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JAPAN
Jan 15, 2002

Omron adds cat to robot pet population

A lifelike robot cat closes its eyes and meows after a young boy rubs the acrylic fur on its chin at a department store in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2002

1,513 humanly perceptible quakes shook up Japan in 2001

Japan felt 1,513 earthquakes in 2001, the sixth-highest figure in the past 10 years, according to the Meteorological Agency.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2002

Kawasaki to get east-west line -- but at what cost?

A 36-year-old plan to build a subway running east and west in Kawasaki finally appears to be moving forward, drawing praise from residents along the proposed route but criticism from opponents for imposing a huge drain on the city's finances.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2002

Jiang proves to be a masterful statesman

HONG KONG -- Jiang Zemin was widely regarded as a lightweight and a transitional figure when he became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 1989, succeeding Zhao Ziyang, who was purged in the wake of the Tiananmen Square uprising. However, he confounded his critics and, four years later,...
EDITORIALS
Jan 13, 2002

Strike that word

Are you guilty of having used the phrase "9-11" to refer to the attacks of Sept. 11? Or have you inflicted the word "synergy" on friends or colleagues? Or read about a "surgical strike" or a "faith-based" initiative without wincing?
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 13, 2002

The blackest summer in Sydney's history

SYDNEY -- The pall of eucalyptus-scented smoke that has smothered Australia's largest city since Christmas Day is lifting. More than 11,000 evacuees are returning to the burned-out bush where their homes once stood. The cost of Sydney's worst-ever bush-fire season? Who dares count?
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 13, 2002

No recovery in sight for Japanese book publishing industry

One often sees references in the Japanese media to the "lost decade" that followed the burst of the speculative bubble in the early 1990s, but the publishing world has only suffered a half decade of negative growth. After five consecutive years of falling sales, however, it can no longer ignore systemic...
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

Fukuoka fish are jumping

FUKUOKA -- First-time visitors to this sunny city are often told with a certain friendly belligerence that Fukuoka's seafood is the best in Japan. Usually, just a glimpse of its sparkling harbor and rugged natural coastline is enough to whet their appetite to test this claim.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 13, 2002

Skeptics searching for super powers

The laziest attributes of Japanese TV come to the fore during the New Year break, namely, the over-reliance on repetitive talk-show formats, the use of quizzes to liven things up, and lots of amateur videos and old news footage.
COMMUNITY
Jan 13, 2002

Fishy facts and figures

* The global fish harvest topped 120 million tons in 1998, a threefold increase over 1960.
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Jan 13, 2002

A great group effort

After the yearend holiday whirlwind, a mood of austerity settles over the month of January. It's a shame, since deep winter evenings are arguably the best time of year to pop the cork on rich, dark and warming red wines. Yet there is a way to savor special wines even in tight-budget times. Start a wine-tasting...
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2002

Aum victim can keep welfare, compensation

A woman on welfare who was a victim of Aum Shinrikyo's 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system will be able to keep her welfare money, as well as 3 million yen in compensation she was awarded after the attack.
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2002

NPOs make mark by preserving the past

Kyodo News Members of nonprofit organizations are making strenuous efforts to preserve traditional Japanese structures and townscapes and develop regional communities.
EDITORIALS
Jan 11, 2002

How to spell recovery

This is an important year for the international economy. Most crucial will be its path after the worst slump in decades. That trajectory depends, in large part, on developments in the United States. Initial signs are promising: The U.S. looks poised to recover, but the strength and durability of the...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 11, 2002

Populist politics behind Argentine crisis

Those who would blame Argentina's economic woes on free-market policies or pegging the peso to the U.S. dollar choose to be willfully blind to reality. Although the most evident and most disastrous results are economic in nature, the bases of the problems are political.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 10, 2002

Forget agents, get a comedian

Yakult Swallows pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii obviously didn't know what to do.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 8, 2002

Behind the scenes with Phnom Penh's 'orange girls'

PHNOM PENH -- In central Phnom Penh, at one end of a semiderelict building, is a tiny lean-to shack. Its walls are made of scavenged wood planks and its roof of corrugated iron. The ground around it is a swamp of sewage and mud due to the daily monsoon rains. To get to the shack, you have to hop along...
Events
Jan 8, 2002

Tourists take on Takla Makan aboard thirsty ships of desert

AMAGASAKI, Hyogo Pref. -- To enter the Takla Makan Desert in China's Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region may mean to never return.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 7, 2002

One step up, two steps sideways in Nago

WASHINGTON -- On Dec. 27, Japanese central government officials and leaders from Okinawa Prefecture announced agreement on a basic plan for the proposed construction of a joint civil-military use airport on the reef off eastern Nago City. The announcement by the Futenma Relocation Committee ("Daitai...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jan 6, 2002

A fresh look at a familiar subject

A SNAKE IN THE SHRINE: Journeys With Nobby Through Middle Japan, by David Geraghty. University of Otago Press, 2001, 222 pp., $29.95 (paper) Perhaps there's something about coming to Japan that brings out the writer in a person -- the peculiarities of the culture, the rarity of the experience, the seemingly...
EDITORIALS
Jan 6, 2002

Back to work, back to 'normal'

On the one hand, 2001 zoomed by, didn't it? It seems just an eye-blink since we were last cleaning up after New Year's feasts and fireworks, sitting in traffic jams to get back home and gearing up for the Monday-after return to work. It is a well-established fact that the older we get, the more often...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 6, 2002

Faces of 2001: who's hot and who's not

Media Personality of the Year: Ichiro Suzuki or Junichiro Koizumi
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 6, 2002

Poor politics brought on Argentine crisis

NEW YORK -- Argentina is a country under siege. The attackers, however, are not foreign armies. They are corrupt and incompetent politicians, who are responsible for the dire state the country is in. The resignation of four presidents -- three of them interim caretakers -- in less than two weeks is proof...
BUSINESS
Jan 5, 2002

Mazda lets buyers fine-tune Roadster

If you are a fan of Mazda Motor Corp.'s Roadster, shopping for your next new car might be a little different than what you expect.
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2002

20 treated at hospitals for choking on 'mochi'

Twenty people in Tokyo, mostly elderly, received treatment at hospitals this week after choking on traditional "mochi" rice cakes, the Tokyo Fire Department said Friday.
JAPAN
Jan 4, 2002

Dads take child-care leave at own risk

Minoru Omoishi, 35, took three months' leave in 1999 to care for his newborn triplets.
COMMENTARY
Jan 4, 2002

Globalization's Faustian pact

LONDON -- The glories of globalization are taking on the specious glitter of a Faustian pact. We human beings have been promised that capitalism will never die; the threats of crashes, revolution and depression have been banished by vigorous free markets and judicious state interventions, all held in...

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo