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JAPAN
Nov 17, 2000

Mita ex-president avoids prison sentence

OSAKA -- The Osaka High Court handed down a suspended prison term Thursday to Yoshihiro Mita, 61, former president of failed photocopier maker Mita Industrial Co., for damaging the firm by falsifying financial reports and bribing an auditor.
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 15, 2000

Yokohama FC looks like losing Litti

JFL champion Yokohama FC confirmed on Monday that its German manager Pierre Littbarski has been offered a coaching job at Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2000

Settle for a least bad worst-case scenario in Korea

AVOIDING THE APOCALYPSE: The Future of the Two Koreas, by Marcus Noland. Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 2000, 431 pp., $22 (paper). The thaw on the Korean Peninsula continues. Every week, history is made: a meeting between Korean officials, a diplomatic breakthrough for North...
JAPAN
Nov 14, 2000

LDP seniors move to halt Kato revolt

A rift within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party triggered by the revolt of former Secretary General Koichi Kato deepened further on Monday as two party factions backed Kato's rebellion against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 12, 2000

Orchestras demonstrate small can be beautiful

The attention of the concertgoing public was drawn recently to two compact but cultured cities away from the well-trodden pathways of Europe.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 11, 2000

Capturing private moments of a gritty London

"Point and Shoot" -- an exhibition of gritty black-and-white photographs of nothing in particular, the work of the inimitable Henry Bond and his shots of the streets, people and places of London -- his home -- is now on show at the Taro Nasu Gallery.
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 10, 2000

Kobe's FBI investigates improvisation

Improvisation is a tricky business. In mediocre hands, it is interminable at best, masturbatory at worst. But with skilled practitioners, improvisation becomes the haute couture of the music world, each piece tailored on the spot to a particular confluence of musicians, audience, time and place.
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 9, 2000

More the merrier at Shinjuku's Zonbun

Shinjuku can be daunting, to say the least. Especially when you are in a group, looking for a place to hang and eat and drink. Where to begin looking can be as problematic as finding a place the whole group can fit. Add the prospect of everyone enjoying good sake, and you might as well throw in the o-shibori....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2000

Amid uncertainties, the universe beckons

LONDON -- "You would hope that from this point on," said Jim Van Laak, manager of the space station Alpha, on Friday, "we will never have a period when humans are not living in space."
JAPAN
Nov 9, 2000

Former KSD head arrested on suspicion of embezzlement

Tadao Koseki, the former director of a welfare business foundation for small businesses, was arrested Wednesday afternoon for allegedly misappropriating KSD funds, sources said.
COMMUNITY
Nov 8, 2000

More than just a nice cuppa tea

Having succeeded in convincing consumers of the health benefits of green tea, Japanese tea manufacturers are now aiming to expand into a new market: the production of pharmaceuticals containing green-tea extracts for use in the prevention of cancer.
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Blood brothers, blood feuds

"In the year Sakalat 185, year of the Horse, the Thai came to tattoo all the inhabitants of the Lao cities." -- Oden Meeker, "The Little World of Laos"
LIFE / Travel
Nov 8, 2000

Cracked earth: A journey through Thailand's arid and impoverished Northeast

"In a bad year, it is not only the plows that break, but the hearts too." -- Pira Sudham, "People of Isan"
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 8, 2000

The outlook after 100 days

The June summit in Pyongyang kicked off a summer of symbolic and historic "firsts" on the Korean Peninsula, marked by the dramatic symbolism of inter-Korean reconciliation after more than five decades of stalemate. Sufficient time has now passed to evaluate what might be called the "honeymoon period"...
JAPAN
Nov 7, 2000

Economy-class syndrome has struck 30 Japanese

Some 30 people in Japan have developed such symptoms after long flights as breathing difficulties, increased heart rate, chest pains, loss of consciousness, and interruption of blood circulation, a study conducted by a team of doctors showed Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 5, 2000

Do the Japanese have a sense of humor?

A Jewish peddler boldly visits the house of a rich nobleman. The place is Rome and the time, well, about 2,000 years ago, plus or minus a few decades here or there.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

Nissan manual tells how to hide secrets in pop inspections

A Nissan Motor Co. manual tells workers how to contact management if Transport Ministry officials show up for unannounced inspections and also instructs them to essentially hide information from inspectors.
JAPAN
Nov 4, 2000

KSD affiliate hit for abusing foreign trainees' rights

An affiliate of KSD, a mutual aid group under criminal investigation for alleged lending irregularities, has been admonished by the Justice Ministry for alleged violations of foreign trainees' human rights, according to ministry officials.
SOCCER / J. League
Nov 4, 2000

Yokohama's promotion under threat

JFL champion Yokohama FC is facing further trouble in its bid to join the J. League's second division.
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2000

Ex-Sogo chief denies firm managed badly

Hiroo Mizushima, the longtime chairman of failed department store chain Sogo Co., on Thursday flatly denied that he sloppily managed the firm, although he said he is deeply aware of his responsibility as chief executive.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 3, 2000

Throwing out complication to embrace simple life

Reflecting the downbeat mood in Japan, book sales continue to be sluggish, especially of hardcover books and serious fiction.
COMMUNITY
Nov 2, 2000

Bank dealer trades finances for fiction

NIIHAMA, Ehime Pref. -- For most writers, the road to publication is paved with rejection slips. Not so for British expatriate Marisa Ishikawa, 35, who lives in Niihama-shi, Ehime Prefecture, with her Japanese carpenter husband and their two small children. Ishikawa dashed off her first novel in between...
JAPAN / LIFE OFF MIYAKE
Oct 31, 2000

Evacuees long for home, gird for worst

Namiko Morishita did not expect it to last this long. She and her family fled their home on Miyake Island in late August as volcanic activity on Mount Oyama intensified.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 31, 2000

Hard lessons Japan failed to learn

JAPAN'S FINANCIAL CRISIS AND ITS PARALLELS TO U.S. EXPERIENCE, edited by Ryoichi Mikitani and Adam S. Posen. Washington: Institute for International Economics, Special Report 13, Sept. 2000, 228 pp., $20. There's an old joke about a politician's plea for a one-handed economist, one who can't say, "but...

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