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JAPAN
Oct 7, 2000

Japan to give Pyongyang rice aid despite kidnap claims

The government on Friday officially announced plans to send 500,000 tons of rice as additional food aid to North Korea.
JAPAN
Oct 7, 2000

Osaka seeks interpreters for hospitals

OSAKA -- Osaka Prefecture will take steps to increase the number of volunteer interpreters at its hospitals in an effort to better deal with the variety of foreign languages spoken by patients, it was learned Friday.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Oct 7, 2000

Tales of romance and bloodshed come alive in Shinnai song

Some of the performing arts of Japan are so spectacular that they grab your attention and immediately make you feel a part of the music. Taiko drumming is one; rhythm speaks directly to our bodies, and the beating of a stick on a drum has a physical appeal to all, regardless of language or culture.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 7, 2000

Purple princess outdukes Dokic

Serena Williams might aspire to be the queen of women's tennis, but for now she's merely aiming to be a Toyota Princess.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2000

Britain's future is at the heart of Europe

Britain is still on course to join the euro despite the narrow rejection of formal membership by Denmark in last week's referendum. Denmark is Europe's second-smallest country, represents only 2 percent of European gross national product, and anyway has already tied its currency, the krone, to the euro....
CULTURE / Stage
Oct 7, 2000

Loose Sock theater company offers creative collaboration

Nestled in the cloudy seaside bluffs of Yamate in Yokohama stands the newly renovated Gaiety Theater. With origins dating back to 1870, the Gaiety has operated from various locations and hosted numerous theatrical organizations of Yokohama's foreign thespian community.
JAPAN
Oct 6, 2000

Sansei make busy visit for the sake of relations

Most of them can't speak Japanese, or can't speak it very well. Some have only been to Japan a few times.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 6, 2000

Festival to celebrate composer Ikuma Dan

"Dan Year 2000," a nine-month festival featuring the works of Japanese composer Ikuma Dan, will begin Oct. 15.
COMMENTARY
Oct 5, 2000

No rush to grant foreigners voting rights

A major domestic political debate is brewing over whether non-Japanese permanent residents should be granted the right to vote in local elections of prefectural governors, prefectural legislators, and chiefs and council members of lower local administrative entities. Those foreigners will still be ineligible...
JAPAN
Oct 5, 2000

Food aid to North Korea gains approval

A key Liberal Democratic Party panel approved a plan Wednesday to send 500,000 tons of rice as food aid to North Korea, effectively paving the way for an aid program the government hopes will add impetus to normalization talks.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 5, 2000

Seles, Serena pass first tests at Toyota Princess Cup tennis

Monica Seles and Serena Williams, the first and second seeds, respectively, who both had byes in the first round, cruised through their first tests at the Toyota Princess Cup on Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals.
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2000

Medical researcher accused of embezzlement

The chief of the Juntendo University medical department misappropriated around 60 million yen in government subsidies over the five-year period to 1999, sources close to tax authorities alleged Tuesday.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 4, 2000

On the track of buried treasure

George Braseros is certain there is gold buried in the jungles of Mindanao. He is so sure it is there, just waiting to be dug up, that he has sunk a small fortune of his own into searching for it. And he knows other men have died for it.
LIFE / Travel
Oct 4, 2000

Just a pot of gold on the moon? Or stolen billions?

In January 1971, a locksmith called Rogelio Roxas from Baguio City, 200 km north of Manila, met a half-Japanese-half-Filipino "mestizo" whose father had been a translator for Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita during the war. When the man was 15 years old, his father had taken him into the jungles near to the hospital...
JAPAN
Oct 4, 2000

Tokyo hotel reheats G8 menu

The Okinawa Prefectural Government and a top Tokyo hotel launched a festival of culinary delights Tuesday featuring the same menu served during the Okinawa summit of the Group of Eight nations in July.
EDITORIALS
Oct 3, 2000

Don't shortchange young readers

Despite all the talk about the need for educational reforms, little serious attention is being paid to a fundamental way in which Japan's schoolchildren are being shortchanged. Except among the educators directly involved, few have expressed concern over the Education Ministry's announcement that libraries...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2000

A real German lesson for the two Koreas

SEOUL -- In one of numerous books dealing with unification matters, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung refers to his meetings with leading German politicians in the early part of the 1990s. According to Kim's account, the German politicians told him, "You are fortunate because you can analyze all the...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 3, 2000

Diners, look before you eat

AT THE JAPANESE TABLE, by Richard Hosking. Images of Asia. Oxford University Press, 2000, 70 pp., 22 color plates, 19 b/w, unpriced. THE ESSENCE OF JAPANESE CUISINE: An Essay on Food and Culture, by Michael Ashkenazi and Jeanne Jacob. Richmond/Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000, 252 pp., 11 b/w photos, 45 British...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 3, 2000

JCP reforms in name only

The Japanese Communist Party, at the Sept. 19 general meeting of the Central Committee, proposed scrapping the preamble to the party charter that sets out basic principles for its activities and organization. The preamble contains words symbolic of the Communist Party, such as "socialist revolution,"...
JAPAN
Oct 3, 2000

Groups demand explanation of plan to help North Korea

Citizens' groups seeking the return of Japanese nationals allegedly abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s demanded Monday that Japan explain its reported plan to provide food aid to North Korea at a time when there is no visible improvement in the communist country's efforts to resolve...
EDITORIALS
Oct 2, 2000

Indonesia's justice on trial

Indonesia's wobbly democracy is being sorely tested as the government attempts to bring former President Suharto and his children to justice. At the same time, it must cope with escalating violence both in the capital of Jakarta and in the provinces. Ominously, the two problems appear to overlap: President...
JAPAN
Oct 2, 2000

Japan open to return of two disputed isles

The government is leaning closer to accepting a two-stage accord over four disputed islands off Hokkaido in which Russia would hand over two of them with assurances that the remaining two will also eventually be returned, government sources said Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Oct 1, 2000

Life after the Olympics

What do we do now with our evenings and weekends? For two happy, mindless weeks, we have flopped down in front of the TV any spare minute we had, just to get our daily fix of the big show going on in Sydney. Cynicism, the pre-Games attitude du jour, went out the window the second the teams entered the...
COMMENTARY
Oct 1, 2000

Log on to network politics

Events can act often as an illuminating light. Predictions, warnings and expert forecasts of which no one took much notice suddenly become obvious to everyone.
JAPAN
Oct 1, 2000

Shelter plan for park's homeless hit

OSAKA -- A municipal government plan to build temporary shelters for homeless people living in a park that will host next year's East Asian Games has received heated criticism from area residents, who have gathered over 22,000 signatures in protest.
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000

Van Gogh, up close and personal

There is a rapid sketch by Vincent van Gogh of a sunny square in the south of France where a man is waiting expectantly by an open door. In the distance, a steam train is arriving, puffing smoke into the sky. It is just a simple drawing of a corner of Arles in 1888. But when we realize that the man is...

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