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JAPAN
Sep 26, 2000

Youths on motorcycles mug four; three hurt

Four people were attacked, three of whom were severely wounded, in separate robberies carried out early Monday by four young men on two motorcycles in northern Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture.
EDITORIALS
Sep 26, 2000

More facts, less politics, on education

At first glance, the interim report from the National Commission on Educational Reform, an advisory panel of the prime minister, appears cautious about revising the 1947 Fundamental Law on Education. In marked contrast to an earlier subcommittee report that explicitly supported a revision, the panel's...
BUSINESS
Sep 26, 2000

Taiheiyo gains Philippine foothold

Taiheiyo Cement Corp., Japan's top cement maker, said Monday it has agreed to take a stake of about 90 percent in Grand Cement Manufacturing Corp. of the Philippines for about 9 billion yen.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2000

Hopes to retool energy policy confounded

Kyodo News One year after a disastrous nuclear accident in Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan is still trying to formulate a new national energy policy.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2000

1,200 try out new combined train-subway service

About 1,200 people tried out a new combined train-subway service linking lines in Kawasaki with those in Tokyo's Kita and Itabashi wards on Monday, ahead of today's official launch of operations.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Sep 26, 2000

Welcome return of four classics

THE IZU DANCER, by Yasunari Kawabata, translated by Edward Seidensticker. THE COUNTERFEITER; OBASUTE; THE FULL MOON, by Yasushi Inoue, translated by Leon Picon. Singapore, Boston: Tuttle Publishing, 2000, 144 pp., $14.95. Here is a new, reset quality-paperback edition of one of the staples of modern...
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Sep 26, 2000

Voices of power and purity lilting out of Africa

I seem to see certain of my favorite African musicians whenever I take a trip away from Japan. I have now seen Senegal's Cheikh Lo in several European cities and in Co^te d'Ivoire, and am about to see him again at a festival in South Africa.
CULTURE / Music
Sep 26, 2000

Aussie singer-songwriter finds an authentic musical voice

"I must admit the music I do is a bit daggy," says Tokyo-based singer-songwriter Donna Burke with a laugh, rejecting any slick, "groovy" image in favor of the old-fashioned, down-to-earth comfort the colloquial Australian term implies.
JAPAN
Sep 26, 2000

Thai Airways ordered to pay 34.5 million yen

The Tokyo District Court on Monday ordered Thai Airways International to pay 34.5 million yen to the family of a Japanese victim of a 1992 crash in Nepal that killed 113 people.
EDITORIALS
Sep 25, 2000

The Whitewater washout

The independent counsel investigating U.S. President Bill Clinton in connection with the Whitewater scandal has determined that neither the president nor his wife "knowingly participated in any criminal conduct . . . or knew of such conduct." The investigation, announced Mr. Robert Ray in a summary released...
OLYMPICS
Sep 25, 2000

Japan improves record in the pool

SYDNEY -- Japan's women's 400-meter medley relay team wrapped up the Olympic swimming competition Saturday with a bronze medal in a national record time as the U.S. team smashed the world record at the Sydney Olympics on Saturday.
OLYMPICS
Sep 25, 2000

Takahashi wins marathon gold in record time

SYDNEY -- Tiny Naoko Takahashi blitzed a big marathon field Sunday to win Japan's first-ever Olympic gold medal in women's athletics in a new Olympic best time.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Sep 25, 2000

CNIC report lights up the dark side of Japan's nuclear power industry

One year ago this week, a nuclear fuel processing plant in Tokai-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture, experienced a "criticality." That accident shattered once and for all the crumbling myth of safety that has encased Japan's nuclear power industry, and changed the way Japanese view nuclear power.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 25, 2000

Next up in the drug war: 'Plan Colombia'

LONDON -- It is customary, when Washington says "jump," for British governments to ask "how high?" When they don't jump at all, their failure to comply should be treated with the same alarm as when one of those old pit canaries, kept in coal mines to detect the buildup of carbon monoxide, topples quietly...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 25, 2000

Japan's not ready for permanent UNSC seat

WASHINGTON -- Earlier this month, at the United Nations, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono pressed Japan's case for a permanent U.N. Security Council seat. He argued that Japan's hefty financial contributions to the U.N., its other foreign assistance activities and its strong support for global nonproliferation...
COMMENTARY
Sep 25, 2000

Weak unions, weak economy

The collapse of the department store operator Sogo Co. came as a shock to Japan's recovering economy. Even more shocking are reports that the company's union leader has been fired for disrupting "order" in the organization.
EDITORIALS
Sep 24, 2000

A feminist ties the knot

A lot of fun has been had this month at the expense of longtime American feminist icon Gloria Steinem. After decades of pointing out the drawbacks of marriage, the 66-year-old Ms. Steinem recently surprised and titillated the world by going off and getting married.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Poison gas shell disposal commences in Hokkaido

Work began Saturday at a plant in Teshikaga, Hokkaido, to dispose of poison gas shells left by the Imperial Japanese Army at the end of World War II, officials of the Prime Minister's Office said.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Dead pets returning to haunt the neighbors

ICHIHARA, Chiba Pref. -- It was the start of a real-life horror story for the people of Ichihara's Otsubo district when a smokestack suddenly appeared in a neighbor's yard in August last year.
JAPAN
Sep 24, 2000

Research facility prompts fears of contamination

Residents of one of central Tokyo's most densely populated areas are complaining that the air they breathe may be being contaminated by innumerable pathogens escaping from the the building next door.
OLYMPICS
Sep 24, 2000

Japanese swimmers claim bronze in 400m medley

SYDNEY -- Japan's women's 400-meter medley relay team won bronze in a new national record time as the U.S. team smashed the world record in the event on the last day of the swimming competition at the Sydney Olympics on Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Sep 24, 2000

Creative outsider paints orderly inside of chaos

Yuji Oki lives in a big house and paints increasingly large paintings -- by Japanese standards at least.
COMMUNITY
Sep 24, 2000

Dog (paddle) days of summer in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO -- On a recent Saturday, BARK was working McCovey Cove, an inlet some 120 meters from home plate of the San Francisco Giants' new bayside ballpark.
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.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 24, 2000

Impressions made in paper take form

When the semioticist Roland Barthes came to Japan, he decided to do what many foreigners do, which is to base his impressions of Japan on exactly that, his impressions. His book "The Empire of Signs" is ostensibly about Japan, but the author acknowledged (with no shame) that it actually was a collection...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 24, 2000

Beijing's de facto currency devaluation

Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji approached Hong Kong officials to seek advice on the potential impact of greater flexibility in the valuation of the yuan and a possible devaluation. Of course, officials in Hong Kong are quite interested in the impact of changes in China's exchange-rate regime. Nonetheless,...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Sep 24, 2000

From lady killer to whale protector

So Japanese fishermen are banned from U.S waters. Whales rejoice, environmentalists celebrate, Texas Gov. George W. Bush loses a point, U.S., President Bill Clinton drafts a chapter for his memoir called "After Monica: Whales!", I grieve.
JAPAN
Sep 23, 2000

Blackman refuses to give up on daughter

Tim Blackman is frustrated, in turns optimistic and pessimistic, but above all adamant that he will find out what happened to his daughter.

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