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JAPAN
Dec 12, 2000

United Cinemas expands with complex in Kanto

A new cinema complex operated by two Hollywood giants, Paramount and Universal, opened last week in Iruma, Saitama Prefecture, introducing Sony Dynamic Digital Sound and other cutting-edge sound technology.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Dec 7, 2000

Counting down to Christmas in gold and silver

When you're getting into a Christmas mood, nothing expresses this festive state better than sparkly, shimmery, glimmery things, and when it comes to buying special gifts from the beauty realm, there is plenty of that sparkly stuff out there to choose from.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Dec 6, 2000

Mountain stairways to the sky gods

Time, mankind and Mother Nature have not been kind to the Seven Wonders of the World. Six are gone and most people probably couldn't even name them. According to the Philippines tourist people, however, there is an additional Wonder, and it is in remarkably good shape.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

2002 World Cup: Soccer without fear?

BRUSSELS -- The first world cup of the new millennium is to be staged in Japan and South Korea in the summer of 2002. Both countries want to use this billion-dollar sporting showpiece as a global shop window allowing those watching, both in the stadiums and on TV, to see the real Japan and the real South...
JAPAN
Dec 1, 2000

Infected people unaware they are killers, AIDS activist says

1988, World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 has been observed as a time to display compassion, hope, solidarity and understanding about the deadly disease. This year's theme is "AIDS: Men Make a Difference." More than 70 percent of HIV infections worldwide occur through sex between men and women, with a further 10...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 30, 2000

The Russian Far East reaps peace dividend

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Bunkered in a hillside above the port city where Russia's Pacific Fleet anchors, Slavyansky Khleb may be one of the most secure bakeries on the planet.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Nov 26, 2000

Get ready for the Ichiro onslaught

Hold onto your hats. The contract agreement between the Seattle Mariners and Ichiro (Suzuki) promises to offer an exciting, fun time with a frenzied media circus, possible extra events, increased tourism and brisk souvenir sales, as the former Orix BlueWave outfielder and seven-time Pacific League batting...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 26, 2000

With affluence comes intellectual decay

Among the intellectuals it is not hard to detect the New Pessimism; among the citizenry, the Same Old Apathy. Today I wish to focus on the former.
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2000

Stalking victims now legally recognized

A long-awaited law to combat stalking, which for the first time recognizes it as a crime and punishes offenders, takes effect today.
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2000

Gangster sought in shooting incidents found hanged at home

OSAKA -- A 57-year-old man believed to have been involved in three shooting incidents in Osaka Prefecture on Wednesday evening was found hanged at his home in Sakai on Thursday, police said.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2000

Village whittled down to just four elderly souls

ITAIBARA, Tottori Pref. -- The death of this village's sister looms large in the collective memory of its residents.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Nov 19, 2000

Top 10 commandments for Shiraishi Island

I've been camped out here all day. I'm demonstrating against the recent change in an old Japanese tradition. I'm protesting the closing down of Japan's beer machines.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2000

Taking inspiration where you find it

TOKUSHIMA -- Californian furniture maker Cynthia Kingsbury works in a 100-year-old timber storage building at the foot of a lushly forested mountain in Tokushima Prefecture. Dried sticks are piled like kindling beneath her worktable. Her dog Tingi, a black Labrador-Doberman mix, is sprawled across a...
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 11, 2000

Bringing a new shine to old Kutani

When I first looked at the work of Yasokichi Tokuda III (b. 1933) I had to put on a pair of sunglasses -- I was almost blinded by the intensity of his kaleidoscopic Kutani porcelain.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Nov 7, 2000

A fine fuzzy day out at Rocktober

The inaugural Rocktober festival on Sunday, Oct. 15, at Shiokaze Park in Odaiba, confounded my expectations: I had a great time.
EDITORIALS
Nov 3, 2000

Amazon flows into Japan

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has declared that he wants to build an "e-Japan." He may find that his wish comes true sooner than he thinks. This week's launch of Amazon.com's Japanese Web site will push the electronic envelope as much as any government initiative. But the Amazon.com venture also highlights...
JAPAN
Nov 3, 2000

Web site gets volcano evacuees online and in touch

Hiroyuki Noda never imagined that he would become a messenger for fellow Miyake Island residents when he bought a personal computer six years ago to keep books for his inn and diving shop.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Nov 1, 2000

Be sure to do the Galapagos in style

You can "do" the Galapagos right. Or you can "do" the Galapagos wrong.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 26, 2000

ASEM fails to live up to hype

The third Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held in Seoul last weekend was long on ceremony and performance, but short on substance. While impeccably hosted by South Korea and held in a glittering new conference center in southern Seoul, the conference lacked "soul." For all the talk of Partnership for Shared...
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2000

Police raid Todai lab linked to apprehended Aum cultist

An Aum Shinrikyo member under arrest was recently hired as a contract employee by a corporation affiliated with the Science and Technology Agency and had been involved in the development of computer systems at the University of Tokyo's graduate school, police said Wednesday.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 21, 2000

In the cavern of the Industrial Age

The first thing you notice is the strong odor, which is somewhere just on the forgiving side of rank. Imagine the refrigeration breaking down for a couple of August days in a provincial French cheese shop, and the aromatic quickly turning miasmatic, andyou'll begin to get an idea of just how the Rontgen...
LIFE / Travel
Oct 18, 2000

Yonezawa's tourist industry rises from the ashes

YONEZAWA, Yamagata Pref. -- When he received a phone call saying that a fire was blazing through the hotel where his grandfather was once a carpenter, local shop owner Masahiro Ohta rushed to help.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 17, 2000

Calm rejoicing in simple, ordinary things

OLD TAOIST: THE LIFE, ART, AND POETRY OF KODOJIN (1865-1944), by Stephen Addiss, with translations of and commentary on Chinese poems by Jonathan Chaves, Columbia University Press, 2000, 173 pp., $27.50. The photograph of Kodojin inside this book is very much what the title leads us to expect -- an elderly...
COMMUNITY
Oct 15, 2000

Honesty is JAL president's policy

Entranced by the view from the windows of an executive meeting room on the 24th floor of the headquarters of Japan Airlines in Tokyo's Tennozu Isle, I almost missed the entrance of JAL's president, Isao Kaneko. Luckily he is not the kind of man to take offense. Slightly built, in a pale gray suit, he...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 15, 2000

Where do the Japanese stand today?

A malaise is abroad in Japan and that malaise is apathy and hopelessness. Ever since the Meiji era -- 1868-1912 -- when the modern state of Japan was established and developed, the one thing that the Japanese people imbued their national effort, their prodigious diligence, with was a sense of hope: that...

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