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JAPAN
May 23, 2000

200 million yen conservation grant set up

Toyota Motor Corp. and the Toyota Foundation have established a grant program to support environmental improvement and conservation activities in Japan and overseas, the nation's No. 1 automaker said Monday.
JAPAN
May 19, 2000

Panel wants public involved in court

A judicial reform panel of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party called Thursday for the introduction of "mixed courts," a system adopted in a number of European countries to promote public participation in legal proceedings.
ENVIRONMENT
May 10, 2000

Trees and taste at Mito Botanic Garden

Mito, in Ibaraki Prefecture, is well known throughout Japan for natto (fermented soybeans), an acquired taste. It is also known for Kairakuen Garden, one of the Three Famous Gardens in Japan, which I've written about before. Just a couple of kilometers south of Mito in the lush green countryside, there...
EDITORIALS
May 3, 2000

Doing battle over Article 9

More than two months have passed since the Diet began debating the Constitution for the first time. It is too early to predict how the debate at the Constitutional Review Council will develop, but conservative hardliners both in and outside the ruling coalition are already talking up the need to rewrite...
COMMUNITY
Apr 30, 2000

'English Patience' thickens plots

I found Yukichi Arai eating fruit sherbet in the lobby of the Tokyo Station Hotel. It was hot, I agreed, whereupon he ordered another. After four days sitting in a booth at the Tokyo Book Fair at Tokyo Big Site, promoting his book (titled in "katakana" as "English Patience"), he felt the world deserving...
COMMENTARY
Apr 6, 2000

Only education reform can save Japan

The National Conference on Educational Reforms, an advisory body to the prime minister, held its first meeting in late March. The panel plans to meet twice a month and have a final report in two years; an interim report will be published in six months. It should expedite its discussions, and publish...
COMMUNITY
Apr 4, 2000

Mongolian educator building Japan-style school back home

YAMAGATA -- When Galbadrakh Janchiv returns to his home country later this month, his souvenir from this snowy prefecture will be a lesson for future generations.
COMMUNITY
Mar 31, 2000

Party offers gays more than just fun

Dancers in flamboyant costumes and heavy makeup performed for around 400 students at a small night club in Tokyo on Wednesday night as part of an event to raise money for HIV education and provide a supportive social network for young gays.
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2000

Aum knew routes used to transport nuclear fuel

One of the computer software companies affiliated with Aum Shinrikyo has been found to have kept a file showing routes for nuclear fuel being transported around Japan, police sources said Tuesday.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Mar 29, 2000

Very little help

A foreign woman married to a Japanese is concerned about her son who refuses to go to school, a problem that is shared by a lot of other families today. Many kids are revolting against Japan's education system. It could be an indication that they are getting smarter, but unfortunately it doesn't make...
COMMUNITY
Mar 26, 2000

Lebanese Marie-Rose has a lot to say on love

Last Tuesday Marie-Rose Ishiguro was at odds with her handbag. Dressed in a bright red suit, with gold jewelry and matching buttons, she looked every inch the power executive. But her battered brown leather bag -- more a holdall really, handles secured with string and spilling papers, books and clothes...
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2000

Dental exam questions possibly leaked

Questions to be used in today's state license examination for dentists may have been leaked, the Health and Welfare Ministry revealed Tuesday.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2000

School reform goals outlined

Reona Esaki, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics and head of a government education reform panel to be launched later this month, says he will strive to create a "custom-made" education system to meet the needs of individual students.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Mar 9, 2000

Sometimes it's best to follow your toe

If it's possible to have a "green thumb," as some grape growers fortunately do, can one also possess a "golden toe" -- a knack for stumbling onto serendipitous discoveries? I've begun to think so. In fact, I'm keeping notes for what could be titled "The Little Book of Serendipitous Slip-Ups," "Glorious...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 26, 2000

If Taro is really going to speak English

Would you hire a typewriter repairman as a systems analyst? That's sort of what the Japanese Ministry of Education is doing. It set up a committee to study English-education reform that is about as up to date in what's needed to improve English teaching in this country as the poor repairman who thinks...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2000

Battle over Constitution begins

Breaking a postwar taboo, politicians started a full-scale parliamentary discussion Wednesday on whether to rewrite parts of the nation's hitherto untouchable Constitution. In the first session of an Upper House Constitution study panel, parties remained sharply divided over the premise of the panel...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 2000

More Japanese urged to join international student forum

The International Students' Committee, organizers of the annual International Management Symposium in St. Gallen, Switzerland, is urging more Japanese business leaders and students to take part in the gathering. Organizers say the symposium has become one of the prime occasions for leaders and top students...
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2000

International student forum needs more Japanese

The International Students' Committee, organizers of the annual International Management Symposium in St. Gallen, Switzerland, is urging more Japanese business leaders and students to take part in the gathering. Organizers say the symposium has become one of the prime occasions for leaders and top students...
JAPAN
Feb 7, 2000

Bill would allow academics to hold business posts

The government will submit to the Diet a bill today to allow national and public university professors and researchers to concurrently serve as corporate board members to facilitate technology transfer from the academic to industrial sectors, government officials said. The move is part of efforts to...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 6, 2000

Philip Harper

To be billed as Japan's only foreign sake brewer conveys a claim unusually intriguing. Even the man in question, Philip Harper, expresses some surprise at the way things have gone for him as he gets close to achieving the status of master brewer in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 27, 2000

Restructuring, but with a human touch

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- The most popular "buzzwords" in this time of change must surely be "globalization" and "restructuring." Allow me to indulge in one more reference to the latter with some remarks that may be quickly criticized as an example of "old-school, bureaucratic" thinking.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 18, 2000

Southeast Asia: creature of Japan?

THE SPECTRE OF COMPARISONS: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, by Benedict Anderson. London: Verso, 1999, 374 pp., 13.00 British pounds (paper). The Japanese invented Southeast Asia. This is just one of the pieces of intellectual dynamite that Benedict Anderson tosses into the reader's lap...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 9, 2000

M.S. Swaminathan

In August, a special double issue of Time magazine selected professor M.S. Swaminathan of India as one of the most influential Asians of the 20th century. The magazine called him a "green revolutionary . . . who helped half a world get enough to eat."
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2000

Rural regions accentuate their pluses to lure city dwellers

Staff writer AYA, Miyazaki Pref. -- A small window on the upper floor of a two-story log house offers a magnificent view of mountains covered in dense deciduous forests of various color gradations. This landscape, coupled with the area's policy of promoting organic agriculture, prompted Teruhiko and...
COMMENTARY
Dec 21, 1999

India's future prosperity lies with IT

NEW DELHI and LONDON -- The image of India that too many people still have in their minds is one of teeming millions, timeless customs, monstrous poverty and a giant, sluggish economy.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 1999

Jury system for criminal trials urged

Second of three partsStaff writer Lawyers and other experts are calling for introduction of a jury system for criminal trials, arguing that it would change not only the makeup of the bench, which is exclusively run by legal professionals, but also the Japanese mind-set. "If the system is successfully...
JAPAN
Nov 18, 1999

Debate grows on future of Japanese education

Education Minister Hirofumi Nakasone asked an advisory panel of experts Thursday to discuss specific steps on university reform in the next century, calling for advanced use of information technology, development of the continuing education system and more international exchanges.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 17, 1999

A Web DJ saved my life

Let's look at the headlines from Net music news. Maestro, hit the rewind:

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.