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BUSINESS
May 15, 2000

Constructive advice for launching multilateral talks with the WTO

the summit of major industrialized countries kicks off in July, one of the things the world will be waiting to see is whether the leaders of these nations will be able to launch a new round of multilateral trade liberalization talks under the World Trade Organization.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2000

The rites of spring

Anyone poking about in newspapers or on the Internet lately might have come across a couple of essays expressing a view that seems to pop up seductively in public discourse whenever the weather turns warm. Like a view of cool woods from the window of a stuffy classroom in spring, this idea offers the...
CULTURE / Art
May 14, 2000

Triumph or disaster in Trafalgar Square

LONDON -- The jury for Trafalgar Square was still out when Prue Leith got stuck in her traffic jam. The debate had shifted elsewhere, to other public art projects that had similarly raised hackles or won praise, like Anthony Gormley's "Angel of the North." This 20-meter-high statue erected in 1997 above...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 14, 2000

Adjusting traditions

Before we get too far from the holidays, I wonder how many of you were aware of yet another dilemma for Japanese trying to follow traditions in a world where they no longer fit. Among the most spectacular sights of Golden Week that we are suppose to see are the carp streamers hoisted on long poles and...
COMMUNITY
May 14, 2000

Ex-garbage man bags career as pro caddie

If Jeff Mulberry has any aspirations beyond the odd hole in one, it is to lead as uncomplicated a life as possible. His needs are modest and his interests narrowing down as he focuses on pro golf. Not that he has his eye set on being a winning player, but rather on being the best caddie that friendship,...
EDITORIALS
May 13, 2000

A first step in electoral reform

With the passage of a bill amending the flawed Public Offices Election Law, the next Lower House election -- which most likely will be held late in June -- promises to be a fairer one. The current system, which was used for the first time in the 1996 Lower House election, is a combination of single-member...
JAPAN
May 13, 2000

Yearlong campaign to showcase Italy

Hoping to increase awareness that Italy is more than just a tourist destination, a yearlong promotion comprising various exhibitions across Japan will be launched next March, the promoters announced Friday.
JAPAN
May 13, 2000

Plan sets 15-minute limit to report atomic incident

The government plans to oblige nuclear plant workers to report accidents above certain levels within 15 minutes to bodies including the Prime Minister's Office and the Science and Technology Agency, it was announced Friday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2000

Honohana leaders questioned about millions in kickbacks

Senior members of the cult Honohana Sanpogyo received millions of yen in kickbacks around 1996 from several companies engaged in the construction of a cult facility in Tokyo, sources within the group said Thursday.
JAPAN
May 12, 2000

Giving opinions on candidates might violate election laws: Mori

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said Thursday he was not amused by a civic group's campaign to target certain politicians for removal from the Diet and vowed to look into the case.
JAPAN
May 11, 2000

School has an ear for Korean language

Every eye in the classroom is fixed on Shinji Kurosawa's lips. " 'Pul gogi,' repeat after me," instructs the Korean language teacher.
JAPAN
May 11, 2000

'Ekiben' gets global spin for the rail connoisseur

The business of making and selling "ekiben," packaged lunches sold at train stations throughout Japan, is going somewhat global.
COMMUNITY
May 11, 2000

Breaking free from your limitations

Tapping your inner powerhouse of creativity, succeeding professionally and attaining a sense of profound peace: These are but a few of the wide range of benefits promised by the Sedona method, now being taught in Tokyo by psychotherapist Stewart Wyndham.
COMMENTARY / World
May 11, 2000

Dubai: the Mideast's global village

DUBAI -- Last month, Gen. Sheikh Muhammad bin Maktum, minister of defense of the United Arab Emirates, announced at a press conference that the Internet revolution and the "new economy" were coming to the government of Dubai. It was an incongruous spectacle, so traditional a figure, in distinctive black...
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Police chief wants juveniles to repent

National Police Agency chief Setsuo Tanaka told senior police officials at a meeting Tuesday to make juvenile crime suspects reflect on their offenses.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Communities tapped to teach kids foreign languages

Elementary school students in 29 communities across Japan will receive community-run foreign language lessons outside of school, Education Ministry officials said.
LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Postcards from the flip side of Japan

Think of the antithesis of Japan. A place where there are few people, an abundance of unspoiled natural beauty, a low standard of living and, perhaps most importantly for the visitor, sparkling blue oceans teeming with fish and alive with coral reefs.
COMMENTARY / World
May 10, 2000

Modest hopes for summit between Koreas

Last month, the leaders of North and South Korea stunned the world with an announcement of plans to meet in Pyongyang in June at the first ever summit between the two nations. It is an event fraught with both danger and opportunity.
LIFE / Travel
May 10, 2000

Panasonic shows off high tech for the kids

What's a kyoiku mama to do?
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Activists arrested in 'dioxin capital'

Four members of the environmentalist group Greenpeace International were arrested Tuesday after scaling a tower near an incinerator plant in Tokyo to protest Japan's waste-incineration policies, police and group members said.
JAPAN
May 10, 2000

Okinawa goods shops basking in G8, or pop-star spotlight?

Who is to thank for the recent brisk sales at an Okinawa goods shop in Tokyo, former Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi or pop singer Namie Amuro?
JAPAN
May 9, 2000

Algerian minister's visit to mark warming of ties

Algerian Foreign Minister Youcef Yousfi plans to visit Tokyo at the end of this month, a trip that will mark the end of decades of near-estrangement between Japan and the North African country.
JAPAN
May 9, 2000

Sumida fireworks face G8 delay

The popular annual Sumida River fireworks in Tokyo will be postponed by one month until Aug. 26 because police will be too busy in July providing security for the Group of Eight summit in Okinawa Prefecture, fireworks organizers said Monday.
CULTURE / Books
May 9, 2000

Testing times for Japan-U.S. alliance

ALLIANCE ADRIFT, by Yoichi Funabashi. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999, 501 pp., $49.95 (cloth). The jacket of this hefty chronicle of the recent history of Japan-U.S. security relations proclaims that Japan has found its Bob Woodward. Consider yourself warned.
CULTURE / Books
May 9, 2000

'Shuttered' to the West, Japan opened to the East

CHINA IN THE TOKUGAWA WORLD, by Marius B. Jansen. Cambridge, Mass. and London: Harvard University Press, 2000, 137 pp., $8.50 (paper). With the 400th anniversary of Japanese-Dutch relations upon us, interest has been rekindled in Japan's foreign relations during the Tokugawa period, and the part played...
EDITORIALS
May 8, 2000

The return of 'Red Ken'

Red is the color of the British Labor Party. Last week, British voters were a little too red for Prime Minister Tony Blair. The election of Mr. Ken Livingstone, known as "Red Ken" for his feisty leftwing politics, as London's first directly elected mayor, left Mr. Blair with a nasty black eye, but that...

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.