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JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Camera museum a testimony to postwar rise

For anyone pondering the secret behind Japan's postwar economic miracle, a visit to a small museum near Tokyo's Imperial Palace may offer some clues.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Hot rod 'tribes' roar into the night

It's 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night outside the Shibaura parking area, a thin strip of concrete and pavement stuck to a pillar under the belly of Tokyo's Rainbow Bridge. There's a flash of red taillights as vehicles speed in. New arrivals are greeted by leather-clad bikers revving their engines, spitting...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Japan's prison population tops 60,000

The number of inmates at prisons and detention houses in Japan rose last year for the eighth straight year, topping 60,000 for the first time in 34 years, Justice Ministry sources said Saturday.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Attitudes toward AIDS contradictory

More than 80 percent of Japanese responding to a poll believe AIDS patients and people infected with HIV should not be discriminated against -- but many are still reluctant to even share an office with them -- according to a Cabinet Office survey released Saturday.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Two killed in west Japan quake

Two women were killed Saturday afternoon and at least 80 other people were reported injured, two of them seriously, when a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake jolted a large area of western Japan, the Meteorological Agency and police said.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Tokyo strives to preserve its dwindling greenery

Tokyo's final class this year on shiitake mushrooms took place earlier this month at Noyamakita Rokudoyama Park in the hills of Sayama, straddling the border between Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 25, 2001

Covering Japan on foot, for abused women, kids

In late 1999, photojournalist Mary King and IT systems analyst Etsuko Shimabukuro began to get itchy feet. Back in 1996 they had completed a two-year trip that took them through three continents. This time they decided to stay closer to home.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Tokyo sake breweries beset by winds of change

Tsuchiya Brewery in Tokyo's Komae is set to release Sakurako brand "jizake" (local sake), featuring the name of the future figurehead of the 128-year-old company.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Mar 25, 2001

Few tasks are tougher than being thoughtless

Meditation increases concentration and mindfulness. That's what this book on Zen meditation says. It instructs me to concentrate for 20 minutes on nothing. Absolutely nothing. One strategy to prevent stray thoughts from entering the mind, the book says, is to concentrate on my breathing.
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2001

Musician turns cosmopolitan ideal on its head

Hideki Togi's definition of what makes a person truly cosmopolitan might appear somewhat anachronistic in light of the "borderless world" concept that has become popular today.
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2001

Let the deal-making begin

Japanese politics is in a bizarre state of limbo. Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on March 10 expressed his apparent intention to resign, when he said the governing Liberal Democratic Party's presidential election should be advanced from September, when they are originally scheduled. No date so far has been...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2001

NATO's weakness threatens Macedonia

LONDON -- Ethnic peace has withstood an entire week of shooting around the Macedonian city of Tetovo, despite the efforts of ethnic Albanian guerrillas based in neighboring Kosovo to topple the small Balkan republic into civil war. Another week of fighting would probably do the trick, however -- so it...
BUSINESS
Mar 24, 2001

S&P urges Japanese banks to tackle bad-loan issue fully

Japanese banks should base their lending decisions on sound business principles in order to solve their bad-loan problems, Standard & Poor's Corp., a U.S.-based credit rating firm, said in a report released Friday.
CULTURE / Film
Mar 24, 2001

Ritchie's rogues return

"Snatch" is more than a movie: It's a bubbling, babbling comic strip on wheels. Not fitting into the usual British movie mold -- it's neither a Merchant-Ivory rendition of upper-crust angst, nor a working-class saga passed on by Ken Loach -- "Snatch" is in a genre by itself, showcasing a crack ensemble...
COMMENTARY
Mar 24, 2001

The long view on the Kurils

Can Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori stage a political comeback via his March 25 talks in Irkutsk with Russian President Vladimir Putin? Aides have hinted that he favors the "two-island" compromise solution to Japan's long-festering dispute with Russia over ownership of the so-called Northern Territories....
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Mori-Putin summit expectations low

After failing to meet the end-of-2000 target for resolving a territorial dispute and signing a peace treaty, Japan and Russia will hold their first summit this year in Russia's Irkutsk on Sunday, during which Japan hopes to set a future direction for resolving the decades-old row.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Japanese shortwave services fading out in cyberspace age

For Michiteru Takagi, 76, Sunday will signal the end of a daily ritual he has practiced for 42 years.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 24, 2001

Ukiyo-e reflects turn of century mood changes across Japan

The Meiji Era is considered to mark one of the low points of ukiyo-e, Japan's distinctive art of woodblock prints. This, however, is not apparent from the current exhibition at the Ota Memorial Museum.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Owing 980 billion yen, Tokyo Mutual fails

In the insurance industry's fifth failure in fiscal 2000, midtier insurer Tokyo Mutual Life Insurance Co. filed for court protection from its creditors Friday after it was denied capital assistance from its main bank, Daiwa Bank.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 24, 2001

Jagged little pots dictating form

Asia week had New York City awash with auctions, gallery openings and lectures. Two major auction houses had Japanese art on the block, and five Kyoto potters were exhibiting at the Barry Friedman Gallery in an exhibition organized by Joan Mirviss.
JAPAN
Mar 24, 2001

Book, CD prices to stay fixed

The Fair Trade Commission concluded Friday that the current fixed-price system for copyrighted items such as books, newspapers and CDs should continue.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 24, 2001

Art without frontiers that speaks to the soul

It is so easy to fail in abstract art, and so difficult to succeed in calligraphy.Yet Toko Shinoda has the rare ability to fuse both forms of expression, in paintings that strike to the heart. Her work may be severe, intense and personal, but it is not inscrutable. Rather, it is poetic, and speaks of...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 23, 2001

Indian politicians bought for a few good lakhs

NEW DELHI -- Time was when India's politicians never tired of bragging about their country's Internet revolution. But what happened the other week must have stopped them in their tracks and got them wondering whether such development was good for their political games and intrigues.
BUSINESS
Mar 23, 2001

Land prices seal decade of decline by falling 4.9%

Land prices in Japan declined by an average of 4.9 percent in the year to Jan. 1, falling for the 10th consecutive year amid the nation's prolonged economic slump, the Land Ministry said in a report released Thursday.
BASEBALL / MLB
Mar 23, 2001

The Ichiro effect: What will star's departure mean for Japan baseball?

Much has been made over the past few months of former Orix BlueWave superstar Ichiro Suzuki leaving Japan and going to play for the Seattle Mariners. However, one aspect of Ichiro's big move has drawn little attention -- how will it affect Japanese baseball?

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years