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CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Aug 8, 2000

Keepers of the flame take Gypsy sounds to the world

Under Soviet communism, the ethnic and folk music of Eastern Europe was often hijacked as a form of propaganda. Words were changed to express patriotic sentiments and slogans of peace. In Romania, Nicolae Ceausescu, the country's dictator for 25 years, would bus out thousands of peasants to sing such...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Aug 8, 2000

The Bush machine rolls along

WASHINGTON -- There are three defining events for a candidate in the U.S. presidential campaign, events that reveal the candidate in a unique and important way. They are the selection of the vice-presidential candidate, the candidate's appearance at the convention, and the debates.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 8, 2000

Japan's media watchdog is a lap dog

CLOSING THE SHOP: Information Cartels and Japan's Mass Media, by Laurie Anne Freeman. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000, 256 pp. $39.50 (cloth). This excellent book lays bare the mechanisms of the information cartels in Japan that prop up the state, insulate the elite from sustained critical...
BUSINESS
Aug 7, 2000

If Europe can unify currency, why can't Southeast Asia?

The Southeast Asian economy has reportedly found the path to recovery after being crippled by the regional financial crisis of 1997.
COMMENTARY
Aug 7, 2000

Laissez faire destroys itself

The market economy is akin to nature. Government intervention in the market is comparable to the destruction of the natural environment and should be avoided. Nature untouched by the human hand is great. The fury of the elements dwarfs human power. Essentially, that is the opinion of free-market advocates,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 7, 2000

Muslims under fire in Russian Far East

PETROPAVLOSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia -- When Usman Usmanov laid the cornerstone of the first mosque in the Russian Far East last summer, he was thrilled to see the start of a spiritual center for 30,000 Muslims in the Kamchatka region.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2000

Marist headmaster inspired by nation's morals, quake ordeal

KOBE -- What is behind Japanese people's moral behavior remains a mystery to Brother George Fontana, although he has spent 11 years here as headmaster of Marist Brothers International School in Suma Ward.
JAPAN
Aug 6, 2000

British ex-POW takes redress crusade to Net

A former British prisoner of war campaigning for Japanese compensation is designing a Web site to document the torture and suffering British POWs endured at the hands of their captors during World War II.
COMMUNITY
Aug 6, 2000

Founder of ballooning in Japan plans pioneering flight

A licensed hot air balloon pilot herself, Ichiyoshi Sabu's wife knows about fear. After her husband came close to losing his life trying to fly over Mount Everest, she put her foot down. No more daredevil stunts, she declared; you've a family to think of. This explains why he will be ground master of...
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2000

A-bomb survivor tells of torments, appeals for peace

A survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima this week told of the torments she suffered as a result of the bomb and issued an appeal for peace ahead of the 55th anniversary of the attack Sunday.
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Aug 5, 2000

New works win for old instruments

The yearly National Theater's Hogaku Composers' Competition, entering its fourth year, has firmly established itself as an important institution for the hogaku world. The original aim of this contest was to generate interest in and foster new works of hogaku, and in this it seems to be succeeding quite...
CULTURE / Art
Aug 5, 2000

Photos capture nuclear tests' toll

The single eye of a cyclops baby preserved in a jar of formalin gazes out, unblinking. Beside it, the eyeless face of a severely disfigured boy seems to melt from his head, the swollen eyebrows and cheeks blinding him permanently.
EDITORIALS
Aug 4, 2000

Kashmir's best chance

After 11 years of escalating violence, there is reason for hope in Kashmir. The largest Muslim separatist group declared a unilateral ceasefire late last month. The move was promptly reciprocated by the Indian Army, which announced the suspension of operations against that group. But prospects for talks...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 4, 2000

A faltering lama, and the boy who is Tibet's new hope

NEW DELHI -- Will the Tibet problem ever be solved? The last several months have seen sheer despondency among the people of the plateau. With little sign of China granting them even a small degree of autonomy, let alone freeing them from its decades-old subjugation, Tibetans are now beginning to have...
JAPAN
Aug 3, 2000

Rare corals sold in pet shops contributing to species' decline

Various types of live coral from coastal areas in Japan, including rare species, are being sold in pet shops in and around Tokyo, a group monitoring wildlife trafficking said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2000

DoCoMo phone to link Japan, South Korea

NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday that it will release on Aug. 10 a cellular phone that can be used both in Japan and South Korea, based on a business tieup with local operator SK Telecom.
BUSINESS
Aug 3, 2000

Japan key to Hyundai's global strategy

Hyundai Motor Co. will enter the Japanese market in January with an aggressive sales plan, taking advantage of expanding cultural and business exchanges between the country and South Korea, the president of the firm's Japanese affiliate said.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Aug 3, 2000

Lessons of the past inspire a future

Calligraphy by Nako Oizumi The evolution of a single human neither starts with their birth, nor stops with the end of their childhood. Each of us has been given pieces of the past by previous generations from which we make new meaning and, in turn, hand it on to the young.
EDITORIALS
Aug 2, 2000

Milosevic vs. Montenegro

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has been the architect of his country's destruction. Over the course of a decade, his twin pursuits of the Serb nationalist cause and his own power have torn the Yugoslav federation apart. It has been a bloody process, triggering foreign military intervention on...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2000

Lebanon's Daily Star does battle on a new front

BEIRUT -- The Daily Star did not need to send a reporter to the front line to cover the first salvos of the 15-year civil war that nearly broke Lebanon's back. The newspaper's offices were already there.
COMMENTARY
Aug 2, 2000

Hasten slowly on ties with Pyongyang

Japan is moving to expedite negotiations on a peace treaty with North Korea, but it should be in no hurry at all. Famine-stricken North Korea has often asked foreign countries for food aid, and Japan has obliged by supplying a large amount of rice. There is no way of knowing if the Japanese-supplied...
EDITORIALS
Aug 1, 2000

Educational reform, not regression

It has long been recognized that Japan's educational system is badly in need of reform. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori repeatedly makes it clear that he agrees. The indications are plentiful: the collapse of classroom discipline in elementary schools; the rising rates of prolonged absenteeism and physical...

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight