...

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person