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COMMUNITY
Aug 9, 2000

A lifetime spent selling pearls to the stars

Today's pop quiz: What do Jodie Foster, Harrison Ford and Brooke Shields have in common? Hint: They are all happy customers of the Wally Yonamine Company. No, they did not purchase autographed baseballs (although Yonamine, former ace slugger for the Yomiuri Giants, is still known as "the Jackie Robinson...
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2000

Tokyo government to seize land for dump site

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to break a 6-year-old impasse with environmentalists by expropriating two plots of land to expand a municipal landfill in the town of Hinode, western Tokyo, officials announced Tuesday.
LIFE / Travel
Aug 9, 2000

Kyoto welcomes back the dear departed

Bon, the Buddhist Festival of the Dead, is celebrated throughout Japan, but exact dates vary from region to region. Kyoto traditionally observes Bon Aug. 7-16, and, not surprisingly, given its more than 1,200 years of history and strong Buddhist traditions, the town has some unique ways of paying tribute...
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2000

Acquitted Nepal man to stay in jail

The Tokyo High Court has rejected a suit demanding it release a Nepalese man who was earlier acquitted by a lower court on murder and robbery charges, the man's lawyers said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Japan proposes Australia, New Zealand join bluefin-tuna hunt

Japan will propose to Australia and New Zealand that the three countries jointly fish for southern bluefin tuna for research purposes following an international tribunal's rejection last week of a plea by Canberra and Wellington for Japan to halt experimental fishing, Fisheries Agency officials said...
EDITORIALS
Aug 8, 2000

A lesson from the police

Japan's reputation as the most crime-free of the major industrialized nations is crumbling. It has always been a relative matter and if any proof of the change were needed beyond the daily headlines, the National Police Agency has just provided it. In a regular semiannual report, the NPA announced that...
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

One man's fight to be a midwife

The baby looked pale as it started to emerge from the mother's body, worrying Hisateru Takikawa, who had been attending to the woman for hours since her labor started.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Narita security guards accused of beating detained foreigners

Foreigners who are refused entry to Japan at Narita airport have been the subject of violent attacks from security guards with a private company who are forcing them to hand over expenses to cover the cost of guarding them, as well as for their meals and accommodation, until they are deported, a former...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2000

Deflationary concerns nearly gone, Bank of Japan says

Bank of Japan Gov. Masaru Hayami crept another inch closer to lifting the central bank's "zero-interest-rate" policy Monday by telling the Diet "an end to deflationary concerns is foreseeable."
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

Think global, act local; or is it think local, act global?

LANDSCAPES AND COMMUNITIES ON THE PACIFIC RIM: From Asia to the Pacific Northwest, edited by Karen K. Gaul and Jackie Hiltz. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 254 pp., $24.95 (paper). Lives are complex, and if this era of globalization has taught us anything, it is that this complexity extends beyond local...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 8, 2000

Japan: everything and more

THE MIKADO'S EMPIRE: A History of Japan from the Mythological Age to the Meiji Era, by William Elliot Griffis. A facsimile printing of the 1895 edition. New York, Tokyo, Osaka & London: ICG Muse, Inc. 2000, 462 pp., 1,300 yen. William Elliot Griffis, educator and clergyman, first came to Japan in 1870....
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 8, 2000

Recognizing Japan's key role in Asia

U.S. policymakers seem to have given up on Japan, laments Michael Green, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The exasperation is premature, Green says, for by most yardsticks, Japan is more important to U.S. interests than is China. This is important as U.S. Republicans choose...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 8, 2000

Keepers of the flame take Gypsy sounds to the world

Under Soviet communism, the ethnic and folk music of Eastern Europe was often hijacked as a form of propaganda. Words were changed to express patriotic sentiments and slogans of peace. In Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, the country's dictator for 25 years, would bus out thousands of peasants to sing such...
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2000

MITI to ask FTC to probe Tepco over power deals

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry plans to file a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission over Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s involvement in an upcoming bid to be the power supplier of the ministry's main building, MITI sources said Monday.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Rightists kill two gangsters in central Tokyo shooting

Two gangsters were shot and killed and five others were injured, one seriously, during a flareup in a rightist group's office Monday afternoon in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Mori, Kuze still disagree over money given to Daikyo

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori continued to differ Monday with former Financial Reconstruction Commission chief Kimitaka Kuze over the use of 100 million yen provided by condominium developer Daikyo Inc.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 8, 2000

The Bush machine rolls along

WASHINGTON -- There are three defining events for a candidate in the U.S. presidential campaign, events that reveal the candidate in a unique and important way. They are the selection of the vice-presidential candidate, the candidate's appearance at the convention, and the debates.
BUSINESS
Aug 8, 2000

1.4 trillion yen spent to curb yen's rise

In a rare detailed report released Monday, the Finance Ministry said monetary authorities spent 1.3854 trillion yen April 3 on a dollar-buying binge to curb the currency's rapid appreciation.
JAPAN
Aug 8, 2000

Japan submits carbon-sink proposal

Japan has notified a U.N. body that it is calling for forests and forestry activities to be defined in such a way that "forest management" would give nations credit toward their target cuts of carbon dioxide emissions.

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan