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CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Mar 13, 2001

Checkered history lives in a motley crew

Chindon-ya (brass, wind and percussion bands peddling goods or services on the streets) might not immediately spring to mind as a part of Japanese musical "tradition." Indeed, chindon has never been fully recognized as even a legitimate form of music.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 11, 2001

Trade NMD for the CTBT

The new administration in Washington has taken office firmly committed to the concept of a national missile defense system, arguing that future U.S. security needs take precedence over arms-control agreements rooted in Cold War history. Its views on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, an agreement signed...
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2001

Kansai airport honored by ASCE

OSAKA -- The American Society of Civil Engineers has picked Kansai International Airport as one of 10 "millennium monuments" in the world built over the past 100 years, according to sources close to the ASCE.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2001

Italian ambassador talks up 'Italy in Japan 2001' program

Gabriele Menegatti considers himself lucky that he will see the "Italian Year" program kick off just as he starts his second year as Italy's envoy to Japan.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 10, 2001

An innovative, magical potter

Meiji Era craftsmen lived in a world of divergent influences: Galle glass, French bronzes, Art Nouveau designs, Chinese celadons and tenmoku tea bowls, as well as their own traditions, whose product was at the crossroads between being an industrial export or the aesthetic vision of the individual artist....
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Mar 8, 2001

Rendezvous at Foodex

Japan's wine world is once again gearing up for the biggest event of the year: Foodex Japan 2001, the massive annual international food and drinks event to be held March 13-16 in the sprawling halls of the Nippon Convention Center (Makuhari Messe). The 26th Foodex Japan will be the most spectacular one...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 8, 2001

Genetically modified corn slips into human food chain

The safety of the nation's food has recently been called into question following the discovery of StarLink corn in a shipment of corn imported from the United States.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 3, 2001

The critical mass

The current exhibition of 127 sculptures at the Yokohama Museum of Art is not only interesting from an artistic point of view, but also provides a fascinating insight into much of the intellectual Sturm und Drang of the 20th century.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 1, 2001

Don't bet against China's industrial policy

Cambridge, ENGLAND -- At a recent conference in Berlin organized by the Institute of Asian Affairs of Hamburg, Ireland's leading China specialist said quite unequivocally that China's industrial policy has failed. As the speaker has long been known as one of the most vocal supporters of China's state-owned...
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Vodafone bolsters mobile phone stake in Japan

In an important step toward expanding its business in the world's second largest mobile phone market, Vodafone Group PLC said Tuesday it has agreed to acquire a 10 percent stake in Japan Telecom Co. from AT&T Corp. of the United States for 157.1 billion yen.
BUSINESS
Feb 28, 2001

Vodafone bolsters mobile phone stake in Japan

In an important step toward expanding its business in the world's second largest mobile phone market, Vodafone Group PLC said Tuesday it has agreed to acquire a 10 percent stake in Japan Telecom Co. from AT&T Corp. of the United States for 157.1 billion yen.
LIFE / Travel
Feb 28, 2001

Take the path of the pilgrims to mortal happiness

Two types of pilgrim come to Matsuyama in Shikoku's northeasterly Ehime Prefecture: Buddhists and bathers.
LIFE / Food & Drink / KISSA KULTUR
Feb 28, 2001

Copying without an original

In the movie "Mr. Baseball," Tom Selleck's character complains to his Japanese girlfriend that Japan copies everything. She quickly replies, "We may copy it, but we make it better." After a visit to Ashbys of London, located near Akasaka-Mitsuke Station, one would have to agree.
CULTURE / Film
Feb 27, 2001

Ghosts that lurk in the machine

Someone, perhaps John Carpenter, once said that to make a good horror film, it helps to be a bit of a sadist. True enough, if your idea of horror is whacking teenage girls with a cleaver. But if, like "Kairo (Pulse)" director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, you're making a film about the dead invading the world of...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Feb 27, 2001

Making music in no-man's land

Through my work in the music industry, I have secured record deals with local labels for foreign musicians and have organized releases and tours overseas. As a columnist and DJ, I've been sent CDs from countless bands seeking promotion. I know there is no easy route to success in the business. And for...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2001

The guide to the Chinese economy

CHINA'S NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY, by Susumu Yabuki and Stephen M. Harner. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999, revised edition, 327 pp., $32. In this thoroughly revised edition of Susumu Yabuki's 1995 book, Stephen Harner (translator of the 1995 book) joins Yabuki to paint a broad picture of China's...
JAPAN
Feb 25, 2001

Student diplomat corps off to U.N. in New York

Hey, come on boys and girls. The government is planning to recruit a student diplomat corps to be dispatched to U.N. headquarters in New York.
EDITORIALS
Feb 24, 2001

Iraq defiant yet again

It did not take long for the new U.S. administration to face its first foreign-policy test. The foe was familiar: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The response, airstrikes, was expected, as was the result: international criticism of the action, few signs of its effectiveness and mounting concern over...
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2001

Children set up network to tackle own problems

About 700 Japanese children have established a network affiliated with the U.N. Children's Fund to study and tackle problems that they and children all over the world face.
JAPAN
Feb 24, 2001

Children set up network to tackle own problems

About 700 Japanese children have established a network affiliated with the U.N. Children's Fund to study and tackle problems that they and children all over the world face.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 23, 2001

'No baseball days' being considered

Tsuneo Watanabe, the influential owner of the Yomiuri Giants, on Wednesday pointed to a need to draw up a regular-season schedule for the 2002 season in consideration of the fixtures for the soccer World Cup finals. Watanabe said one of his personal ideas is to create some "no baseball days" on the calendar...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2001

Irian Jaya's valleys of death

By dusk, Indonesian Army Corp. Sahrudin was dead, hunted to exhaustion and pierced through the chest and side with three long arrows. Next to him, lower jaw ripped away and back of his head blown off by Sahrudin's dying shot, lay Bambier Wenda, 35, a West Papuan guerrilla fighter and Dani tribesman....
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 22, 2001

Interview with a hooligan

This past Thursday, 10 supporters of English soccer club Liverpool were stabbed while in Italy to watch their club take on AS Roma in a UEFA Cup clash.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 21, 2001

Unequal treatment in the Middle East

Beirut -- The Israelis have just elected a prime minister who, brought before the bar of international justice, would surely be judged a war criminal in the class of, say, Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb commander who is as firmly associated with the Srebrenica massacre as Gen. Ariel Sharon was with that...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 21, 2001

Crow problem or people problem?

I have traveled to many countries on all of the world's continents, and, always wearing my naturalist's cap, I tend to notice the wildlife, especially the birds. Some stick in one's memory, some don't, but the only country I have been where what sticks is the crows is Japan. Why is that?
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 19, 2001

Genome decoded: evolution, religion and what it all means

The publication of the human genome sequence has been compared to the detonation of the first atomic bomb and the landing of the first human on the moon.
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 2001

Extend a helping hand to Mongolia

The coming spring promises more, not less, hardship for Mongolia's nomad households. The pastures are covered with snow, with no signs of sprouts emerging. The stocks of hay built up last autumn are already depleted, and many sheep and horses -- essential assets of the nomads -- are on the verge of starvation....
MORE SPORTS
Feb 17, 2001

Yagudin leads after short program in Grand Prix Final

Triple world champion Alexei Yagudin of Russia led compatriot and rival Yevgeni Plushenko by just 0.5 points Friday after the men's short program on the first day of the International Skating Union Grand Prix Final in Tokyo.

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