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JAPAN
May 6, 1999

Dioxin: Seveso disaster testament to effects of dioxin

Third in a series
JAPAN
May 6, 1999

Nikkei surges to 17,300 on new stimulus hopes

The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei average ended above 17,000 for the first time in almost 14 months Thursday as share prices shot up on expectations the government has additional economic stimulus measures in the works.
COMMUNITY
May 5, 1999

Allies' 'fair' tribunal betrayed ignorance of wartime politics

A former court interpreter at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East said he believes the Allied trial was fair and legitimate, but the proceedings reflected their ignorance of Japan's wartime politics.
JAPAN
May 4, 1999

Allies' 'fair' tribunal betrayed ignorance of wartime politics

Staff writer
CULTURE / Books
May 4, 1999

A dose of reality for Asia's high-flyers

TIGERS TAMED: The End of the Asian Miracle, by Robert Garran. Allen Unwin, 1998, 228 pp. (paper). "Tigers Tamed," "The Trouble with Tigers," "Asian Contagion." It's hard to miss a touch of what seems like gloating in the attempts to chronicle Asia's recent misfortunes.
CULTURE / Books
May 4, 1999

Artistry lost in translation

WHITE LETTER POEMS, by Fumi Saito, translated by Hatsue Kawamura and Jane Reichhold. AHA Books, 1998, 110 pp., $10. The title of this well-produced selection of tanka by the venerable poet Fumi Saito is taken from the first tanka in the book's first section, which contains work from "Gyo ka" (Songs...
EDITORIALS
May 3, 1999

Hope in East Timor

The people of East Timor have been given the chance to choose their own destiny. Indonesian President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie decided last week to hold a referendum on independence in the province. On Aug. 8, East Timorese will vote for independence or autonomy within the Indonesian state under an...
COMMUNITY
May 2, 1999

Relaxation therapy for busy people

Shiatsu, acupuncture and moxibustion are for older men -- at least, that's what was believed.
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 1999

Unlocking the mysteries of violin-making

Violin-making is sometimes called a "lost art." More than 300 years ago, Italian great violin maker Antonio Stradivari succeeded in raising the craft of violin-making to the level of perfection. The master, however, died in 1737 without passing on the secrets of his acoustically perfect violins, even...
CULTURE / Art
May 1, 1999

To capture a moment

Photographer Jason Unrau does a lot of waiting at gigs. He glues his eye to the camera and anticipates the moment when it all comes together. If it does, he can create a picture which, as he likes to put it, "has sound."
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Apr 30, 1999

Buffalo Daughter reinvents new rock again

After more than a year of touring, remixing, producing and more touring, Buffalo Daughter has returned home to the more mundane matters of daily life. Bassist and Moog player extraordinaire Yumiko Ohno recently tied the knot with longtime paramour Zak (producer of the Fishmans among others) while DJ...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 1999

Restructuring isn't the cure-all for Japan

It must be lonely at the International Monetary Fund. Fiscal disciplinarians are never the life of the party, but the fund's tight-fisted solutions to economic crises have antagonized governments from Malaysia to Moscow, from Bangkok to Brazil.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 1999

Mixed feelings greet U.S. aid in Russia

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- A cloud of wheat billows across the Sea of Japan as the U.S. freighter Juneau vacuums its hold and unloads 80 tons of grain onto a smaller Russian vessel capable of navigating shallow ports in the region.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 25, 1999

Shake and bake with Guido's kitchen aerobics

There's a little man inside my oven. I call him Guido. He lives in the LCD display on my new Sharp convection oven. Guido can do all sorts of things, such as juggle apples, chop giant radishes and do aerobics. Guido has become my kitchen aerobics partner.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Apr 25, 1999

Getting around

Last week, when I wrote a few paragraphs about the new Getty Museum in Los Angeles, I thought, How inadequate! There is so much more, and so brief a mention cannot begin to give even the concept of so huge a complex. Perhaps all I can do is make you want to go, and perhaps that is enough. Fortunately,...
EDITORIALS
Apr 23, 1999

