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JAPAN
Jun 2, 2001

Greece hopes renewal of air links will spur bilateral ties with Japan

An agreement reached between Japan and Greece earlier this week to improve air links by code sharing will hopefully spur bilateral ties, Grigoris Niotis, Greek deputy foreign minister, said in Tokyo on Friday.
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jun 1, 2001

Japanese rat snake

* Japanese name: Aodaisho
COMMENTARY / World
May 31, 2001

Smokers' deadly paradise

For Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Hal Boyle, it wasn't too difficult to tell a man from a woman. "If it always offers you a cigar, it's a man," he quipped. "If it always is asking for a cigarette, then waits for a light, it's a woman."
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 31, 2001

Drop your drawers and give me 20 (ml, that is)

Mark Heppelle is a 37-year-old Canadian currently living in Japan with his wife and two kids where he runs a small English school. But that's not his only source of income. Heppelle also has a rather unique sports-related job, the results of which can be seen almost daily on sports pages across the globe....
CULTURE / Art
May 30, 2001

Inside angle on the subcontinent

From the scowl of a Calcutta street kid to the prayer-locked, wrinkled face and hands of Mother Theresa; from the quiet orange of a Taj Mahal sunrise to the bustle of a Delhi bazaar -- it seems the full breadth of India's people and places live in the photographs of Raghu Rai.
JAPAN
May 27, 2001

Roland creator follows his own tune to international success

OSAKA -- From its humble beginnings almost 30 years ago, Roland Corp. today is one of the world's top electronic musical instrument manufacturers. In fact, nearly any musical performance features the ubiquitous brand name somewhere on stage.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 27, 2001

Cosmetics companies give themselves a makeover

Truth in advertising has never been a strong concept in Japan, but no one flouts it as boldly as the cosmetics industry, which is understandable, since makeup itself is a form of deception. One company's antiwrinkle cream is said to "prevent aging," an obvious impossibility, while the manufacturer of...
BUSINESS
May 26, 2001

Youth favors new Fuji chief

Kyoji Takenaka, the incoming president of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd., is determined to make the company a full-fledged global player with "premium brand" vehicles.
BUSINESS
May 26, 2001

Lower House OKs bill to reform pension plans

The Lower House on Friday approved a new defined-benefit pension bill that will drastically reform the corporate pension system.
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 25, 2001

Spring cicada

* Japanese name: Haruzemi * Scientific name: Terpnosia vocua
JAPAN
May 24, 2001

Koizumi must deliver before hoopla fades

Staff writers Reformist Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi seems to know too well that what counts is his image.
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
May 24, 2001

Just plant grass, and mow it for 400 years

The Hosokawa family is deeply rooted to the history and development of Kumamoto. Hosokawa Tadatoshi (1586-1641) was granted the domain of Kumamoto (540,000 koku) by Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu in 1632 and started work on the gardens which became Suizenji Jojuen in the same year.
CULTURE / Stage
May 23, 2001

Dankikusai passes torch to a new generation

For the month of May, the Kabukiza Theater in Tokyo is presenting a special program celebrating the Dankikusai (Danjuro-Kikugoro Festival). The afternoon program features "The Tale of Genji, Part II" in three acts, and the evening program includes two strikingly intense plays, "Gappo's Abode" and "Ise...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

Yoshimoto's talent for comedy

There was a time when parents in Osaka used to scold their kids by threatening, "I will send you to Yoshimoto!" if they were fooling around. Today, though, Yoshimoto Kogyo Co. has become Japan's largest entertainment agency, and most parents would be happy if their children worked for it. Its tarento...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 20, 2001

The importance of being Osakan

"Osaka? You think Osaka is the same as Tokyo?"
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 20, 2001

Ten weddings and a quiz show

'Timeshock" was one of the original Japanese quiz shows, an uncomplicated but tense trivia contest that kept viewers glued to their screens in the '60s and made its voluble host, the late Jiro Tamiya, a superstar. The heart of the show was the intense one-minute barrage of questions that the contestants...
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 18, 2001

Pipistrelle bat

*Japanese name: Abura komori *Scientific name:Pipistrellus abramus
BUSINESS
May 16, 2001

New condos for sale in Tokyo on decline

The number of new condominiums put up for sale in the Tokyo metropolitan area in April fell 27.9 percent from a year earlier to 5,763, down for the first time in two months, a private research institute said Tuesday.
CULTURE / Art
May 16, 2001

A vision of humanity that transcends culture

"Waterside Garden I" (2001) by Noriko Yanagisawa The current show at Tokyo's Hillside Forum features works by print artist Noriko Yanagisawa.
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
May 15, 2001

History and old home comforts in Zambia

Every mud hut in Songwe Village Lodge is named after a chief. Our hut, for example, is called Shichichele.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
May 13, 2001

Don't take China so seriously

These days China is always in the news. If it's not the U.S. spy-plane incident, then it's Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics or the Chinese Communist Party's human-rights record or Beijing's bullying of Taiwan. After decades of condescending reporting on China, the international media is finally starting...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
May 13, 2001

Lonesome Strings come out of the shadows

Like anyone who's really good at something, Yoshiki Sakurai makes it look easy. On stage, as he lets fly with complicated riffs and rhythms in any variety of styles, he stands expressionless.
COMMENTARY / World
May 12, 2001

Cooling South China Sea competition

The Sino-U.S. spy-plane crisis is a reminder of the ever-present potential for confrontation in the South China Sea. The world has been lucky so far. Despite a stream of provocations by the various claimants to the area, there have been no recent clashes. But as the EP-3 incident makes painfully clear,...
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
May 11, 2001

Water scorpion

*Japanese name: Kooimushi *Scientific name:Diplonychus japonica *Description: Water scorpions are aquatic insects that look a bit like beetles. They have wings, but they don't have the protective shell that beetles have. Their mouthparts are also unlike beetles: They have a sharp beak that is used...
COMMENTARY / World / GUEST FORUM
May 10, 2001

Another side of the New Economy

Many East Asian nations look to the New Economy as a possible cure for their recent economic ills, but they are short of good prescriptions. The term was coined to describe the decade-long economic expansion in the United States that was hard to explain on the basis of old economic theories. Lack of...
JAPAN
May 10, 2001

Japan-British Society wants help in recovering records of its activities

For its 100-year anniversary in 2008, the Japan-British Society has started compiling a history of the organization and is asking for the public's help.
CULTURE / Art
May 9, 2001

Links in a chain of ambiguity

As the spring exhibition season hits its stride, the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art has come up with an accessible and quite interesting show in the diffusely titled "Chain of Visions -- Family, Politics and Religion in the Last Generation of Italian Contemporary Art." The exhibition features about...
LIFE / Travel
May 5, 2001

Stones from the foundation

Japan takes enormous pride in its culture but has a poor record on its preservation. This is particularly true of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), perhaps the most dynamic period in the country's history, when Japan emerged from more than 200 years of self-imposed isolation and laid the foundations of a modern...

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.