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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jan 16, 2000

Masayuki Kurokawa

At the recent Art of Dining Exhibition sponsored by Refugees International-Japan, Masayuki Kurokawa and his wife, Taki Katoh, cooperated in presenting a table setting profoundly and strikingly simple. It symbolized, they said, "the harmonization of natural and man-made phenomena."
JAPAN
Jan 16, 2000

Tough town beaten to despair as jobs dry up

For 70-year-old Mikami, winter life on the streets of Tokyo has become so unbearable that flirting with a suicide fantasy has become his favorite pastime.
JAPAN
Jan 13, 2000

Kobe's recovery at 80%, but new industries still scarce

While Kobe has managed to rebuild its social infrastructure and housing facilities after the devastation of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995, it must now develop new industries for its complete reconstruction, Mayor Kazutoshi Sasayama said in Tokyo Thursday. Speaking at the Japan National Press...
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2000

Declaring war against AIDS

It is reckoned that the AIDS scourge began about 20 years ago. In the two decades since then, it has claimed more than 16 million lives. The World Health Organization estimates that 33.6 million people, 1.2 million of them children, live with the HIV infection that is the disease's precursor. The speed...
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2000

LDP downplays Osaka rift, backs Ota for governor

Top executives of the Liberal Democratic Party formally decided Tuesday to back a former trade ministry official for the upcoming gubernatorial election in Osaka, despite a rebellion from its Osaka chapter, which supports a different candidate. On Tuesday evening, LDP Secretary General Yoshiro Mori...
CULTURE / Music
Jan 11, 2000

Ani DiFranco's hard road leads her to a higher plane

Last year, the prolific Ani DiFranco released three albums. Any record company marketing executive would tell you that's more than the market could take. But then, DiFranco doesn't have to answer to any record company. She owns her own.
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2000

Yachiyo Bank to take over failed Kokumin

Yachiyo Bank and state-appointed administrators of Kokumin Bank announced Tuesday that the two parties have reached a basic agreement to have Yachiyo take over the failed second-tier regional bank. Of the five second-tier regional banks that went under after the financial reconstruction law took effect...
JAPAN
Jan 9, 2000

'Super Osaka' bureaucracy floated

OSAKA -- Should the municipal boundaries of Osaka Prefecture be redrawn so that the city of Osaka is a ward of the prefecture? Or should the prefecture be scrapped entirely, leaving a "Super City Osaka"?
CULTURE / Art
Jan 8, 2000

Top of the line in toys

HIMEJI, Hyogo Pref. -- For a long time, koma (tops) were commonly given to children during the New Year's season. These days, however, the traditional toy is wobbling on the edge of extinction.
JAPAN
Jan 7, 2000

Nursing home in China advertising for Japanese

A Tokyo-based organization is advertising on the Internet a nursing care home in China that will take in elderly Japanese suffering from senile dementia, it was learned Friday.
JAPAN / Media
Jan 6, 2000

New Year's TV specials -- impersonating entertainment

The suicide rate goes up at the end of the year, an increase that's usually attributed to depression in the face of what is perceived as everybody else's high holiday spirits. In Japan, there's another reason for despair. That's the prospect of being stuck in the company of relatives you hate eating...
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2000

Privatization premature, JR Tokai says

Suffering from an increasing debt burden, Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) voiced opposition Wednesday to the government's plan to fully privatize six JR group firms at the earliest possible date. During a meeting with Transport Minister Toshihiro Nikai, JR Tokai President Yoshiyuki Kasai said that...
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 / World
Jan 4, 2000

Take politics out of economic decisions

It is amazing how quickly conventional wisdom can shift. Just a few years ago, most people would have considered as heretical a proposal that central banks should make decisions independent of the influence of the executive and legislative branches of government. Today, central bank independence is universally...
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2000

No major Y2K errors reported at companies

On the nation's first trading day after the turn of the year, Japan saw no major problems related to the millennium computer glitch, Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki announced on Tuesday. "We have received no report (of Y2K trouble) from companies, including financial institutions, which just reopened...
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2000

