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EDITORIALS
Nov 26, 2000

Emissaries with feet of clay

Sometimes there is nothing for it but to send out the troops. Doubtless frustrated by the slow pace of progress toward unification with its "renegade province" of Taiwan, China last week announced plans to do just that. A small force of soldiers, it said, is being prepared to cross the Formosa Strait...
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...
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Hase killer still at large, lawyer fears

KOBE -- The May 1997 murder of 11-year-old Jun Hase in Suma Ward here shocked Japan and made world headlines for the sensational nature of the crime.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Climate meeting ends in deadlock

THE HAGUE -- U.N. climate talks collapsed at the 11th hour Saturday after the European Union and the United States failed to settle a bitter row over ways to stop global warming.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Chelsea Rinku Town's raison d'etre

IZUMISANO, Osaka Pref. -- With nearly half of the land yet awaiting a buyer, a 318-hectare plot known as Rinku Town just across the bay from Kansai International Airport can hardly be called a bustling shopping district.
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2000

Japan IT strategy eyes more telecom deregulation

Japan's national strategy on information technology, scheduled to be adopted Monday, calls for greater deregulation of the telecommunications industry to promote competition, according to a final draft made available to Kyodo News on Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Nov 26, 2000

Visual abstractions in old-fashioned language

Imagine the gentle good humor to be found in the name Michael England but being, say, Scottish. In fact England's mother is Irish and his father Welsh, so quite the national conundrum. "Do I think of myself as Gaelic? Only when drinking and dancing. First and foremost I'm a painter."
COMMENTARY
Nov 25, 2000

Can the system be salvaged?

LONDON -- Reading the accounts in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and the Financial Times of the shenanigans inside and outside the Japanese House of Representatives over the no-confidence motion against the Mori government, I could not help laughing, but I also felt despair about the future of parliamentary...
CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Nov 24, 2000

From the underground up

Ryoji, the charismatic frontman and mastermind behind skacore group Potshot, has the impossibly skinny, graceful physique of a true rock star. Think Mick Jagger in 1969 or Kurt Cobain 20 years later: the ugly duckling reborn through the grace of a power chord.
COMMUNITY / BODY AND SOUL
Nov 23, 2000

You gotta know when to fold 'em

One evening 20 years ago, Kiyomi Takahashi (not her real name) happened to stop at a coffee shop on her way home from work. She found a computer poker game machine in the corner of the shop, and started playing it just for fun. Little did she know this would be the beginning of a decade-long nightmare....
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Nov 23, 2000

The man who never forgets a sake

Haruo Matsuzaki raises the small glass to his nose, sniffs for but a couple of seconds, and takes in a small sip. Slurping in a bit of air, he scribbles for a few seconds into his ever-present tiny notebook, finally expelling the sake into the spittoon next to the table. On to the next.
JAPAN
Nov 23, 2000

Mori foot-in-mouth blunders catching

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, notorious for his verbal blunders, may not be the only Cabinet member who needs to watch his tongue.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2000

Justice Minister Yasuoka to make three-day visit to China

Justice Minister Okiharu Yasuoka will make a three-day visit to China from Dec. 3, marking the first visit by a Japanese justice minister to the country in seven years, Justice Ministry officials said Tuesday.
JAPAN
Nov 22, 2000

Pair arrested for harboring Red Army founder Shigenobu

OSAKA -- Police on Tuesday arrested two supporters of Japanese Red Army founder Fusako Shigenobu for allegedly harboring the fugitive while in Japan.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 22, 2000

Connecting the dots

It's hard to believe, but there is some organization to the Internet. The libertarianism that seems to be the dominant ethos rests not-too-lightly atop a neatly organized technical foundation. It has to be this way: The Net is a network of addresses and someone somewhere has to make sure that they hook...
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2000

No-confidence motion crippled after Kato withdraws support

A no-confidence motion against the Cabinet of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori was expected to be voted down early this morning in the Lower House after Koichi Kato, the leader of a rebel faction in the ruling party, decided to abstain at the last minute.
JAPAN
Nov 21, 2000

Japan to propose culture exchange with South Korea, China

Japan will propose to China and South Korea this week that the three neighbors designate 2002 a special year of cultural and personnel exchanges in an effort to promote mutual understanding and friendship, government sources said Monday.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 21, 2000

Glimpses of long-lost Tokyo

MY ASAKUSA: Coming of Age in Prewar Tokyo. A Memoir, by Sadako Sawamura, translated by Norman E. Stafford and Yasuhiro Kawamura, with an author's note and a foreword by Taichi Yamada. Boston/Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2000, 270 pp., $16.95 Sadako Sawamura was one of Japan's leading character actresses....
CULTURE / Books
Nov 21, 2000

From the mouths of babes: a myth

SPITTING IMAGE: Myth, Memory and the Legacy of Vietnam, by Jerry Lembcke. New York University Press, 2000, 280 pp., $18.95 (paper). My most lasting memory of the Vietnam War is the divisiveness it created in the small American town where I grew up. The nation was divided at every level. Even junior...
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2000

War-displaced orphans return with one success

Four war-displaced Japanese from China left Tokyo for Beijing on Sunday after completing a partially successful six-day search for their long-lost relatives.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2000

Japan-North Korea talks 'broke down,' source says

The most recent round of normalization talks between Japan and North Korea last month in Beijing effectively broke down, and no plans have been made to hold another round, sources close to situation said Sunday.
JAPAN
Nov 20, 2000

Further doubts dug up on archaeologist's 'finds'

Doubts have surfaced over the excavation in the 1980s of ancient ruins in Taiwa, Miyagi Prefecture, by a disgraced archaeologist who earlier this month admitted fabricating his "discoveries" at another site in the prefecture, sources close to the case said.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji