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COMMUNITY
Apr 30, 2000

'English Patience' thickens plots

I found Yukichi Arai eating fruit sherbet in the lobby of the Tokyo Station Hotel. It was hot, I agreed, whereupon he ordered another. After four days sitting in a booth at the Tokyo Book Fair at Tokyo Big Site, promoting his book (titled in "katakana" as "English Patience"), he felt the world deserving...
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Apr 20, 2000

Loose lips can sometimes sink skips

After the New York Mets lost their season opener in Tokyo last month, a few players headed to Roppongi for some beers. On their way to hailing a taxi, one of the team's starting infielders turned to his teammates and said: "I'll tell you one thing about Bobby Valentine. He's the smartest mother (expletive)...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2000

Patient, clever Mori comes into his own

Yoshiro Mori, who replaced Keizo Obuchi as prime minister after Obuchi suffered a stroke and went into coma, is a very lucky man. As secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Mori was a loyal aide to Obuchi, who had recently suffered a sharp drop in popularity. Mori firmly believes in...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 25, 2000

Artist places new focus on gender roles in Japanese art

If one were to compile a list of things taboo in Japan, it would read a little like a catalog of Yoshiko Shimada's subjects over the last 10 years. Shimada, 41, has addressed feminist politics in general, the Korean sex slaves Japanese media euphemize as "comfort women" in particular, and even (gasp!)...
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2000

GSDF crime coverup alleged

The Ground Self-Defense Force is suspected of systematically covering up a criminal case involving a colonel in 1994, the Defense Agency said Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Mar 12, 2000

Here comes the cashless society

The experts may be right that e-commerce and online shopping represent the unstoppable wave of the future. But with all the media attention being lavished on cybermarketing, perhaps not enough attention is being paid to other new ways in which determined merchants are trying to get reluctant consumers...
CULTURE / Art
Mar 12, 2000

Dutch design innovations for the future

NAGOYA--"I designed a new way of living," says Jill Marie Hanssen, by way of introduction. She is a 1999 product design graduate from the Academy of Visual Arts Maastricht, so the hyperbole may have been the unintended result of speaking in English, her third language, but I took the 22-year-old Dutch...
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2000

Pyongyang's intransigence must end

The Japanese government on Tuesday formally announced that it will provide 100,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the U.N. World Food Program. Japan is taking humanitarian action to follow up an agreement that the countries recently reached to resume the normalization talks -- which broke down in...
EDITORIALS
Mar 6, 2000

Aiming at a million

It had to happen. The slick but savvy TV quiz show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?," which first took Britain by storm and then went on to conquer America, is poised to invade Japan. Fuji Television announced last month that it will begin airing a tailored-for-Japan version of the show -- to be called...
JAPAN / Media
Mar 2, 2000

Never mind public health; insiders rule

It will be interesting to see how "The Insider" is promoted when it opens here in May. If it wins a bunch of Academy Awards, then the campaign will be easy, but if it doesn't then the PR people will have to be creative. Most Japanese ad campaigns for foreign films rely on stars, but Russell Crowe, who...
JAPAN
Feb 28, 2000

Stray cat glut spurs odd neighborhood response

Staff writer YOKOHAMA -- A first glance at Masumi Nomura feeding cats in a Yokohama park may lead you to believe she loves the furry felines, but the opposite, however, is true. For years this 61-year-old Isogo Ward resident's daily trips to the park have included feeding a group of homeless cats. Even...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2000

The odd debacle in the Diet

In an unprecedented development in Japanese political history, the opposition forces are boycotting all Diet proceedings to protest the ruling coalition's handling of the controversial legislation for reducing the number of Lower House seats. The Democratic Party of Japan, the Japan Communist Party and...
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2000

TV exec held for threats to 'beautician'

Former Fuji TV producer Koichi Ishimoto, 45, has been arrested for allegedly trying to extort 300 million yen from a beautician who once appeared on his television program, police said. Two others, including Takashi Teruyama, 42, who describes himself as a representative of a political organization,...
JAPAN
Jan 27, 2000

