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EDITORIALS
Feb 23, 1999

Up in arms in Northern Ireland

One sticking point -- if not the key obstacle -- in the Northern Ireland peace process has been the question of when the Irish Republican Army would give up its arms. A fair amount of fudge has been allowed to obscure this issue. That is understandable. After all, no arms would be surrendered until trust...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 1999

A new bridge over the Pacific revealed

Is friendship between nations possible? Can Japan and the United States be friends as the U.S. is with Canada and Britain, or are they forever destined to have a relationship that turns on a calculation of mutual advantage?
EDITORIALS
Feb 21, 1999

Architecture for a new millennium

A new building was opened in Berlin last month that has set the architectural world buzzing. If architecture is "frozen music," wrote one observer, citing Friedrich von Schelling's famous dictum, then Berlin's new Jewish Museum is "a truly dissonant piece."
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 1999

Alley offers old fashioned swig and chat

While Tomomi Kahala hopefuls battle their way across Shibuya's Hachiko crossing to the nearest karaoke bar, those looking for a bit of live entertainment and a huge dollop of good-humored banter head straight for a cluster of rickety wooden watering holes that time seems to have forgotten.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 21, 1999

Two-legged enlightenment in land of soccer gods

Let's talk about religion. Soccer, that is. Many Americans don't like soccer because they say there's not enough action. Americans like fast action sports like American football, rugby and ice hockey. Not me. I like soccer because it's slow. I can get up, go to the bathroom, refill my beer and popcorn,...
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 1999

Frustrated flowers are good news for you

While Yoneko Yoshida, anxiously awaits the arrival of spring, she is also bracing herself for discomfort. As a victim of hay fever, the 62-year-old Tokyo woman suffers from a scratchy throat, itchy, watery eyes and a persistently runny nose for several weeks each year from February till April.
COMMENTARY
Feb 20, 1999

As Tokyo goes, so goes Japan

Utter chaos reigns in the runup to the Tokyo gubernatorial election, the most important of all local elections to be held in April. The outcome of the preliminary battle is likely to have a great influence on national politics.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 1999

Globalization, the world's whipping boy

For one brief moment less than a decade ago, the idea of "globalization" was viewed with more promise than peril. At the time, it represented an emerging economic reality: the merging of national markets into a single entity that traders and merchants anywhere could access at anytime. This "24-hour,...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 1999

Exposing the illusion of appearance

Photographer Duane Michals was born into an odd sort of duality in 1932. He was raised in McKeesport, Penn., by devoutly Catholic parents of Czech origin (much like Andy Warhol, whom he would later depict in a series of blurred portraits). Michals' mother, worked as a housekeeper for a rich family, and...
EDITORIALS
Feb 18, 1999

Europe discovers its Kurdish problem

Europe has worked hard to put considerable distance between itself and the Kurds. There have been condemnations of Turkey's violent, repressive policies toward its Kurdish minority, but sensitivities about Ankara's strategic role in European defense and concerns about the reaction of the 1 million Kurds...
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 1999

The true meaning of the dioxin scare

Nose, a small town on the northern outskirts of Osaka, first put the fear of dioxin into nation's consciousness last year. Now, just 10 months later, another dioxin scare has hit the headlines. This time, the site is Tokorozawa, the Saitama bedroom community on the northwestern outskirts of Tokyo. The...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 17, 1999

Designing for dollars

Say what you will about Jeff Bezos, president of Amazon.com, but he is a savvy guy. He and his company may not be worth the gazillions of dollars that the market is throwing at them, but he deserves credit for making the market believe in him.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

BOJ lowers overnight call rate to unprecedented 0.15%

Amid mounting calls to curtail the rise in long-term interest rates by expanding the money supply, the Bank of Japan on Friday instead decided to confront the problem by guiding down a key short-term interest rate to an astonishing historic low.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 1999

Osaka budget plan calls for pay freeze, payroll reduction

The Osaka Prefectural Government, facing a financial crisis, announced a 3.5 trillion yen budget plan Friday for fiscal 1999 that reduces prefectural personnel costs for the first time since the Local Government Law took effect in 1947.
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 1999

Hope for East Timor

East Timor has never fit comfortably within the sprawling archipelago that is Indonesia. The province was a Portuguese territory from the 17th century until 1975, when a socialist government in Lisbon abandoned the country's colonial pretensions. That triggered a struggle for control of the region. The...
JAPAN
Feb 11, 1999

Nuclear sanctions debate on India, Pakistan in disarray

Officials from the Group of Eight nations and seven other countries disagreed in Tokyo on Thursday over whether to ease international economic sanctions on India and Pakistan, with some saying that the two countries have yet to demonstrate a further commitment to joining the global regime of nuclear...
EDITORIALS
Feb 10, 1999

Encouraging signs in South Asia

The world was shaken last May when India and then Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests. Citizens of the two countries danced in the streets as the two governments declared themselves members of the nuclear club. Reaction elsewhere was just as heartfelt, but for entirely different reasons. The...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Feb 10, 1999

You've got e-mess!

Calling the Internet a borderless world isn't far from the truth, but try saying that every time you get an e-mail you can't read. You know, one of those buggers that is full of incomprehensible code or one that has a mysterious file attached that refuses to open no matter how hard you click it.
EDITORIALS
Feb 9, 1999

Passing on the king's torch of peace

The active rule of a king does not greatly differ from that of a dictator in the sense that his demise has such a profound impact, not only on the fortunes of his own people, but also on the relationships between his nation and other countries. Whether his rule was that of an enlightened political leader...
JAPAN
Feb 9, 1999

Osaka releases 4.1 trillion yen budget proposal

The Osaka Municipal Government released a 1999 fiscal year budget proposal of 4.1 trillion yen Tuesday that calls for additional welfare assistance programs and 935 million yen for promoting its bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
JAPAN
Feb 8, 1999

Cabby from China learning way around Japan

Ghost, half-human and spy — Shigeru Oyama has been called all these things growing up half-Japanese in postwar Beijing.
EDITORIALS
Feb 5, 1999

Auto mergers in the fast lane

The wheeling and dealing in the auto industry has gone into high gear. Last year's megamerger of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler began the process of consolidation, but it was always just a matter of time. The world cannot support 40 automakers. Manufacturers already have the facilities to make 20 million...
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1999

JR East share sale planned in '99

Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki indicated Friday that the government plans to sell its remaining shares of East Japan Railway Co. by the end of the year, if circumstances allow such a move.
JAPAN
Feb 5, 1999

New 'Japanese way' needed, Kansai seminar says

KYOTO — A new "Japanese way" that places emphasis on greater flexibility in decision making and less bureaucratic control are necessary if Japan's corporations are to remain competitive in the next century.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

May deadline set to buy Narita airport land

Are three months enough time to persuade Narita landowners to sell after three decades in which they have steadfastly refused to make way for the New Tokyo International Airport?
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

JOC panel to probe Nagano over Games bid

Japanese Olympic officials said Wednesday they have launched an inquiry into possible misconduct by International Olympic Committee members during Nagano's bid to host the 1998 Winter Games.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

OECD drafts corporate governance guides

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has completed a draft of international guidelines for good corporate governance that emphasizes, among other things, promotion and protection of shareholders' rights.
JAPAN
Feb 4, 1999

21st century Japan plan means overhaul: Shingu

KYOTO — The government has done all it can to bring the nation out of its economic slump and now everyone else has to pitch in, Yasuo Shingu, chairman of the Kansai Economic Federation, said Thursday.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 1999

Travelers left stranded as blizzards hit nation

Heavy snow hit wide areas along the Sea of Japan coast and western Japan from Tuesday through Wednesday, disrupting land and air traffic.
JAPAN
Feb 3, 1999

Komura considers Cuba visit by May

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura is considering visiting Havana as early as May as part of diplomatic efforts to improve the hitherto estranged relations between Japan and Cuba, government sources said Wednesday.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’