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JAPAN
Mar 22, 2001

Afghan refugees to get emergency aid

Japan said Wednesday it will offer $1.86 million in emergency grants to provide relief to Afghans who have fled their homes in the face of a prolonged civil war and natural disasters, the Foreign Ministry said.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2001

North Korean bomb victims to receive aid from Japanese

Japan will send a group of doctors and government officials to North Korea on Tuesday to check the health of North Korean people exposed to radiation in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, officials have said.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 25, 2001

Japan studies has explosive effect on U.S. kids

Recently I gave a presentation on Japan to a class of preschoolers in the United States. This month, these 4 and 5-year-olds were studying Japan. Last month they studied Pakistan. They can write their names in Urdu.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Feb 15, 2001

Bedfellows making a quick buck

The Yankees are sleeping with the devil. The Red Devils, to be exact.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Feb 11, 2001

Yeltsin and Reagan revisited

This year there were two sad anniversaries in the first week of February: two former political superstars, U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Russian President Boris Yeltsin celebrated their birthdays in the shadow of severe health problems. Confined to hospital, they were unable to appreciate the cheering...
COMMENTARY
Feb 3, 2001

Is Asian democracy at risk?

Is democracy in trouble in Asia? From the removal of an elected president by less than constitutional means in the Philippines to an attempt to remove another sitting president in Taiwan to questions concerning the eligibility of the presumptive prime minister in Thailand to a near-coup by the ruling...
LIFE / Travel
Jan 31, 2001

Britain's secondhand bookshop Mecca

Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross may be the book centers of London, but the Mecca for secondhand books in Britain is on the English/Welsh border. With more than 30 secondhand bookshops, tiny Hay-on-Wye bills itself as the "town of books."
JAPAN
Jan 30, 2001

Japan sends medical team to aid India's quake victims

The Japanese government decided Monday to dispatch a medical team to India to provide emergency aid to victims of last week's earthquake, the Foreign Ministry said.
CULTURE / Film
Jan 30, 2001

Otaku loose in a noirish world

Dark future movies are, by now, as established an SF subgenre as creature features or space operas. Their world view is usually a cross between an Orwellian nightmare and a Jean Paul Gaultier fashion show: grim, oppressive and dangerous but sexy, radical and cool. In other words, you wouldn't mind visiting,...
BUSINESS
Jan 29, 2001

Time to rethink today's accepted economic principles

The beginning of a period, be it a week or a month, can spur people to reflect on the past and contemplate the future, leading them to reconsider matters long taken for granted. Thus, at the beginning of a new century, we may be justified in re-examining some of the accepted wisdom, common sense and...
CULTURE / Art
Jan 28, 2001

Elegance in everyday sculptures

In the 19th century, ukiyo-e wood block prints and ornamental toggles for pouches -- netsuke -- were greatly prized in the West. But to most Japanese, in the whirl of modernization, they were simply old-fashioned aspects of a fading way of life.
COMMENTARY
Jan 19, 2001

EU overlooking a vital ally in Turkey

LONDON -- The Turkish "problem" is looming ever larger in European affairs.
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2001

Tests loom for U.S.-China ties

How will the election of George W. Bush affect U.S.-China relations? The conventional wisdom was that a Gore administration would have been more favorable to China -- a questionable assumption based in part on the belief that Al Gore would be more inclined to continue President Bill Clinton's policies...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2001

Australia's humble founders got it right

SYDNEY -- Egalitarianism has always ruled here, ever since the first white settlers arrived in Sydney Cove from their London jails in 1788. One of the first convicts off the boat became chief magistrate and another chief architect. Jack is not only as good as his master; here he considers himself a damn...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2001

For freedom to work, we need fairness

Globalization is breaking down frontiers around the world. For the first time in centuries, freedom is a reality for most people in most countries. But freedom -- both political and economic -- can only serve all citizens when exercised responsibly and fairly. Disappearing borders for business, in an...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2001

Mori's pledges to enhance security role in new century

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori pledged in his New Year's address that the 21st century will see Japan doing away with its traditional insularity and enhancing its global security role to help maintain order in the international community.
COMMUNITY
Dec 31, 2000

Michinoku Ginko chief banks on Japanese-Russian relations

Talk about a profitable end to the year. Invited to meet a Taisho man -- that is, someone born in the last year of what many consider to be Japan's most liberal period of the 20th century -- I was met in one location to be maneuvered into a taxi and delivered outside another: a nondescript utility block...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Dec 27, 2000

The many moods of Koko-en

Any time of the year is ideal to visit Koko-en, next door to Himeji Castle, a World Heritage Site.
LIFE / Digital
Dec 20, 2000

Government, industry reassess potential harm of video games

SEATTLE -- Can games desensitize children and teach them how to kill? Video and computer game violence is such a hot topic in the United States that the U.S. Senate has held two sets of hearings on the matter, and several senior senators each year host a conference in which they discuss problems with...
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2000

Japan abandoned Sakhalin's Koreans

Tokyo snubbed a 1957 request by Seoul to help some 43,000 Koreans shipped to Sakhalin by Japan during the war leave the island, Japanese diplomatic documents declassified Tuesday show.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 10, 2000

The stuff that memories are made of

The performance company Dumb Type, based in Kyoto, has always been a bit of a political animal, an in-your-face shape-shifter through dance, the visual and plastic arts, text, conceptualized performance, mime, puppetry and film. And because it has been an enthusiastic investigator of gender politics,...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2000

A Taiwanese lesson in statesmanship

CAMBRIDGE, England -- So our great leaders were unable to reach agreement in The Hague last month on how to save the planet from environmental pollution. So we can continue pumping out ozone-destroying fumes to our hearts' content, especially gas-guzzling drivers in the good old United States. Forests...
BUSINESS
Dec 1, 2000

DoCoMo confirms push into U.S. via AT&T share deal

NTT DoCoMo Inc. officially announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement to acquire a 16 percent stake in AT&T Wireless Services Inc. of the United States for 1.79 trillion yen, securing a foothold in the country for its next-generation mobile phone technology.
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2000

StarLink find sparks consumer fears, import chaos

The discovery of StarLink genetically modified corn in food for human consumption in Japan has caused concern among Japanese food and grain importers and aroused fears among consumers about food safety.
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 31, 2000

Japan edges Saudi Arabia to become Asian champion

BEIRUT -- Japan survived a hostile "away" crowd, an early penalty and a second-half barrage by Saudi Arabia on Sunday to win the Asian Cup final 1-0 on a neatly taken goal from Kyoto midfielder Shigeyoshi Mochizuki.
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Oct 18, 2000

Seeing spots before your eyes

Rain brings changes to the African savanna. As storm clouds near, even the smells change. The temperature flutters, falls; the stuttering, buzzing and sawing of insects takes on a different pitch; then a hush, before the pittering of raindrops splashes dust from the baked ground. The pittering turns...
COMMUNITY
Oct 15, 2000

Here she is . . . Miss Stereotype

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Miss America Pageant may aim to represent the ideal of U.S. womanhood, but it's got its problems; it's about as internally conflicted as Al Gore trying to act like respects George W. Bush's intelligence.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Oct 9, 2000

Festival highlights the myriad sounds of Africa

The South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, I was told upon my arrival, has everything, from snowboarding in the morning to surfing in the afternoon. And from the itinerary that Swize, from the local tourist board, handed me, it looked like I would be doing it all: a trip to a game reserve and a Zulu...

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