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JAPAN
Jun 9, 2001

Eight dead in school stabbing spree

A knife-wielding man stormed into an elementary school Friday morning in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, and fatally stabbed eight children and wounded 15 others before he was subdued, police said.
BUSINESS
Jun 8, 2001

DSL needed to spur e-trade

Investors are turning to a high-speed Internet connection service in droves, providing a major lift to the online stock trading phenomena.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 7, 2001

Why NMD is good for Asia

CANBERRA -- There have been many objections to America's plan for a national missile defense system.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 5, 2001

The trial of Unit 731

KHABAROVSK, Russia -- Late in December 1949, Soviet Communist Party leaders began distributing tickets in factories and institutes for an upcoming trial. Twelve Japanese physicians and military officers -- former researchers at a secret facility near Harbin, China known as Unit 731 -- stood accused of...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 3, 2001

Jamming outside the lines

The complexity of jazz is both its strength and its weakness, turning off many would-be listeners with the demands of its difficult, challenging forms, while fascinating fans with its open-ended dynamism. For many jazz players, the tension between having to entertain and wanting to push boundaries is...
JAPAN
May 31, 2001

DoCoMo launches trial of high-speed service

NTT DoCoMo Inc. on Wednesday launched a trial run of its third-generation mobile phone service that promises to eventually allow users to watch video transmissions on their handsets.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
May 31, 2001

Baseball and junk food

www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/index.html "Professional baseball is played at the edge of biological time," the Exploratorium says, "just within a human's ability to react." The pages then go on to demonstrate, not explain, how the pros cope with earning a living on the edge. Games allow you to learn...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 27, 2001

The quest for sleep

It's 5 a.m. and you've spent the past hour staring at the ceiling.
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.
JAPAN
May 23, 2001

Loan firms linked to rise in personal bankruptcies

With colorful billboards at train stations, TV commercials showing Brazilian soccer legend Zico or a carefree, successful young woman, major consumer loan firms seem to have shed the shady images that previously haunted them.
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...
MORE SPORTS / THE DUKE OF HAZARDS
May 22, 2001

Jumbo starting to consider his mortality

I used to be critical of some of Jumbo Ozaki's performances, especially outside Japan when he seemed to be so weak compared to his strong showings at home.
CULTURE / Music
May 20, 2001

You gotta fight for your right to freedom

Adam Yauch, MCA of the Beastie Boys, has come a long way since 1986's "License to Ill," the obnoxious, wildly juvenile album that launched the careers of the punk-turned-hip-hop trio from New York. And not just musically. He's become one of the voices of a worldwide political movement, one heard in Tokyo...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
May 20, 2001

Audrey Hepburn's neck

"I don't understand cats and I don't understand women," confessed a foreign friend, half to me and half to his mug of beer. I leaned in closer to listen.
EDITORIALS
May 17, 2001

Hanging up on 3G

Information anytime, anywhere: That is the promise of the IT revolution. The next step in the march toward the networked world was supposed to take place this month, when NTT DoCoMo and British Telecommunications launched the world's first third-generation (3G) cellphone services. We are marching in...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 13, 2001

Death and the maidens

TBS's "Sekai Fushigi Hakken," currently the longest-running quiz show on commercial TV, was also one of the first series to combine education and entertainment in a way that didn't compromise either. Whereas the previous record-holder, "Naruhodo the World," which went off the air several years ago, presented...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 12, 2001

Hiromi Akatsuka

Tomorrow at 2 p.m. in the Ishibashi Memorial Hall, Ueno, Tokyo International Singers with the L'Esperance Singers will present a concert of French music. The two groups will perform Faure's "Requiem" and Gounod's "St. Cecilia Mass." They will spotlight three soloists, an organist and an electone player....
SOCCER / J. League / ON THE BALL
May 11, 2001

A Hans-on look at Japan's soccer squad

ALMERIA, Spain -- When Japan played Spain in Cordoba on April 25, one spectator, who had driven up from his home on Spain's Costa del Sol, had a particular interest in the Japanese team.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 10, 2001

Long-protected holy mountain to be gutted by highway project

Japan's Environment Minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, recently told Mick Corliss of The Japan Times that she would like to incorporate an "environmental perspective" into public-works projects. If she is serious, there could be no better place to begin than Mount Takao.
JAPAN
May 8, 2001

New Cabinet a breath of fresh air

The newly formed and enormously popular Koizumi Cabinet picked up another accolade Monday when a group of antismoking advocates noticed it contains only one smoker, the least number of any recent Cabinet.
COMMUNITY
May 6, 2001

Think you're safe? Think again

Japan has long enjoyed a reputation for being one of the safest countries in the world. It's said that you can trust your neighbors here. That there's little need to be constantly worried about your belongings. That you can walk the streets safely at night.
LIFE / Travel
May 6, 2001

Britons aim for Pacific rowing record

Two corporals in the British Royal Marines have struck out into the unforgiving North Pacific Ocean in a 7.9-meter rowing boat called Crackers this weekend, aiming to complete the 8,000 km crossing from Japan to California in a record 120 days.
JAPAN
May 4, 2001

Todai chief laments decline in academic standards

Japan may lose out in the international arena, especially in scientific and technological research, if no appropriate steps are taken to stem the decline in Japanese university students' academic abilities, warns the new president of the prestigious University of Tokyo.
JAPAN
May 2, 2001

Japan to launch first Venus probe in 2007

Japan plans to launch its first unmanned space probe to Venus in 2007, with the probe expected to begin orbiting the planet in 2009, according to project members at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science.
Events
May 1, 2001

'Memoirs of a Geisha' muse vents spleen at author

KYOTO -- Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha" sold over 4 million copies and lingered on the New York Times best seller list for 58 weeks. The story of a country girl sold into virtual slavery who rises to become one of Japan's most celebrated geisha captivated the world.
LIFE / Travel
May 1, 2001

The end of a British institution?

LONDON -- The sleekly dressed man brandishing the Koran and standing on an upturned crate is getting very worked up. He points at a man in the crowd and shouts a retort, furious.
COMMENTARY
Apr 30, 2001

A real chance for change?

LONDON -- Is Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi so different from other Japanese politicians that he can succeed in enforcing radical change in the political and economic system of the country?
EDITORIALS
Apr 29, 2001

Going somewhere in Golden Week?

If it's Golden Week, it must be time to dust off those travel statistics again. Every year, government and tourist-industry number-crunchers tell us the score on the number of Japanese traveling abroad in the madcap first week of May, as opposed to those who travel inside Japan or, most sensibly of all,...
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Apr 18, 2001

Poet forging links from East to West

The longest running English poetry journal in Japan, Poetry Nippon, was founded in the fall of 1967. Edited by Sapporo-based poet and translator Yorifumi Yaguchi, it has helped forge links between Japanese, British and American poetry for over 30 years.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 15, 2001

Cracks in the great wall of China

CHINESE SOCIETY: Change, Conflict and Resistance, edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark Selden. London, Routledge, 2000, 249 pp., $27.99. A single image dominates Western perceptions of the regime in China since the Tiananmen massacre of 1989: that of a government willing to crack down mercilessly...

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo