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SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 10, 2001

Nomo still getting job done his own way

As interest in Major League Baseball in Japan grows exponentially with each passing day, it could be easy to forget the man who is most responsible for the current tidal wave of attention the game in North America is enjoying here.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 14, 2001

Russia's dark clouds have silver linings

LONDON -- Forty years ago Thursday, Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to go into space. Last month, the decrepit space station Mir plunged back into the atmosphere, incinerating among other things the photograph of a youthful, happy Gagarin (he died in a plane crash in 1968) that had hung on...
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2001

Mori unrepentant for missing king's reception

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori came under fire Wednesday for skipping a reception the night before hosted by Norway's visiting King Harald V, only to later dine at a sushi restaurant with his LDP colleagues.
JAPAN
Mar 28, 2001

Bill on data protection approved by Cabinet

The Cabinet approved Tuesday a privacy protection bill designed to set a legal framework to regulate the acquisition and dissemination of personal information for commercial use.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 22, 2001

What's in store for the third Musketeer?

By now Ichiro Suzuki is making a name for himself in America. The only question is what that name is. When The Associated Press and some other news organizations report on the former Orix BlueWave star, they refer to a player named "Suzuki." But back here in Japan he's always been known as "Ichiro."...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2001

The choice is North Korea's

WASHINGTON -- The curtain has come down on the first act of the Bush administration's Asia policy, and there are far more questions than answers about U.S. policy after President Kim Dae Jung's visit to Washington. The media feasted on the mixed messages from a skeptical President George W. Bush and...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 9, 2001

Thais make an enemy out of Myanmar

No one knows who put a bomb on a Thai Airways jet scheduled to carry Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to Chiang Mai, but respected media outlets such as the Matichon newspaper and the Bangkok Post have hinted that the bombing may have something to do with drugs from Myanmar.
CULTURE / Books
Feb 12, 2001

How to profit from a nation's tragedy

THE TIANANMEN PAPERS: The Chinese Leadership's Decision to Use Force against their Own People -- in their Own Words, compiled by Zhang Liang, edited by Andrew Nathan and Perry Link, with an afterword by Orville Schell. Public Affairs, 2001, 560 pp., $30 (cloth). "The Tiananmen Papers" surfaced with...
COMMENTARY
Feb 4, 2001

Globalization's saddest victim

LONDON -- I wish to draw to your attention a group of workers who are in a sorry plight. The use of their skills is in decline; where once they commanded our attention, they are now held in low esteem; the buildings in which they once worked are half deserted; their future does not look good. It is,...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 18, 2001

Meet your future friend, Mr. Roboto

One of the formative experiences of my childhood was the New York World's Fair of 1962-63, where America's great and beneficent corporations introduced consumers to the future. The memory that sticks with me most is of Bell Telephone's "picture phone," which we were told would be widely in use by the...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Jan 6, 2001

Japanese music gets support from New Year's tradition

New Year's in Japan is a period when Japanese suddenly seem to "rediscover" their traditional music. Radio and television stations, which, except for NHK, practically ignore traditional music for most of the year, get into the seasonal spirit and air programs of the classical performing and theatrical...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 21, 2000

Time once again for Russia's perennial heating crisis

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- The communist central planners who designed modern Russia's infrastructure devised a system of boiling water kilometers from where it is needed, running it through aboveground pipes across a region where temperatures can drop as low as minus 40 C -- and expected this to warm the...
LIFE / Digital
Dec 20, 2000

Gifts galore for the gadget lover

Japan constantly churns out high-tech gadgets, and Christmas is a great time to buy the best.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2000

Africa's growing thirst for democracy

There is a saying among my people in Ghana: one head alone is not enough to decide. I often think of that when I hear people say that democracy is alien to Africa, or that Africans are "not ready" for democracy.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 30, 2000

With election at a stalemate, coverage shifts into overkill

As is usually the case when I'm in California, the talk turned to real estate. A 75-year-old retiree told me exactly how much it cost him to buy all the cacti surrounding his pool. A stockbroker from Seattle said the house she recently bought was originally owned by Col. Tom Parker and had a TV room...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2000

Transparency crucial to corporate survival

Most companies will face a crisis at one point, but it's not necessarily the crisis itself that will dictate that company's future, but rather how it is handled.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Nov 12, 2000

On taking the eightfold path to environmental awareness

Environmentalists are a hard breed to pin down, much less to classify. They come in all shapes and sizes, and some even reject the name.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2000

Sexism remains a rampant social disease

I am fortunate to be able to count among my relatives a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter. Felix, appointed to the court by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was a cousin on my mother's side of the family and, needless to say, far removed from me in age.
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2000

Keep the victims in mind

Criminal activity in Japan is at a postwar peak -- the police reported 2.9 million violations of the Penal Code in 1999, 7.9 percent more than in the previous year. In the same period, the arrest rate fell to a postwar low. The Justice Ministry has just confirmed this bleak picture in a white paper submitted...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 19, 2000

Talking head Tanaka wows 'em in Nagano

Yasuo Tanaka, candidate for the governorship of Nagano Prefecture, was supposed to meet voters at 2:30 p.m. at a shopping arcade in downtown Nagano, but it was a long arcade. A campaign worker wearing a bright orange windbreaker was handing out literature in front of Ito Yokado. "I think it's been changed,"...
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2000

Report on data privacy gets nod, exempts press

A government committee formalized a blueprint on Wednesday for basic legislation designed to protect personal information held by private organizations but explicitly exempting the media.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 5, 2000

Celebrate the elderly when they stop saving

On Sept. 15, the country "celebrated" Respect for the Aged Day, when we honor our elders, who pass their wisdom and experience down to us so that our lives and those of our children will be happier and more fulfilling. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth. We in the industrialized world seem...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Sep 20, 2000

Waiting and hoping in vain for the end of a Giant headache

When in love, one learns to put up with your partner's flaws, no matter how distasteful.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 17, 2000

World's eyes on Australia

SYDNEY -- With the Sydney 2000 Olympics in full swing, the country is getting used to having 3.5 billion TV viewers around the world watching our every move. This city's 4 million citizens are positively basking in the glory of staging the world's best Games yet. And to the south, Melbourne is just as...
COMMUNITY
Sep 17, 2000

Fusing technology, arts in fabulous future shocks

Omote-sando's cafe-restaurant Las Chicas needs no introduction. But few realize that the two-floor building in which it is situated was once a consulate, designed to wrap around the central courtyard -- one of the nicest places to eat in town. Under the umbrella organization Vision Network, the complex...
OLYMPICS
Sep 13, 2000

Dream Team coaching: perhaps the easiest job in Sydney

Want to know if the U.S. men's Olympic basketball team goes for the jugular each time out? Interested in who will give the Dream Teamers the toughest time Down Under? How do the American hoopsters handle criticism over being too good?
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Sep 9, 2000

Putin's obscure mind games

I know very little about judo. Actually, I know nothing about it at all. Yet I like the image of two people wearing cool outfits accentuated by stylish belts, circling the mat with stony faces, waiting for the right moment to jump at each other like two splendid bobcats. It is undoubtedly the sport of...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 31, 2000

Art and history intersect in U.S. ambassador's residence

Most of us only dream of being able to pick out our favorite pieces of art from museums to display in our homes.

Longform

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The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan