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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Middle-class myth comes tumbling down

This is the eighth of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Korean democracy suffers growing pains

SEOUL -- You don't have to consult opinion polls to understand that in general terms South Koreans are not happy with their government. It is enough to occasionally read editorials or to engage in political discussions with Korean friends, colleagues and neighbors. Then you detect a very basic disenchantment...
BUSINESS
Dec 2, 2000

Three insurers report mixed fortunes

Chiyoda Fire & Marine Insurance Co. fell into the red in the first half of fiscal 2000 on a consolidated basis, while Dai-Tokyo Fire & Marine Insurance Co. and Nisshin Fire & Marine Insurance Co. posted profits, according to their earnings results released Friday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 2, 2000

Keep government out of the stock market

A few months ago, members of Japan's ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party encouraged the government to take steps to prop up the stock market. They also urged the government to accelerate spending from the public-works reserve fund of 500 billion...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 2, 2000

Treasures of ancient China

Until the 16th century, when the first Europeans reached these shores, China had, for over 1,000 years, been the sole foreign influence on the development of Japanese culture. Some of this influence had been refracted through Korea, but Korea itself was in a position similar to Japan's: a recipient of...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2000

Serial killer, two other murderers hanged

Three death row inmates, including a serial killer who murdered eight people between 1972 and 1982, were hanged Thursday morning, the Justice Ministry said.
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2000

Infected people unaware they are killers, AIDS activist says

1988, World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 has been observed as a time to display compassion, hope, solidarity and understanding about the deadly disease. This year's theme is "AIDS: Men Make a Difference." More than 70 percent of HIV infections worldwide occur through sex between men and women, with a further 10...
JAPAN
Nov 30, 2000

Suffrage bill may be unconstitutional

Debate on a controversial bill that would grant permanent foreign residents the right to vote in local elections will probably be carried over to the ordinary session that is to convene in January.
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 30, 2000

Alex: Dreadlocks in deadlock at S-Pulse

SHIMIZU, Shizuoka Pref. -- It's an image that sticks very firmly in the mind. Sixty seconds into a crucial game against the Yokohama F. Marinos, a brilliant 60-meter pass out of defense by Kazuyuki Toda catches a flurry of dreadlocks on the run.
JAPAN
Nov 29, 2000

Foreigners progress toward suffrage

After his three-year campaign to abolish mandatory fingerprinting of foreign residents bore fruit in 1992, Lee Young Hwa decided more needed to be done to address the larger, more fundamental human rights issues they face.
JAPAN
Nov 28, 2000

Officer admits giving secrets to Russian spy

An ex-Maritime Self-Defense Force officer pleaded guilty Monday to passing two confidential documents to a Russian military attache in June and apologized for endangering the people of Japan.
JAPAN
Nov 27, 2000

Planned ministry merger to share responsibility for public pension fund

The new Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare to be created in January will share responsibility along with the new pension fund administration in handling the nation's 144 trillion yen public pension fund, ministry officials said.
EDITORIALS
Nov 26, 2000

Emissaries with feet of clay

Sometimes there is nothing for it but to send out the troops. Doubtless frustrated by the slow pace of progress toward unification with its "renegade province" of Taiwan, China last week announced plans to do just that. A small force of soldiers, it said, is being prepared to cross the Formosa Strait...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Climate meeting ends in deadlock

THE HAGUE -- U.N. climate talks collapsed at the 11th hour Saturday after the European Union and the United States failed to settle a bitter row over ways to stop global warming.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2000

Warabe Aska's visions of Earth

TORONTO -- For prolific picture-book artist Warabe Aska, art always comes first and text second. "Imagination and inspiration are very important to me," he says.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 26, 2000

The modernist innovations of Mackintosh

Tall, dark and handsome, the chairs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh are international objects of desire. Belying their age, they stand in design studios, hotel lobbies and private homes like stylish question marks.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 25, 2000

In Peru, the strong man takes his leave

LONDON -- Alejandro Toledo, the man who would have won the Peruvian election last spring if President Alberto Fujimori had not cheated at every stage of the process, got it exactly right: "Alberto Fujimori's government will be illegitimate, a source of permanent instability, and I don't think it can...
JAPAN
Nov 25, 2000

Body eyed to curb rights abuses by media

The deputy managing editor of the daily Mainichi Shimbun was shocked when he found out that a Justice Ministry panel had been holding discussions on the premise that the media is an enemy of human rights.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 24, 2000

From the underground up

Ryoji, the charismatic frontman and mastermind behind skacore group Potshot, has the impossibly skinny, graceful physique of a true rock star. Think Mick Jagger in 1969 or Kurt Cobain 20 years later: the ugly duckling reborn through the grace of a power chord.
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2000

The pitfalls of a press run rampant

Nearly a year on, the children of the Hino district of Kyoto's Fushimi Ward at last seem as if they are getting back to normal.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Nov 23, 2000

Floating island a relic of a long-gone geologic age

SHINGU, Wakayama Pref. -- Inosawa Ukishima, a bog woodland in the center of Shingu City at the mouth of the Kumano River, isn't an ordinary park.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2000

Prosperity helps town tolerate atomic plant

KASHIMA, Shimane Pref. -- For 50 years, she has lived on a dead-end street at the foot of a hill.
CULTURE / Stage
Nov 21, 2000

Kabuki greats show their faces in new season

During the month of November, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is offering its annual kaomise program in two parts.
SUMO
Nov 20, 2000

Akebono king of Kyushu

Akebono, facing a potential playoff with No. 9 maegashira Kotomitsuki, overwhelmed fellow-yokozuna Musashimaru in the final bout of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament on Sunday at Fukuoka International Center to take his 11th yusho with a 14-1 record.
COMMUNITY
Nov 19, 2000

Abuse rife in culture with no rights for kids

Newly arrived and living on a "danchi" estate in 1986, I would often hear the heart-rending cries of small children standing outside in the cold and darkness pleading to be let back into their homes. In the West, the worst form of punishment is to be grounded. In Japan, it is the opposite, with children...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 19, 2000

Scourge of child prostitution spreading

NEW YORK -- Their names are Chandrika, Hamida, Amod, Madhuri, Maria and Jenny. And as varied as these children's names are their nationalities: Indian, Bangladeshe, Nepalese, Nicaraguan and North American. What unites them is that they have been made to work as prostitutes and, in the process, have endangered...
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2000

Blood tests set to determine relations of 'war orphans'

A war-displaced Japanese visiting from China will undergo blood tests to confirm whether a man from Hiroshima Prefecture is his uncle, Health and Welfare Ministry officials said.
JAPAN
Nov 18, 2000

Tieup to create largest chemical firm in nation

Sumitomo Chemical Co. and Mitsui Chemicals Inc., Japan's second- and third-largest chemical firms, said Friday they will integrate their management by October 2003 in a bid to survive intensified global competition.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami