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JAPAN
Dec 5, 2000

Columnist feels 'stronger' despite living with HIV

Patrick Bommarito is a 35-year-old openly gay American who lives in Tokyo.
JAPAN
Dec 5, 2000

Use of 'absolute criteria' urged to evaluate academic standing

Elementary and junior high schools should stop evaluating students' academic performance in relation to others and instead use an "absolute criteria," an advisory panel to the education minister proposed Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2000

A Taiwanese lesson in statesmanship

CAMBRIDGE, England -- So our great leaders were unable to reach agreement in The Hague last month on how to save the planet from environmental pollution. So we can continue pumping out ozone-destroying fumes to our hearts' content, especially gas-guzzling drivers in the good old United States. Forests...
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2000

Old guard may still deliver

As suggested in an earlier column (Nov. 16), the Liberal Democratic Party faction leader, Koichi Kato, probably deserved to fail in his recent attempt to overthrow his party's leadership. His timing and approach were flawed. His call for immediate structural reform and fiscal restraint was bad economics....
EDITORIALS
Dec 5, 2000

A ticket to ride -- at what price?

As of this week, long-suffering passengers on Japan's crowded local train lines are still awaiting a satisfactory explanation, rather than an excuse, for why they were overcharged if they followed the posted fare tables. In some cases, the overcharging has continued for more than three years. The reasons...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Dec 5, 2000

Audio Active beams down the space dub

Masa of Audio Active has gone AWOL. I'm at the new offices of his management company, Beatink, in Shibuya. Tae, who arranged the interview, is refilling my coffee cup and apologizing, telling me that the main man is not answering his keitai and nobody knows where the hell he is.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 5, 2000

What is the weight of a fractured atom?

ATOMIC FRAGMENTS: A Daughter's Questions, by Mary Palevsky. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000, 272 pp., $24.95 (cloth). With the benefit of hindsight and a distant or nonexistent memory of World War II, we pass moral judgment on those who were directly involved with the invention and construction...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2000

Blues for the new millennium

The new CD puts a contemporary spin on classic blues-rock. "It's a ticket to the show." That's how Canadian band leader Robin Suchy describes the newly released CD he produced with his 10-man blues band, the Howling Loochie Brothers.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2000

Hosei U. captures Kanto title

YONO, Saitama Pref. -- Yoshimoto Usugi rushed for 138 yards and two touchdowns as the Hosei University Tomahawks cruised past the Nippon Sports Science University Golden Bears 65-23 Sunday in the Clash Bowl -- the Kanto Collegiate League final.
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Kosovo's meaning for Japan

NATO's campaign against Yugoslavia last year was illegal but legitimate. This was a conclusion at a recent conference on the "Implications of the Kosovo Conflict on International Law," sponsored by the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo. It was illegal because it did not have United...
JAPAN
Dec 4, 2000

Miyake islanders may have long wait

Miyake Island, which was fully evacuated in September due to the volcanic activity of Mount Oyama, may not be safe enough to return to for another three months to a year, a leading expert said Sunday.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Dec 4, 2000

Judging history's 'single most violent act'

At a midtown bar, Wolcott Wheeler, whom I call a historian without portfolio, tells me a story about Robert Oppenheimer: how the physicist, meeting President Harry Truman in the Oval Office, said, "Mr. President, I have blood on my hands."
BUSINESS
Dec 4, 2000

Global economic factors paint gloomy picture for new year

Since the mid-1990s, the world economy has expanded remarkably, propelled mainly by the introduction of advanced information and communication technologies. In fact, according to the IMF's recent World Economic Outlook, global output grew 3.4 percent in 1999 and is expected to accelerate to 4.7 percent...
COMMENTARY
Dec 4, 2000

Fight the spread of small arms

The United Nations General Assembly has decided to hold the U.N. Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Aspects in New York in July 2001. The trade involves a broad range of hand-carried arms from automatic rifles to portable missiles.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 4, 2000

Al Hilal beats Shimizu S-Pulse in first leg of Asian Super Cup

SHIMIZU, Shizuoka Pref. -- Shimizu S-Pulse's hopes of joining Jubilo Iwata in the Club World Championship were dealt a severe blow after a 2-1 defeat to Saudi Arabian team Al Hilal in the first leg of the Asian Super Cup at Nihondaira Stadium on Sunday.
EDITORIALS
Dec 3, 2000

Handsome is as handsome does

What would we do without social scientists? Creeping about with their clipboards and calculators, they are forever coming up with solemn, statistic-studded pronouncements about things so obvious we were practically born knowing them. And yet there is something satisfying about having our assorted prejudices...
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2000

Women's groups decry foundation's demise

A recent Tokyo Metropolitan Government announcement that it plans to abolish the Tokyo Women's Foundation to save tax money has sparked protests among citizens' groups promoting gender equality.
JAPAN
Dec 3, 2000

Diet, exercise are potential cure for 'health schools'

MIURA, Kanagawa Pref. -- Rika Ariyoshi has a desk waiting at her local school in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 3, 2000

More testing times for students of Japanese

Today, many foreigners have put on their armor and have sharpened their swords in preparation for battling through the Japanese Proficiency Test. I wish you all luck and survival. I recently spoke with the god of the Japanese Proficiency Test, who lives on Uranus and appeared on my TV screen via my satellite...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Middle-class myth comes tumbling down

This is the eighth of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 3, 2000

Korean democracy suffers growing pains

SEOUL -- You don't have to consult opinion polls to understand that in general terms South Koreans are not happy with their government. It is enough to occasionally read editorials or to engage in political discussions with Korean friends, colleagues and neighbors. Then you detect a very basic disenchantment...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Dec 3, 2000

Chid Waller

Although Chid Waller says she waxes lyrical over the career she was following in England, she willingly gave it up to come to Tokyo. That was three years ago. During this time she has put her expertise at the disposal of several local organizations, giving them voluntarily the benefit of her effective...
COMMENTARY
Dec 3, 2000

Britons going nowhere fast

LONDON -- Is Britain in crisis? Many people think so, after a month in which large swathes of England have been inundated by filthy flood water. Television news showed comic snippets of boats in the streets rescuing old ladies and dogs, snaps of sturdy men and women counting their blessings as the flood...
CULTURE / Art
Dec 3, 2000

Art to help heal the soul

Artists Without Borders and its offspring, Kids Without Borders, are devoted to providing humanitarian relief to the victims of war and ethnic strife. As such, they share obvious connections with Doctors Without Borders.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan