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JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Rivers, lakes slightly cleaner in 2000

Water quality in the nation's rivers and lakes improved slightly in 2000 compared with a year earlier, with almost 80 percent of sites meeting environmental standards, the Environment Ministry announced Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 23, 2002

Love always, Janet

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan seemed to be an odd choice for Janet Jackson's press conference, not that her being in town for the Japan leg of the "All for You" world tour didn't count as news -- the banquet room was packed with reporters and TV crews. But Jackson isn't the kind of news personality...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 23, 2002

The Prodigy

The Prodigy might not be ancient history, but five years in pop music can feel like an eternity, and that's how long we've been waiting for them to release some new material.
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Southeast Asian goods find favor in Tokyo shops

Asian handicrafts are seeing a boom in Japan, particularly among young women.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Jan 23, 2002

3-D fantasies with a 1-D feel

The biggest event on the capital's contemporary art circuit this week was undoubtedly the opening of Mariko Mori's "Pure Land" at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. The fact that more than a few people were calling this exhibition a "retrospective" hints at how artspeak is changing, as the oldest...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

NGO says conference built walls around itself

A major international donor meeting on reconstructing Afghanistan, which wrapped up in Tokyo on Tuesday, should have been more transparent and accessible to nongovernmental organizations and the news media, the leader of a Japanese NGO said.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 23, 2002

Brian Wilson's 'Pet Sounds Tour'

For most people, whose impression of The Beach Boys probably begins and ends with pop ditties like "Help Me Rhonda" or "Surfer Girl," it might be difficult to fathom that the band's 1966 album, "Pet Sounds," is ranked right up there with "Sgt. Pepper."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jan 23, 2002

Money Mark

Since breaking out on his own in 1995, Money Mark, the "fourth Beastie Boy," has evolved his organ/keyboard-based grooves from short, funky thumbnail-sketches and lo-fi pop to loose, jazzy soul-jams.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2002

O'Neill underlines Japan's fundamentals

Finance Minister Masajuro Shiokawa voiced resolve Tuesday to resort to all means necessary to combat the nation's economic woes and enable Japan to contribute to global growth again.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2002

Drug approved for kidney ailment

OSAKA -- Tanabe Seiyaku Co. said Tuesday its hypertension treatment drug Tanatril has been approved for treatment of diabetic nephropathy, a kidney abnormality.
BUSINESS
Jan 23, 2002

Toto, Matsushita detail China deal

Toto Ltd. and Matsushita Electric Works Ltd. said Tuesday they will mutually supply housing materials parts in China as part of their tieup in the housing materials business.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / THE WRITERS' SPIN
Jan 23, 2002

Consultant wary of 'U.S.-style' info, mutual funds

Hajime Yamazaki must be an enemy of mutual fund companies.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Jan 23, 2002

Forgiven but not forgotten

A standard and horribly cliched J-pop ritual is the public confession of guilt by performers who have done various naughty things -- much like politicians who temporarily drop out of sight after being found on the take or caught rigging elections. The most recent example is SMAP member Goro Inagaki,...
JAPAN
Jan 23, 2002

Legionnaires' disease death linked to Tokyo public bath

A 77-year-old man has died of pneumonia caused by legionella bacteria at a public bath in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, the health ministry said.
SOCCER / J. League
Jan 23, 2002

Knee forces Nanami to withdraw

Japan and Jubilo Iwata midfielder Hiroshi Nanami has pulled out of the ongoing Japan national team training camp in order to focus on the rehabilitation of his knee, the Japan Football Association announced Tuesday.
Events
Jan 22, 2002

Exhibit of dwarf 'ume' gives preview of spring

NAGAHAMA, Shiga Pref. -- An annual exhibit of dwarf "ume" (plum) trees at Keiunkan Hall here is giving visitors a glimpse of early spring. Of 300 bonsai trees prepared for the event, about 100 will be shown till March 10.
Events
Jan 22, 2002

Speedskater suit to let racers go with the airflow

OSAKA -- During the four years since the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, athletes have tried hard to improve for next month's games in Salt Lake City.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 22, 2002

Japan should salvage the mystery vessel

Many Japanese might have rejoiced while watching television footage showing the recent sinking of an unidentified ship following an exchange of gunfire with Japanese Coast Guard cutters, but I was dismayed by Japan's fragile national defense system that was exposed by the incident in the East China Sea....
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Foreigners play host at new home stays

A citizens' group working to promote mutual understanding between Japanese and foreigners living in Japan announced Monday that it will hold a one-day home stay program in which participants spend a night at the homes of non-Japanese residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Elvis wannabe crooners soothe to 'Rabu Me Tenda'

Dressed in a black tuxedo, a middle-aged former company executive took the stage, cued the six-piece band and launched into Elvis Presley's version of the syrupy '60s ballad "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me."
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Jan 22, 2002

Japan must watch sex and vampires at World Cup

So Premier League side Bolton Wanderers finally saw the light and decided to give back Japan striker Akinori Nishizawa after just six months on loan from Cerezo Osaka. Anyone surprised?
SOCCER / World cup
Jan 22, 2002

Applications welcomed

The Japanese World Cup Organizing Committee will receive applications for World Cup ticket holders to change the names on their tickets from Monday through Feb. 15 -- but only for those who have valid reasons.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

13% of Kansai airport arrivals on way to USJ

OSAKA -- More than one in 10 domestic passengers flying to Kansai International Airport are visitors to Osaka's Universal Studios Japan, according to a survey recently released by the airport authority.
JAPAN
Jan 22, 2002

Foreign students found working at sex parlor

Immigration authorities have detained two female Chinese students from Sakata Junior College in Yamagata Prefecture after they were found working at a Tokyo sex parlor, immigration officials said Monday.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past