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JAPAN
May 11, 2000

Diet passes bill mandating barrier-free transportation

The Diet passed a government-sponsored bill Wednesday to make railway stations, airports and roads more accessible for the disabled and senior citizens.
JAPAN
May 11, 2000

Tokyo to host scientific meet

An international conference on overpopulation, food and other leading global issues will take place in Tokyo from May 15 to 18, according to the government.
JAPAN
May 11, 2000

Cult scam: 'pope-blessed' rings

The cult Honohana Sanpogyo has fabricated rings it claims to have been given by Pope John Paul II to its guru, Hogen Fukunaga, and sold them to followers for between 100,000 yen and 300,000 yen apiece, it was learned Wednesday.
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
May 11, 2000

French with a difference

We have no shortage of bargain-basement French-accented bistros scattered around the metropolis. But for my money, Tete-a-tete is the cream of the current crop. I could reel off about a dozen cogent reasons why I rate this little place so highly. But there's only one that you really need to know -- it...
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2000

Dubai: the Mideast's global village

DUBAI -- Last month, Gen. Sheikh Muhammad bin Maktum, minister of defense of the United Arab Emirates, announced at a press conference that the Internet revolution and the "new economy" were coming to the government of Dubai. It was an incongruous spectacle, so traditional a figure, in distinctive black...
EDITORIALS
May 10, 2000

The IRA cuts the knot

The Irish Republican Army has broken the logjam in the Northern Irish peace process. Last weekend, the group offered to put its vast stockpiles of weapons "completely and verifiably beyond use." That gesture will allow the suspended power-sharing agreement in the province to go forward. The implicit...
SUMO
May 10, 2000

Taka cruises, Akebono loses

Takanohana put on a clinic Tuesday to preserve his unbeaten record, but yokozuna rival Akebono lost the plot badly and flopped to his first defeat on Day 3 of the Summer Grand Sumo Tournament.
BASEBALL / MLB
May 10, 2000

Dragons cut Onishi's pay after ump hurt

The Chunichi Dragons of the Central League slashed the salary of Takayuki Onishi by 1 million yen on Monday for the outfielder's involvement in a shoving incident that caused a broken rib to an umpire in Saturday's game.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Feeding G8 press a tall order

It's said that too many cooks can spoil the broth. But for those charged with feeding the thousands at the upcoming Okinawa summit of the Group of Eight, it's likely a dash of diplomacy will be a key ingredient along with local flavors.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

DNA advance seen yielding new drugs

A team of Japanese and German scientists has decoded the DNA sequence of a human chromosome containing genes causing diseases that include Down's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease and leukemia, Japanese scientists said.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Police chief wants juveniles to repent

National Police Agency chief Setsuo Tanaka told senior police officials at a meeting Tuesday to make juvenile crime suspects reflect on their offenses.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Bad parents to be denied access to their kids

The Liberal Democratic Party on Tuesday endorsed a government-proposed draft of a bill that calls for restricting the rights of parents who abuse their children to see or talk with them.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Landlord poll finds a quarter turn elderly away

About 25 percent of real estate agents and other property managers said they have denied elderly clients a lease on such grounds as difficulty in dealing with sudden illness, an industry survey said earlier this week.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Japan lacks leadership: OECD chief

Japan needs political leadership to carry out regulatory reforms necessary for people to enjoy the benefits of the emerging globalized economy, the head of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Communities tapped to teach kids foreign languages

Elementary school students in 29 communities across Japan will receive community-run foreign language lessons outside of school, Education Ministry officials said.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Honohana leader, 11 cohorts arrested for bilking believers

The Metropolitan Police Department arrested Hogen Fukunaga, the founder of the foot-reading cult Honohana Sanpogyo, and 11 other senior cult members Tuesday on suspicion of fraud.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Correction episode may be near an end

The trigger for Tokyo stock price corrections in recent weeks has been volatility on the New York Stock Exchange.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Minicars take first fall in five months

Domestic sales of new minivehicles in April decreased 2.9 percent to 141,600 units, marking the first year-on-year drop in five months, the Japan Minivehicles Association said Tuesday.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Mori to visit Seoul May 29 for talks with President Kim

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will make a one-day trip to Seoul on May 29 to hold informal talks with South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki said Tuesday.
BUSINESS
May 10, 2000

Economic growth in March was ninth straight expansion

The March coincident index of economic indicators, which gauges the current state of the economy, measured above 50 percent -- an indication of economic expansion -- for the ninth straight month, the Economic Planning Agency said Tuesday.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
May 10, 2000

Sea of love

Ponder, if you will, these two recent headlines:
LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Postcards from the flip side of Japan

Think of the antithesis of Japan. A place where there are few people, an abundance of unspoiled natural beauty, a low standard of living and, perhaps most importantly for the visitor, sparkling blue oceans teeming with fish and alive with coral reefs.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Crane to help team watch forest

A group of scientists from Japan and Malaysia will soon begin monitoring a tropical forest in Malaysia's Sarawak region from a lookout atop the world's largest nature-observation crane.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Report focuses on NGOs, missile threat

The government will step up its efforts to build partnerships with nongovernmental organizations and other groups to meet emerging diplomatic challenges, according to the Foreign Ministry's annual foreign policy report released Tuesday.
CULTURE / Stage
May 10, 2000

Kee Company explores facets of communication

If we could see language, if language relied on visual instead of aural means, it would become a kind of communication closely resembling telepathy: a fusion of the observer with the observed.
ENVIRONMENT
May 10, 2000

Trees and taste at Mito Botanic Garden

Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, is well known throughout Japan for natto (fermented soybeans), an acquired taste. It is also known for Kairakuen Garden, one of the Three Famous Gardens in Japan, which I've written about before. Just a couple of kilometers south of Mito in the lush green countryside, there...
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2000

Modest hopes for summit between Koreas

Last month, the leaders of North and South Korea stunned the world with an announcement of plans to meet in Pyongyang in June at the first ever summit between the two nations. It is an event fraught with both danger and opportunity.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?