NTT-Matsushita venture to sell music by PHS

NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc. and Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. announced Thursday that they will establish a joint venture early next month to distribute music over PHS phones. Air Media Incorporation will be capitalized at 400 million yen. NTT DoCoMo will own 51 percent and Matsushita...
ENVIRONMENT
Jan 24, 2000

U.S. Greens Abroad get organized for wiser, more principled politics

Once, green was just a color. Now the word evokes numerous shades of fear, anger and optimism, and pops up in discussions of politics, economics, trade and environment.
JAPAN
Dec 24, 1999

Asylum said in short supply here

Staff writer The number of people granted asylum by Japan in 1999 edged into double digits for the second straight year, but lawyers say some seeking to stay are being deported in an inhumane manner. This year, 11 people have been granted refugee status, down from 16 last year. On Nov. 22, an Iranian...
COMMUNITY
Dec 23, 1999

A cry to help children in need

If Joseph Lam were to take a vocational aptitude test, the results would no doubt point to a career in either politics or tele-evangelism.
JAPAN
Dec 10, 1999

Mori denies LDP wants millions

Yoshiro Mori, secretary general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, on Friday denied media reports that his party has informally asked 10 major banks to contribute political donations totaling 100 million yen. The LDP's No. 2 man said the party will continue to refrain from accepting donations from...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Dec 8, 1999

May we help you?

They say this might be the year that online Christmas sales in the U.S. actually live up to past promises of e-commerce's ascendancy. Hurrahs could be heard when it was reported that online transactions over Thanksgiving were up 10-fold (and groans could be heard as servers started overloading with the...
JAPAN
Dec 8, 1999

Advocates hit courts' insensitivity to mentally disabled

Staff writer When the court officer announced "all rise" before the close of the trial, the 58-year-old mentally disability defendant remained seated. When the judge sentenced him in July to a 20-month prison term, he was the only one who apparently did not understand what had happened. The man was...
CULTURE / Art
Nov 20, 1999

Something in the air of Japan's 'Deep South'

They were known as the "girlie photographers," dozens of young female photographers who elbowed their way through the society of cameramen to rise to prominence in Japan during the early 1990s. And as the media loves an underdog, critics loved so-called onnanoko shashinka.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 17, 1999

A Web DJ saved my life

Let's look at the headlines from Net music news. Maestro, hit the rewind:
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Nov 3, 1999

Marketing witchcraft

"The Blair Witch Project," which will finally appear at a theater near you this month, is one of the scariest movies of the '90s.
JAPAN
Oct 18, 1999

Global sports body promotes 'sacred unity'

Staff writer
JAPAN
Oct 15, 1999

Press upholds newspaper deliveries, discount ban

UTSUNOMIYA, Tochigi Pref. -- Representatives of the nation's media services adopted a resolution Friday saying they would strive to maintain the current ban on newspaper discounts and preserve the home delivery system.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 7, 1999

Punk of a nation in mosh pit of controversy and 'silliness'

In the middle of August, Polydor Records announced it would not release a recently finished album by veteran rock singer Kiyoshiro Imawano because it contained a punk version of "Kimigayo," Japan's newly certified national anthem. Imawano called the decision "silly," an opinion that took on extra layers...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 2, 1999

Taiwan quake shakes China's mandate

BEIJING -- Chinese news coverage of the killer earthquake in Taiwan has been both muted and sporadic, ranging from solicitous concern for the rogue province to no news at all. When the earthquake did get print or air time in the week following the temblor, coverage tended to focus on what mainland authorities,...
JAPAN
Sep 24, 1999

DPJ threesome give final pitches

The three candidates for the Democratic Party of Japan's presidential election made their final appeals to the public Friday in Tokyo, concluding 14 days of stumping that took them through 14 cities across the country.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 1999

Analysis: Kan's fading star may reflect DPJ's fate

Staff writers
JAPAN
Sep 3, 1999

Japan urged to see Taiwan as own entity

Staff writer

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person