Another senseless tragedy

Tuesday, two students in an affluent suburb of Denver, entered their high school and calmly and methodically proceeded to kill 12 classmates and a teacher. After the rampage, they exchanged gunfire with the police and then killed themselves in an apparent double suicide. Our profound sympathy goes out...
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 20, 1999

Nakamuras highlight double-suicide plays

During the month of April, the Kabukiza in Ginza is offering its annual Nakamura-kai program, featuring such major actors as Kichiemon, Jakuemon, Ganjiro, Tomijuro and Baigyoku, who belong to the Nakamura line of kabuki actors.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 20, 1999

Soseki's deep well of sadness

CHAOS AND ORDER IN THE WORKS OF NATSUME SOSEKI, by Angela Yiu. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, 251 pp., $42 (cloth). This, the first full-length study of Soseki in English, is based upon the proposition that "beneath the emphasis on order, responsibility and a clear sense of morality, [there]...
JAPAN
Apr 19, 1999

Hokuriku Special: Illegal immigrants find new gateway

Staff writer
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 18, 1999

Learning to break the cycle of poverty

Lack of education, particularly among children, continues to be one of the main challenges to the well-being and quality of life of children worldwide, concludes a recent Oxfam International report titled, "Education Now: Break the Cycle of Poverty." According to this report, there are currently 125...
JAPAN
Apr 16, 1999

Fukuoka's megamall to let you shop till you drop

Combining a huge cinema complex, a membership wholesale warehouse and a number of specialty shops and restaurants, an American-style megamall -- the largest in Japan -- will open Friday in a suburb of Fukuoka.
JAPAN
Apr 16, 1999

Toys chemicals pose risk to children, experts say

Children who nibble on plastic toys containing polyvinyl chloride and phthalate additives are ingesting a considerable amount of possible endocrine disrupters, European and U.S. scientists said Friday in Tokyo.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Apr 15, 1999

Everyone loses but Milosevic

Recently, the Croatian government issued an angry statement saying that the continuation of NATO's air raids in Yugoslavia jeopardizes the Croatian economy: Thousands of Western tourists will cancel their bookings at the beach hotels on the spectacular Adriatic coast of Croatia and go to Spain or Morocco...
LIFE / Travel
Apr 14, 1999

Where the roof of Europe scrapes the sky

The pictures in the tourist pamphlet showed an ideal mountain scene in the French Alps, almost too good to be true: a lake of purest blue in the foreground surrounded by bright green hills leading up to spectacular snow-capped mountains under cloudless skies. If this were real, I doubted I could afford...
JAPAN
Apr 13, 1999

DPJ to ship biscuits to North Korea in bid for talks

Staff writer
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Apr 13, 1999

Writer forever true to himself

THE LEGEND OF GOLD and Other Stories, by Ishikawa Jun. Translated by William J. Tyler. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998, 300 pp., $46 (cloth), $27.95 (paper). Jun Ishikawa (1899-1987) remains less known in the West than other Japanese writers of equal stature. With the publication of this...
EDITORIALS
Apr 11, 1999

Spring, the sweet spring

"Nothing is so beautiful as Spring," declared a poet looking about him at this time of year more than 120 springs ago. He wasn't a Japanese poet; he was an English one. Still, he seems to have grasped the essence of the season pretty well, even though in this particular sonnet he was recommending the...
JAPAN
Apr 9, 1999

April proves lethal to Japanese workforce

April is the month that Japanese workers are most likely to die suddenly, as the start of the nation's business year is believed to cause more stress-related deaths than any other month, according to a Kyoto University study group.
COMMENTARY
Apr 9, 1999

Zhu's U.S. visit kicks off strategic dialogue

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji came to Washington at the worst possible time, what with the current anti-China feeding frenzy in the press and on Capitol Hill. China's recent spate of human-rights violations and alleged espionage activities have made it open season on China -- "innocent until proven guilty"...

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