Court translators to be given formal training from spring

The Supreme Court will introduce this spring a new system of training for interpreters who translate courtroom remarks by judges, prosecutors, lawyers and witnesses for foreign defendants, court officials said Tuesday. The training sessions will be held at district courts around the country, with judges...
JAPAN
Jan 3, 2000

New Year's return rush peaks

The rush of New Year's travelers returning from their hometowns reached its peak Monday, in time to return to work today -- when most companies reopen for business. However, the number of train and airplane passengers returning to Tokyo and other big cities was smaller than usual, probably because Y2K...
COMMENTARY
Jan 3, 2000

Building peace in a new era

As we greet the new millennium, we should ask ourselves what Japan should do to contribution to peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, establish military and nonmilitary security, help solve global problems and prevent conflicts.
COMMENTARY
Jan 1, 2000

Japan looks for a purpose

The 1990s is said to have been a "lost decade" for Japan. That may be true. In May 1991, Japan's economy plunged into a slump that would be called the "Heisei Recession." In October 1993, the economy "bottomed out," but ever since then it has remained in the doldrums. The protracted slump has had extensive...
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Japan urged to consider free-trade pacts

Mazda Motor Corp. plans to start producing passenger cars in Europe by 2002, company sources said Thursday. Mazda will use the European production facilities of U.S. auto giant Ford Motor Co., its largest shareholder, and purchase engines from PSA Peugeot-Citroen of France, they said. The company plans...
JAPAN / Media
Dec 30, 1999

A recap of 1999's top media: mavens, meddlers, madmen

By Philip Brasor
JAPAN
Dec 30, 1999

Japan urged to consider free-trade pacts

Staff writer Japan should keep its commitment to trade liberalization under the World Trade Organization, but this must not prevent it from seeking free-trade agreements with its trading partners, according to Noboru Hatakeyama, chairman of the Japan External Trade Organization. Earlier this month,...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 1999

Consortium, FRC agree on LTCB sale

The Financial Reconstruction Commission said Friday that it has agreed on a basic accord with a financial consortium led by Ripplewood Holdings LLC of the United States on the sale of the nationalized Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan. The FRC and the consortium will sign a final agreement in January on...
JAPAN
Dec 24, 1999

Ramifications of the 2000 budget

Staff writer The 85 trillion yen fiscal 2000 state budget, approved by the Cabinet Friday, will put the nation deeper into debt. How serious is the debt and what can be done about it? Here are some questions and answers about the new budget and government debt: Why did the government prepare an aggressive...
EDITORIALS
Dec 23, 1999

Nuclear program under fire

Japan's nuclear power program is at a critical moment. Earlier this week, Mr. Hisashi Ouchi died as a result of exposure to massive doses of radiation during an accident three months ago at the Tokaimura uranium processing facility. He is the first Japanese to die in a nuclear accident. That tragedy...
LIFE / Food & Drink / WINE WAYS
Dec 23, 1999

As millennium's end looms, go with the flow of timeless wine

In Japan eight is a lucky number. And in just eight days we'll be living the last day of the second millennium anno Domini.
JAPAN
Dec 23, 1999

Police identify kidnapping suspect

OSAKA -- Police looking into the abduction earlier this week of an 8-year-old girl in Settsu, Osaka Prefecture, have singled out a 47-year-old man residing in northern Osaka Prefecture as an important witness, sources close to the investigation said Thursday. According to the sources, fingerprints found...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 23, 1999

A gift for appraising in Washington

WASHINGTON -- She was an appraiser for the White House on gifts Ronald Reagan and George Bush received from Japan and is the owner of a reputable gallery in Washington, D.C.
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 1999

The Kremlin wins, for now

Russia's parliamentary elections, held last weekend, were a victory for the government. Pro-Kremlin parties appear -- and the qualifier is important -- to have won a commanding share of seats in the 450-member Duma. The immediate benefactors of the vote are President Boris Yeltsin and his prime minister,...
JAPAN
Dec 22, 1999

Keidanren mission to assess post-crisis Asia

As Asian countries steadily recover from the region's financial and economic crises, the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) will dispatch a mission to the area next spring, it was learned Wednesday. The Asian mission, led by Chairman Takashi Imai, will visit Indonesia, Singapore...

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