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JAPAN
Oct 25, 2000

Why do some doctors anesthetize brain-dead patients?

Tetsuo Furukawa, professor emeritus of neurology at Tokyo Medical and Dental School, is a rarity in Japan: a neurologist who has been crusading against the practice of transplanting organs from brain-dead donors. Furukawa worries that patients in a supposedly brain-dead state may nevertheless feel pain,...
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

How dead is dead enough?

The line between life and death has grown increasingly obscure in the United States, the world's most active organ-transplant community, as surgeons grapple with a delicate problem: Organs available for transplant may become less viable if pronouncement of a donor's death is delayed until death is beyond...
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2000

Fathers of juvenile victims call for tougher laws at Diet

Two fathers whose sons were killed by other juveniles spoke at the Diet as witnesses Tuesday, calling for revisions to the Juvenile Law to deter youths from committing heinous crimes and to better protect the human rights of crime victims.
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2000

Charting a course for Europe

LONDON -- Three major speeches have been made recently by European leaders about the future of the European Union. The first was by Joschka Fischer, the German foreign minister, the second by French President Jacques Chirac and the third by Tony Blair, the British prime minister.
JAPAN
Oct 16, 2000

Hatoyama calls for 'national forces'

Yukio Hatoyama, leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, on Sunday said that the Constitution should provide for "national forces" rather than "self-defense" services.
EDITORIALS
Oct 14, 2000

Tread carefully with Pyongyang

The United States and North Korea do not have diplomatic relations. Technically, they are still at war. That has not stopped them from negotiating important issues, but the lack of an official relationship has complicated already difficult talks. Now, however, the two countries are moving toward reconciliation....
COMMENTARY
Oct 13, 2000

Communists to 'tolerate' SDF

The national convention of the Japan Communist Party is expected to approve a proposal in November to revise its charter in order to tolerate the mobilization of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces in a military emergency. The policy turnaround to match the party's basic stance to reality was long overdue....
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2000

Nobel Prize surprises Tsukuba chemist

Hideki Shirakawa of Japan and Americans Alan Heeger and Alan MacDiarmid have been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry for their discovery that some plastics can conduct electricity. Shirakawa, 64, a professor emeritus at the University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, said the honor came as a total...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2000

China's Zhu to talk with Japanese for the cameras

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji will appear on a special program to be aired by Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. during his six-day visit to Japan that begins Thursday, TBS officials said Saturday.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 6, 2000

'Exodus' to a country of hope?

In recent years Murakami Ryu has received much attention for his uncanny knack of writing novels taking up themes, such as teen crime and hikikomori (withdrawing from the world and shutting oneself up in one's room), just before they come to public awareness as social problems. Now Murakami's new novel...
CULTURE / Music
Oct 5, 2000

Passionate affairs with flamenco

MADRID, Spain -- At a recent flamenco show in downtown Madrid, guitars strumming to furious crescendos and sudden stops, a spectator might have found himself thinking, "Hey, there's a long-haired guy clapping at the back of the stage who looks Japanese. Wait a second, he is Japanese!"
CULTURE / Art
Oct 1, 2000

Stringing a line through fashion and art

The 21st century in Tokyo is seeing a great migration of disciplines from one sphere into another. Fashion designers are collaborating with artists and exhibiting in galleries. Artists are collaborating with designers and exhibiting in shops.
OLYMPICS
Sep 26, 2000

Observers stunned by Takahashi's feat

SYDNEY -- The Olympic host nation has taken a break from self-aggrandizement to applaud Naoko Takahashi for raising the standard for all marathons to come with her record-breaking time in the women's marathon Sunday.
COMMUNITY
Sep 24, 2000

Harry Potter in the Middle Kingdom

BEIJING -- He's your average, 11-year-old Muggle. An only child, prone to mischief whenever possible, he prefers computer games to books. Or at least he did, until he became a guinea pig for 300 million other children.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2000

Rightists sentenced for attack on editor

Two members of a rightwing group were sentenced to 16 months in prison Friday for assaulting a magazine editor over an article they considered insulting to the Imperial family.
JAPAN
Sep 21, 2000

Whaling issue not black and white

Incensed over Japan's expanded whaling program, Washington has threatened Tokyo with trade sanctions in what the media have largely portrayed as a black and white issue.
JAPAN
Sep 19, 2000

Radio stargazer's key to quakes

Astronomer Yoshio Kushida believes he will receive forewarning should a major earthquake hit.
CULTURE / Books
Sep 19, 2000

A fascinating figure of 13th-century Japan

CHARISMA AND COMMUNITY FORMATION IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN, by S.A. Thornton. Ithaca: Cornell University East Asia Series, 1999, 290 pp., unpriced. The "charisma" of the title of this carefully researched and impressively thorough work of scholarship refers, in the first instance, to the medieval Buddhist...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 18, 2000

Who wants an all-white world, anyway?

LONDON -- "Whites will be a minority in Britain by the end of the century. . . . It would be the first time in history that a major indigenous population has voluntarily become a minority, rather than through war, famine and disease. Whites will be a minority in London by 2010."
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Shibuya residents furious with graffiti seen as art

Some call it the latest art trend, but others lambaste it as an ugly symbol of present-day Japanese society.
LIFE / ALTERNATIVE LUXURIES
Sep 7, 2000

Seeding philosophy in the rice paddies

The zapping racket of cicadas rising and falling, undulating in and out of sync wakes me up soon after sunrise. Although it's not yet 7 a.m., the thick, steamy heat pours in through the open window in waves, and seems fused into one substance with the yazz and clatter of the insects.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Sep 6, 2000

The horror, the horror

We're back. Did you miss us? That question isn't the product of an (especially) insecure soul. I mean it.
EDITORIALS
Aug 30, 2000

Keep Iraq on the agenda

A growing number of reports suggest that Iraq is again developing ballistic missiles. Predictably, the government in Baghdad has dismissed the charge. We cannot be sure what is going on: Efforts by the United Nations to inspect Iraqi programs to develop weapons of mass destruction are still blocked by...
COMMENTARY
Aug 30, 2000

The 21st-century neurosis

LONDON -- I think I've discovered a new neurosis of the 21st century. It involves frustration, guilt, shame and outbursts of destructive violence. The neurosis lurks wherever there are personal computers. (Business computers, and the work and commercial systems they create, produce similar feelings,...
BUSINESS
Aug 29, 2000

Taisho Life collapses amid scandal

The Financial Services Agency on Monday ordered Taisho Life Insurance Co. to suspend its operations following the arrest earlier in the day of the head of the insurer's largest shareholder, in connection with the insurer's capital-building methods.
JAPAN
Aug 29, 2000

20,000 fans rank animated series

Brutus magazine has released an extensive poll of Japan's best 100 animated series, based on the responses of 20,000 enthusiasts.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 28, 2000

General Motors humming along -- never mind the environment

A vacation is such a wonderful chance to seek out the unusual and inexplicable. This month my family and I are immersed in a foreign culture, intrigued and perplexed by the ways of an alien people. Most confounding, this culture is my own.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Aug 27, 2000

Kinjo: Is he the Central League Ichiro?

Yokohama BayStars cleanup hitter Bobby Rose enjoyed a 10-point lead in this year's Central League batting title race on Friday, Aug. 18. He was ahead of the runnerup, Yomiuri Giants slugger Hideki Matsui, .345 to .335. But the next day, Rose found himself in second place, 39 points behind the new leader,...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2000

Language questions reflect changing times

In times of transition, when the need for reform is felt more keenly than usual, there is heightened openness to bold suggestions. Japan is in the middle of such a period. Public debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP. The social-welfare system needs a drastic overhaul. Unemployment is at an all-time high....
COMMENTARY
Aug 26, 2000

Is the Bank of Japan right?

LONDON -- The governor of the Bank of Japan, Masaru Hayami, and the majority of the BOJ's policy council have drawn criticism from the Japanese government and leaders of Japanese industry for the decision to end the BOJ's zero-interest-rate policy. These criticisms have been echoed in the British press....

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building