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JAPAN
Dec 23, 2000

Snow Brand set to shut Osaka plant

Snow Brand Milk Products Co. said Friday it will permanently close the Osaka plant that produced tainted milk products that caused widespread food poisoning last summer.
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 23, 2000

Anything but ordinary

With the title "Raj Packet -- Everything But Ravi," you can't help but be curious about the performance. "Raj" possibly indicates something to do with British sovereignty over India in the last century;"packet" could be compendium, maybe a selection box of performance chocolates; "everything" as in "everything...
EDITORIALS
Dec 22, 2000

Punishing 'a haven of lawlessness'

That is how the United Nations Security Council justified its vote earlier this week to impose new sanctions against the government of Afghanistan. Voting 13-0, with two abstentions, the Security Council has demanded that the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Kabul, close "terrorist" training...
BUSINESS
Dec 22, 2000

Mori taps tech sector for IT advice

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has informally selected 10 people, including Sony Corp. Chairman Nobuyuki Idei, as members of his new team of Cabinet advisers for the government's information technology drive, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Thursday.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2000

Tomobe's 10-year sentence stands

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday upheld a lower court-imposed 10-year prison term against Upper House member Tatsuo Tomobe for swindling 35 people out of about 665 million yen between 1994 and 1996 through a bogus mutual fund scheme.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2000

Census results reflect centralization

The Tokyo metropolitan area population has increased 2 percent since 1995 to about 8.13 million, underlining the recent trend of people gravitating toward city centers, according to preliminary results of the latest national census released Wednesday.
LIFE / Style & Design / BEAUTY EAST AND WEST
Dec 21, 2000

Refresh your soul with the scent of eternal rebirth

For me the special warmth, freshness and magic of this time of year is beautifully embodied in its piny scents. The pine of Christmas trees and wreaths segues nicely into the pine of Japanese New Year displays.
JAPAN
Dec 21, 2000

Regenerative cartilage may replace artificial joints

Artificial joints normally last 12 to 13 years, but regenerative cartilage could make them obsolete, according to Tetsuya Tateishi, a professor at the University of Tokyo.
ENVIRONMENT
Dec 21, 2000

One tall organic latte, please

If you started your day with a cup of coffee, think about how you selected the beans for your brew. Perhaps they were on sale, or your favorite roast from Brazil or Colombia. Chances are, however, you didn't have the option of buying organically farmed coffee.
JAPAN
Dec 20, 2000

Product helps diabetics, but not here

Japanese businesses wanting to develop techniques for the regeneration of human tissue and commercialize their products are facing a major obstacle.
SOCCER / J. League
Dec 20, 2000

Japan, S. Korea set for Tokyo clash

Japan, in its first international since winning the Asian Cup in October, takes on South Korea in a friendly tonight at Tokyo's National Stadium.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Dec 20, 2000

A divided Capitol awaits new president

WASHINGTON -- Wow! What a list of things to do for U.S. President-elect George W. Bush. It is long, and the degree of difficulty of almost every item on the list is of Olympian proportion.
COMMENTARY
Dec 20, 2000

The world may welcome Bush

LONDON -- While the United States adjusts to the idea of having George W. Bush as its new president, his predecessor has been treading the international stage for the last time -- at least in a presidential capacity. Bill Clinton's "final" visit to Britain received immense coverage, some of it almost...
BUSINESS
Dec 19, 2000

Economic panel to be disbanded lists failures

A soon-to-be-disbanded top government advisory panel issued a report Monday reflecting on its failure to quickly deal with major economic changes such as the information technology boom and the collapse of the asset-price bubble that depressed the economy through the 1990s.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 19, 2000

Making mush of Meadowlark

SHOPPING: A Novel, by Gavin Kramer. Soho Press, 2000, 216 pp., $22 (cloth). It's easy for a foreigner to feel like a freak in Japan -- tall, different, culturally unaware, linguistically tongue-tied. This wickedly clever novel of manners turns its lens on the foreign protagonist as spectacle, British...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 19, 2000

Rumbling with the jungle girls on tour in the U.K.

I'm a failed rock star and that's probably why I ended up writing about music.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2000

At long last, signs of progress

During his Tokyo visit in October 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi signed a joint declaration on the bilateral partnership for the 21st century. In the document, Obuchi expressed "keen remorse" and apologized for the historical fact that Japan, through...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Aid for crime victims inadequate, poll finds

About 76 percent of Japanese think government measures to protect and support crime victims are inadequate, according to a survey by the Prime Minister's Office released Saturday.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 17, 2000

All I want for Christmas is some cud to chew

Since Japan has finally started to perform organ transplants, I can finally ask Santa for what I've always wanted -- an organ. And no, I don't mean a sex change. The organ I want happens to belong to a cow. And no, I don't mean the udder. What I'd like from a cow is something that would make my life...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 17, 2000

Putting the double bass on top

Widely considered the greatest double bass soloist of our time, world-renowned virtuoso Gary Karr will perform tonight at Taishi Bunka Kaikan Hall in Hyogo Prefecture with the piano accompaniment of his long-time duo partner Harmon Lewis, one of the final concerts of his 11-city, 3-week tour of Japan....
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 17, 2000

Ruby Pawankar

The Fourth International Symposium on Basic Approach to Allergic Rhinitis will be held in Tokyo on Feb. 10 and 11. Its central theme, "allergy -- from the nose to the lung," is to focus on the impact and relation of allergic rhinitis and asthma. President of the Fourth ISBAAR and a founder of the series...
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2000

Red Army figure admits hijacking

Former Red Army Faction member Yoshimi Tanaka pleaded guilty Friday to hijacking a Japan Airlines jet and forcing it to fly to Pyongyang in 1970.
BUSINESS
Dec 16, 2000

Reform panel chief hits wall of regulations, vested interests

After making steady progress in the economic field, Japan's deregulatory efforts are now entering a more difficult stage as they come to grips with social regulations, according to Yoshihiko Miyauchi, chairman of Orix Corp. and head of a government panel on regulatory reforms.
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2000

LDP moves step closer to cutting China's ODA

The Liberal Democratic Party's top foreign policy planners approved a panel report Friday proposing that Japan's official development assistance to China should be reduced in the light of the domestic economic situation.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2000

Op-ting out of the conventional frame

"Yellow-Green Spiral" by Jun Fujita, 2000, acrylic on board Op Art, pioneered by Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarely in the '60s, creates the impression of swirling movement and tricks the eye into perceiving three dimensions. Optical discrepancy is achieved by placing the geometric shapes precisely onthe...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 16, 2000

Letting the genie of art out of its bottle

It was 112 years ago when Vincent van Gogh sat down to paint his bedroom in the famous yellow house at Arles. After a few hours of frantic work, the three-dimensional room had been transformed into a two-dimensional masterpiece.
COMMENTARY
Dec 16, 2000

An isolated government clings to power

The United States and Japan are plagued by political chaos. The fierce U.S. presidential race ended in victory for George W. Bush after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the recounting of disputed ballots in Florida. In Japan, a disturbingly wide gap exists between the fragile support Prime Minister Yoshiro...
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2000

Nissan now switching focus to domestic competitiveness

Looking back on a year in which Nissan Motor Co. appears to have finally stemmed its downward slide, President Carlos Ghosn said that regaining competitiveness in the domestic market will be the automaker's priority for the coming year.
BUSINESS
Dec 15, 2000

Retail clerks, cabbies turn pessimistic

Japanese workers sensitive to economic cycles are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the economy, according to a survey released by the Economic Planning Agency on Thursday.

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes