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COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2000

Putting post-Seattle pieces back together

Billed as the most important meeting of the new millennium, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD X) in Bangkok in mid-February deserved its designation as "mother of all conferences." While it might not have had the cachet of a Davos World Economic Forum, it did not lack for luster and...
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 15, 2000

Wild animal tales -- with a pinch of salt

The image of wild animals visiting a salt lick is probably a familiar one to you if you are a regular watcher of television natural history documentaries. The scene is repeated over and over again, as large African or Indian mammals approach this particularly rich source of minerals.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2000

China remains a paradise for pirates

Even by the standards of China's billion-dollar piracy industry, it was a remarkable gaffe. The Guangzhou No. 11 Rubber Factory had opened its doors to London International Group executives, hoping to produce Durex condoms in China. As they moved from the latex dippers to the packaging lines, that something...
CULTURE / Music
Mar 12, 2000

NHK Symphony Orchestra performs American classics

The world of music is global indeed. Great musicians have originated from a bewildering array of places, studied far from home and made their careers around the world. The United States of America can claim its share of eminent instrumentalists and singers, giving birth to some, training others and nurturing...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 10, 2000

India debates killing killers

NEW DELHI -- The recent execution of serial husband-killer Betty Lou Beets in Texas has been condemned by human rights institutions in many countries. They find it strange that the United States, which calls itself a champion of human rights, should resort to something as barbaric as capital punishment....
BUSINESS
Mar 10, 2000

Yen gearing up to flex its muscles again

The yen is pulling out of its corrective phase.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 10, 2000

Still much to savor in PPM

Take three vintage bottles of wine. Ignore every rule about proper storage. Open them about 40 times a year and serve them to whomever you meet. Within moments of tasting them, everyone is certain to experience the same thing: a deep, warm glow guaranteed to last a lifetime.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 9, 2000

No stereotypes in 'the House of Weeds'

So you think Korean food is all smoky yakiniku, meat-laden stews and fiery, spicy kimchi? That's a bit like saying Chinese people eat nothing but ramen and gyoza; or that Thai cuisine begins and ends with tom yam kung. Or that there's nothing to eat in Japan except sushi, tempura and sukiyaki.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Mar 8, 2000

Where it counts

People would often like to take their vacations in Japan to learn more of the history and culture, but when they start checking, they discover the price is too high and end up in other Asian countries that offer multi-bargains. A reader has heard of the new low fares soon to be available within Japan...
SOCCER / J. League
Mar 7, 2000

J. League boss Kawabuchi defends format of two-stage championship

The chairman of the J. League, Saburo Kawabuchi, believes last season's dramatic penalty shootout between Jubilo Iwata and Shimizu S-Pulse has increased the "worldwide appeal" of Japanese soccer.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 6, 2000

U.S. left its mark on Japanese education

HONOLULU -- Japanese-U.S. cultural relations are filled with ironies. Perhaps the greatest is that many of the thousands of foreigners hired by the Japanese government during the Meiji Era (1868-1912) are far better known in Japan than they are in their own countries. A second fascinating irony is that...
JAPAN
Mar 6, 2000

Japan needs juggling act to secure future in Asia

With China expected to assume a greater presence as a regional power both economically and militarily early next century, Japan appears groping for a way to get along with its giant neighbor without disrupting its decades-old security partnership with the United States.
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 6, 2000

Never mind lions, look at the birds

When thinking of traveling in South Africa, many people imagine safari-style ventures into the bush to spy elephant, rhino and cheetah.
JAPAN
Mar 5, 2000

Shop plaza taps 'platinum' generation for jobs, revival

NAGAHAMA, Shiga Pref. -- Although Tamae Shibata has many hobbies to pick from to bide her time, they offer the 71-year-old little satisfaction.
CULTURE / Stage
Mar 5, 2000

Who's afraid of August Strindberg?

If a single metaphor could speak for the career and life of Sweden's greatest playwright and author, it would be the following taken from one of his novels: "We were dancing on the edge of the volcano."
CULTURE / Art
Mar 5, 2000

Treasures of the House of Orange

Four hundred years ago, in spring 1600, a Dutch ship made landfall in Kyushu, the sole survivor of five that had set out on the hazardous journey from Rotterdam two years before.
EDITORIALS
Mar 4, 2000

China menaced by corruption

In the runup to the National People's Congress that opens Sunday, Chinese authorities have intensified their crackdown on corruption and smuggling. Chinese leaders, who see 2000 as a milestone in their anticorruption drive, are gripped by a sense of crisis: They will lose the trust and support of the...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 2, 2000

Major League Baseball teams in Japan an improbable dream

Last week former Yokohama BayStars executive Tadahiro Ushigome spoke at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan in Tokyo on a wide range of baseball issues, including the possibility that Japan may one day be home to one or two major league teams.
COMMENTARY
Mar 2, 2000

Japan needs a new, better Constitution

At long last, deliberations on the Constitution have started at both Houses of the Diet. It is not clear, however, what kind of conclusion will be reached and when. Indications are that the participants in those deliberations want to draw up a conclusion by 2003 at the latest. But this is by no means...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2000

Handling the bugaboo of post-POW stress

It is well-known that U.S. presidential aspirant John McCain, a former U.S. Navy pilot, was struck by North Vietnamese fire over Hanoi during the Vietnam War and subsequently spent five and a half years in various prisoner-of-war camps. He still bears physical scars from the experience, notably the fact...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2000

Tough new laws stir outrage in Australia

SYDNEY -- Johnno, a 15-year-old Aboriginal boy, steals a few pencils and some paint. The magistrate has no option but to send him to prison for four weeks. After three weeks behind bars, Johnno hangs himself.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 29, 2000

Afghanistan drags Pakistan down with it

ISLAMABAD -- More than 20 years after Soviet troops marched into Afghanistan in support of the last communist coup, the central Asian country's turmoil is unending. Descriptions such as "extreme impoverishment," "a lost generation" and "the ultimate pariah state" are just some of the ways that Afghanistan...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 29, 2000

Staying on the beaten track in darkest Saitama

THE CITY OF YES, by Peter Oliva. Toronto, Canada: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1999; 336 pp., $21.99. Like many another young, sensitive, well-intentioned foreigner, Canadian-born Peter Oliva -- or his protagonist -- came to Japan for a year and was so bowled over by the place that he felt the world...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 27, 2000

The Saito Kinen Orchestra: putting Japan's best on stage

Saito Kinen Orchestra
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 27, 2000

Saint days

I wonder how many of you know what famous man was brought up in Henfynyw in Ceredigion, the kingdom of Ceredig. Any Welshman would tell you it was David, patron saint of Wales, who is closely associated with spreading the faith of the Celtic Christian Church. His sermons emphasized joy, faith and discipline....
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2000

If Taro is really going to speak English

Would you hire a typewriter repairman as a systems analyst? That's sort of what the Japanese Ministry of Education is doing. It set up a committee to study English-education reform that is about as up to date in what's needed to improve English teaching in this country as the poor repairman who thinks...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2000

Robot art and artful robots

"Robot-ism 1950-2000," an event examining the influence of the robot on art and technology in Japan, will be held in Tokyo through March 2.
COMMUNITY
Feb 25, 2000

Origami workshops unfold hidden joys of learning

So often in our examination-dominated education systems, the excitement of learning degenerates into rote learning. Not so in Barbara Pearl's hands-on approach to learning math, where children discover how to estimate the distance of a jumping frog, measure the angles of a paper sailboat and explore...

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic