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COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2000

Deadly defoliant continues to take a toll

BOSTON -- U.S. President Bill Clinton's historic visit to Vietnam this week conjures up troubling memories from the past, but it also draws attention to a Vietnam War-related public-health disaster that continues to plague both Vietnamese and Americans: Agent Orange contamination.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2000

Generosity toward China faces tough test

The first sweeping review of Japan's generous official development assistance for China is under way within the government and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, amid growing domestic criticism of such aid.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

Small classes but big ideas at new multicultural school

MAEBASHI, Gunma Pref. -- A new international school here may be starting off small, but what it lacks in size it makes up for in aspirations.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

1 billion yen in ODA wasted on failed Indonesia project

A roughly 1 billion yen technical assistance project in Indonesia launched in the late 1980s, in which dairy cows were bred using artificial insemination, faltered after six seed bulls sent from Japan died, it was learned Wednesday through a report by the Board of Audit.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

Nurses admit malpractice in poll

More than 90 percent of nurses surveyed said they have been involved, or nearly involved, in cases of medical malpractice, according to an interim report by a nationwide medical union released Wednesday.
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

LDP may sack Mori to stay intact

Koichi Kato's revolt against Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori has fueled growing sentiment within the Liberal Democratic Party that the unpopular Mori should step down to avert a crisis that could severely split the ruling party.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Nov 16, 2000

Social guilt: putting the blame on Mom

Though the media agrees with the government that Japan's flagging birthrate is a bad thing, they seem determined to make potential parents dread the prospect of raising kids in a world where every wrong choice, major or minor, could turn their offspring into criminals, deviants, or just plain miserable...
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

Kato eyes power via the party

Koichi Kato, who has stirred up a power struggle within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said he will do "everything possible" short of quitting the party to bring about the downfall of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori.
SOCCER / World cup
Nov 16, 2000

FIFA boss wraps up Tokyo trip

FIFA president Sepp Blatter breezed through Tokyo Tuesday and Wednesday for a series of meetings aimed at resolving a number of issues concerning the 2002 World Cup and next year's Confederations Cup.
COMMENTARY
Nov 16, 2000

In all but economics, Kato makes sense

Koichi Kato, head of a large faction in the Liberal Democratic Party, now aims openly to be Japan's next prime minister. He has credentials. A former diplomat with good English skills and wide international contacts, he would do much to improve Japan's bland global image. He is also one of the few LDP...
JAPAN
Nov 16, 2000

Halls of power resound with ouster speculation

The corridors of power in Tokyo's Nagato-cho district on Wednesday resounded with speculation on the possible replacement of embattled Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, currently in Brunei for a two-day summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Mori tells opposition he won't quit despite pressure from within LDP

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on Tuesday rejected an opposition demand that he step down, despite similar calls from among his Liberal Democratic Party colleagues.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Shots fired during bank robbery

A man armed with a handgun on Tuesday attacked two employees of a "shinkin" bank branch office in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, and made off with $10,000 (1,076,800 yen) in cash, police said.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Costly Kansai airport plagued by pullouts, rivals, debts, sea

OSAKA -- Six years after opening, Kansai International Airport is struggling to stay above water -- literally and figuratively.
JAPAN / COP6 AGENDA
Nov 15, 2000

NGO submits greenhouse gas solution

Citizens left disillusioned by the government's attempts to curb greenhouse gas emissions have come up with an alternative plan.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Bust of father of Japanese chemistry installed in Osaka

OSAKA -- A bronze bust of Koenraad Wolter Gratama, a 19th-century Dutch chemist considered the father of Japanese chemistry, has been installed near the site where a state-run chemistry school was once located in Osaka.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Three nabbed for stock manipulation

Three investors in Chinese restaurant chain Totenko Co. were arrested on Tuesday for allegedly trying to manipulate the price of its shares by spreading unfounded news that it would be the target of a takeover bid.
JAPAN
Nov 15, 2000

Heo faces 71/2-year term over collapse of Itoman

OSAKA -- Prosecutors on Tuesday demanded a 71/2-year prison term for Heo Young Joong, who is standing trial at the Osaka District Court for allegedly conducting shady deals leading to the 1993 collapse of trading house Itoman Corp.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Nov 15, 2000

Timeless tales reflect the times

SANSHO DAYU, by Dudley Andrew & Carole Cavanaugh. BFI Film Classic Series. London: British Film Institute, 2000, 80 pp., with b/w illustrations, $20. Kenji Mizoguchi's 1954 film, "Sansho Dayu" (Sansho the Bailiff), is based upon the well-known 1915 Ogai Mori narrative, which was in turn taken from...
LIFE / Travel
Nov 15, 2000

Hard reality of a not-so DMZ still divides the two Koreas

The troops of North Korea's crack invasion units are shorter than the average Western tourist.
CULTURE / Books
Nov 15, 2000

Textbooks in the service of the state

CENSORING HISTORY: Citizenship and Memory in Japan, Germany and the United States, edited by Laura Hein and Mark Selden. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2000, 301 pp., $24.95. History loomed over the recent visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji like a threatening storm cloud. But other than some scattered...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Nov 15, 2000

Developing a finer sense of pace: the evolution of a party animal

When I was younger, I used to be a party animal.
SOCCER / World cup / SPORTS SCOPE
Nov 15, 2000

Reasons to be fearful: Part 1

For Calvin in the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes there are always monsters under the bed. You can't see them, but you know they're there.
CULTURE / Art
Nov 15, 2000

Taking inspiration where you find it

TOKUSHIMA -- Californian furniture maker Cynthia Kingsbury works in a 100-year-old timber storage building at the foot of a lushly forested mountain in Tokushima Prefecture. Dried sticks are piled like kindling beneath her worktable. Her dog Tingi, a black Labrador-Doberman mix, is sprawled across a...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 15, 2000

New-look forum heralds peace in paradise

SYDNEY -- Nobody, least of all any of the troubled South Pacific nations, is calling last month's Pacific Islands Forum in the island country of Kiribati a decisive victory. Yet all 16 nations that attended the historic summit see the Biketawa Declaration as the best framework yet for ensuring stability...
COMMENTARY
Nov 15, 2000

Right move, wrong reason

As U.S. President Bill Clinton was getting ready to head for Asia for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting in Brunei, the White House confirmed that he would not be visiting North Korea on this trip after all, since the recent U.S.-North Korean missile talks in Kuala Lumpur, while "detailed,...

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