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JAPAN
May 8, 2000

Carbon tax is needed to cut CO2 levels: panel

A carbon tax is vital for curbing emissions of carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming, according to the draft of a report being compiled by an Environment Agency panel.
JAPAN
May 8, 2000

Cult may have paid to get religious status

The Honohana Sampogyo religious group paid several million yen to a then member of the Fuji city assembly in Shizuoka Prefecture in 1986, one year before the prefectural government certified it as an authorized religious corporation, cult sources said.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 8, 2000

Orangutans smuggled in underwear

You're flying back from a week in Indonesia and the guy next to you seems unusually twitchy. Considering all he's had to drink, he ought to be adequately sedated, but he's just ordered another Scotch.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 7, 2000

All good things

Here is good news for all Kenny Endo fans, and if you aren't a fan you will be once you attend one of his performances. Kenny is a master of the taiko. Most of you know that taiko is drum, and then there is "odaiko," a huge drum. In general, taiko is to drum like the tea ceremony is to a tea bag. It...
COMMUNITY
May 5, 2000

Two Murakamis mull quake in Japanese life

A look at recent best-seller lists reveals several familiar faces. "Eien no Ko," a two-volume novel about the long-term effects of child abuse, is back with the broadcasting of a TV dramatization (Monday nights on NTV). There's another mystery by Nishimura Kyotaro and a book for improving one's English,...
JAPAN / History
May 4, 2000

MacArthur pondered Showa conversion

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander during the Allied Occupation of Japan, once considered attempting to convert Emperor Showa to Christianity, a diary of the U.S. secretary of the Navy shows.
BUSINESS
May 4, 2000

B2B firm opens for business

WizOffice.com Japan, a business-to-business e-commerce company providing a wide range of services via the Internet, officially opened for business in Japan in May. The firm aims to be a one-stop solution provider enabling small and medium-size companies to streamline and outsource their back-office functions...
JAPAN
May 2, 2000

Daiichi Mutual ordered to shut down

The Financial Supervisory Agency ordered financially troubled Daiichi Mutual Fire & Marine Insurance Co. to suspend its operations Monday. It is the first bankruptcy in the nation's nonlife insurance sector.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2000

A literary love affair: Graham Greene's brief encounter with Shusaku Endo

LONDON -- For oddly different reasons the names of two not so long dead Catholic novelists from East and West are prominently, simultaneously, in the news. Because of two books dealing with his sexuality and the release of a quirky film based on "The End of the Affair," the ambivalent nature of Graham...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 24, 2000

Whales, ivory, orangutans and Japanese wildlife policies

The argument goes something like this: Developing countries are just trying to feed their teeming poor and hungry. All they want is a chance to sell what is rightfully theirs to sell. Carefully managed, of course, to ensure "sustainable use."
EDITORIALS
Apr 20, 2000

Russia votes for nuclear sanity

After years of resistance, Russia's Duma finally ratified the START II Treaty last week, thereby sending a statement that President-elect Vladimir Putin wants improved relations with Western nations rather than confrontation.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2000

Kaigo hoken throws spotlight on life in 'nursing care hell'

A few weeks ago I submitted a proposal for an April Fool's story to a local publication. The piece would have been a news report about Japanese airline companies taking advantage of "Japan's rapidly aging society" by offering "nursing care miles" to frequent flyers in order to attract middle-aged travelers....
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2000

Drawing the line in Peru

In most countries, a runoff ballot in a presidential election is unwelcome. It means the public is divided, and it delays the crucial business of putting together a government. In Peru's case, news of a runoff is a positive sign. It means that President Alberto Fujimori is heeding the concerns of international...
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2000

Help for the neediest

In a change of position, the Japanese government last week announced that it would forgive 100 percent of the debt owed to it by the world's poorest countries. The news is welcome: The countries involved are in desperate straits. But reports that accepting the offer would mean forfeiting future assistance...
EDITORIALS
Apr 17, 2000

URL burial is grave news

Is there anyone who still really thinks the Internet is not transforming the world -- or at least those spreading patches of the planet that are connected to it? Every day, some new swath of mental territory falls prey to the Web, as if a gigantic, benevolent spider had suddenly taken control of humanity...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 15, 2000

Behind the good news, reasons for concern

The global economy is looking good, reports the International Monetary Fund in the latest issue of its World Economic Outlook. According to the IMF's biannual forecast, released earlier this week, growth will rise 4.2 percent. The pace is picking up: Only six months ago, the Fund projected a 3.5 percent...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Apr 12, 2000

Just browsing?

It used to be so simple. You had Eudora for your e-mail and your tiny Mosaic browser for trolling through text-only university archives and contemplating the bright future of the World! Wide! Web!
CULTURE / Books
Apr 12, 2000

Fingleton deflates the New Economy

IN PRAISE OF HARD INDUSTRIES: Why Manufacturing, Not the Information Technology, Is the Key to Future Prosperity, by Eamonn Fingleton. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999, 273 pp., $26 (cloth). A 24-year-old Englishman with a ponytail waltzed into the offices of a London venture-capital company...
COMMENTARY
Apr 12, 2000

Western media err on China and Taiwan

So Taiwan has elected an allegedly pro-independence candidate as president. But China has still not invaded.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Apr 11, 2000

Femi, from Fuji to Tokyo

In Nigeria there is a music called Fuji. In the early 1990s, Fuji was the most popular music in Nigeria. The music's originator, Sikiru Barrister, named it after seeing a postcard of Mount Fuji. He said it was the most beautiful mountain he had ever seen, and dreamed of playing or recording in view of...
EDITORIALS
Apr 7, 2000

Two steps forward, one step back

On the face of it, Russia's refusal to let Ms. Mary Robinson, the United Nations' chief human-rights official, visit sites where atrocities are alleged to have occurred during the Chechen war is a setback for her cause. But appearances are deceiving. Moscow's readiness to pretend such things did not...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 7, 2000

India still hurts from Nehru's blunders

NEW DELHI -- It seems absurd that almost 53 years after India became a free country that it should remain without recognized borders with its most powerful neighbor, China.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 6, 2000

Commercial success -- and cultural

In advertising, success doesn't always mean the same thing to everyone involved. For the client, it means increased sales of his product, while for the copywriter it means cultural impact, and though there's nothing that says these two successes can't coincide, there's also nothing that says they have...

Longform

Mamoru Iwai, stationmaster of Keisei Ueno Station, says that, other than earthquake-proofing, the former Hakubutsukan-Dobutsuen (Museum-Zoo) Station has remained untouched.
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell