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LIFE / Travel
Jul 26, 2000

Summertime and the offshore angling is easy

Summer is here and with it the most exciting angling adventure Japan has to offer -- catching dolphinfish. Not to be confused with the sea mammal of the same name, this is the middle-weight champion of offshore angling. These fish have power, speed and will aggressively strike lures, flies or bait. ...
COMMENTARY
Jul 26, 2000

Ethics for a turbulent age

There is much justifiable concern in Japan and Britain about rising levels of crime and bad behavior, especially among young people. The responses have been varied, including the usual calls for heavier punishments combined with "zero tolerance" policing. Yet few have much idea how this is to be enforced...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2000

Testing times for Sino-Pakistani friendship

ISLAMABAD -- There was a familiar ring to recent allegations in U.S. newspapers, reportedly based on intelligence sources, that China is continuing to aid Pakistan's plans to build long-range nuclear-capable missiles. It is not the first time such allegations have surfaced in the United States, especially...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2000

Swastikas under the onion domes

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia It is a muggy Wednesday afternoon in the nation's largest Pacific seaport, and as people meander home, a handful of men and boys position themselves around the central square, an asphalt plaza decorated with a monument to the communist revolutionaries who conquered the Far East.
JAPAN
Jul 26, 2000

Nuclear weapons here to stay, A-bomb survivors say

More than half of the survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki who responded to a recent poll said they expect nuclear weapons will not be abolished in the 21st century.
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2000

G8 shapes up for a new century

Despite presummit speculation about possible exchanges of views on issues not on the summit agenda, the leaders of the Group of Eight countries generally focused their debates over the past three days on issues contained in the scenario developed by working-level officials. Such speculation had preceded...
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

G8 summit boosts Nago businesses

The summit boosted business for many in Nago, but fishermen voluntarily stopped working. NAGO, Okinawa Pref. (Kyodo) Some businesses in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, saw their sales triple before and during the three-day Group of Eight summit, which ended Sunday.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Former prosecutor files for review of dismissal

A former prosecutor who was arrested for allegedly molesting a woman on a train and later fired, on Monday filed a complaint with the National Personnel Authority, requesting a review of his dismissal.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Education Ministry urges teachers to curb unruly kids

An Education Ministry research council called on kindergarten and elementary school teachers Monday to cooperate to control unruly students and halt a breakdown in classroom order that has plagued Japan in recent years.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2000

Trade surplus down 4.6% in first half

Japan's customs-cleared merchandise trade surplus came to 5.73 trillion yen in the first half of fiscal 2000, down 4.6 percent from a year earlier as imports outgrew exports, the Finance Ministry said Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Hayami still warns of end to 'zero-rate' policy

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami indicated Monday that the bank is close to ending its "zero-interest-rate" policy, citing brighter prospects for an economic recovery and diminishing deflationary risks.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 25, 2000

Japan unveils Olympic baseball squad

Eight professionals, including Seibu Lions star Daisuke Matsuzaka and Kintetsu Buffaloes slugger Norihiro Nakamura, have joined 16 top amateur players in Japan's baseball squad for the Sydney Olympics in September.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Crack found in oil duct at nuclear power plant

A cracked oil duct has been found at a Fukushima nuclear power plant that was closed Sunday following an oil leak, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Nuclear panel wants Monju reactivated

The Atomic Energy Commission on Monday proposed resuming the operations of Monju, a prototype fast-breeder reactor that was mothballed after an accident in 1995.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2000

Panel drops idea of 20% consumption tax

A government advisory panel on taxation was planning to recommend in its triennial proposals unveiled July 14 that the consumption tax rate be hiked to 20 percent, only abandoning the idea out of concern over a probable public backlash, panel sources said Friday.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

Crown Princess will miss funeral

The Crown Princess will be absent from today's funeral ceremony for the Empress Dowager and related events that will run until Wednesday, the Imperial Household Agency said Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 25, 2000

5.5 magnitude earthquake shakes Shikine, Kozu islands

An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.5 jolted the islands of Shikine and Kozu in the Izu Islands chain south of Tokyo on Monday morning, the Meteorological Agency said.
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2000

Supermarket sales plummet 4.4%

First-half sales at Japan's supermarkets totaled 7.86 trillion yen, down 4.4 percent from the same period the previous year, an industry association said Monday.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Jul 25, 2000

From the streets of Tokyo to Royal Albert Hall

The night before they left for Europe, Japanese group Cicala Mvta (pronounced Chicala Muta) played for about 50 people in Tokyo -- about par for the course for them. When they arrived in London the next day, theirs was the hottest ticket in town. Sort of.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2000

The debate on Nanjing is now closed

DOCUMENTS ON THE RAPE OF NANKING, edited by Timothy Brook. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1999, 301 pp., 2,616 yen. AMERICAN GODDESS AT THE RAPE OF NANKING: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin, by Hua-ling Hu. Carbondale, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000, 184 pp. The adversity...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 25, 2000

Making peace in Cambodia

EXITING INDOCHINA: U.S. Leadership of the Cambodia Settlement & Normalization with Vietnam, by Richard H. Solomon, with a foreword by Stanley Karnow. United States Institute of Peace Press, 2000, 113 pp. (paper). Contrary to popular opinion, America's involvement with Vietnam did not end with the hurried...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 25, 2000

So you wanna be a glam-sleaze superstar?

As befits artists whose chosen mode of expression is more or less a comment on somebody else's mode of expression, Swedish pop groups definitely have the best names. The Trampolines play bouncy, never-less-than-fun British pop while the Wannadies mine the rich vein of teenage angst in straightforward...
BUSINESS
Jul 25, 2000

JAL, ANA to join airlines in e-market for goods, parts

Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways said Monday that they will join eight other international airlines in establishing a venture to operate an online market to help them procure goods and services.
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2000

Media credibility is at risk

Two recent incidents have revealed the cozy relationship between government and the media in Japan. One is the appointment of a former Yomiuri Shimbun chief editorialist as a member of the National Public Safety Commission. The other is the fact that a member of the Cabinet press club wrote a memo for...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji