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JAPAN
Sep 13, 2000

400,000 in Tokai face evacuation

Typhoon Saomai joined forces with an autumnal rain front to cause the worst downpours in at least a century in central Japan on Monday and Tuesday, causing at least five deaths and leaving three people missing while disrupting road and rail traffic.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Sep 13, 2000

Talking Olympic tennis with Japan's best-ever player

For some, tennis is not a sport that should be in the Olympics. Its players have been professional for a long time, they earn millions of dollars a year, and they have their own major international championships.
OLYMPICS
Sep 13, 2000

U.S. sprint queen Jones aims to be Golden Girl of Games

When it comes to the women's sprint events at this year's Olympics, everyone will be racing to keep up with the Jones. Marion, that is.
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2000

TDK to buy U.S. developer

TDK Corp. said Tuesday its wholly owned U.S. unit has agreed to acquire a 72 percent stake in U.S. interactive software developer Sound Source Interactive Inc. for $5 million.
COMMENTARY
Sep 13, 2000

Fragile foundations for the nation's youth

Although the whole nation has been dismayed by the recent wave of reports of serious crimes committed by 17-year-olds, everyone must have been excited and impressed by the teenagers playing in the high-school baseball championship tournament held at Koshien Stadium, regardless of who won and who lost....
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2000

Russian diplomat calls spy charge a plot to hurt ties

A Russian diplomat in Tokyo on Monday criticized Japanese police over their investigation into alleged espionage activities involving a Russian military attache, saying the incident was plotted by forces in Japan that are unhappy with relations between the two countries.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2000

Smiling seen as key to economy

Make people laugh -- that should make the economy better and lead to a bright future for Japan, according to Masao Kimura, board director of the Osaka-based major entertainment firm Yoshimoto Kogyo Co.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2000

Economy up 1% in quarter: EPA

The staggering nature of Japan's recovery was reflected Monday by the latest gross domestic product report, which showed that the economy grew 1 percent during the April-June quarter.
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2000

Post office parcel spews smoke

Forty-five people were taken to a hospital complaining of eye irritation Monday morning after a parcel being handled at Tokyo's Nihonbashi Post Office began emitting a pungent-smelling smoke, police said.
CULTURE / Music / MUSIC NOMAD
Sep 12, 2000

Intercultural influences

East-West fusions are nothing new. Nearly 100 years ago, some Western classical music was influenced by Indian classical or Javanese gamelan music. In the 1950s, violinist Yehudi Menuhin performed with Indian sarod player Ali Akbar Khan and sitar maestro Ravi Shankar. By the 1960s, John Coltrane was...
COMMENTARY
Sep 12, 2000

Japan needs a Third Way

Through the last decade of the 20th century, the Japanese economy has been in a state of confusion. After the bubble peaked in 1987-90, the economy went into a tailspin. The economy hit bottom in October 1993, according to official statistics, but since then it has shown few tangible signs of robust...
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Russian attaches miss firing exercise

HIGASHI-FUJI, Shizuoka Pref. -- Russian military attaches stationed in Japan declined to attend a Ground Self-Defense Force firing drill in Shizuoka Prefecture on Saturday, apparently due to an alleged spying incident involving a Russian military attache in Tokyo, GSDF officials said.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Sep 10, 2000

That Fukuoka Dome Japan Series screw-up

While it's pretty much a foregone conclusion the Yomiuri Giants are going to win their first Central League pennant in four years, the Pacific League race is a dandy that threatens to go to the Oct. 9 wire with three teams in the running: the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks, Seibu Lions and Nippon Ham Fighters....
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Repair work starts again on Miyake

Emergency personnel remaining on the volcanic island of Miyake, some 200 km south of Tokyo, on Saturday resumed work to repair infrastructure damaged by recent mudslides.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Battered wives to get better protection

The Health and Welfare Ministry plans to introduce a set of measures in the next fiscal year to protect women at shelters from attempts by their husbands to take them away by force, ministry officials said Saturday.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Quake of '23 gave Ikebukuro its Bohemian roots

When Ikebukuro Station opened on the Yamanote Line in 1903, the area around it was little more than pasture and vegetable fields.
COMMUNITY
Sep 10, 2000

East-West cooking talent stirs with a clipping from Chives

My first day back in London, on the Food and Drink page of The Evening Standard, a headline caught my eye: Keep Jun and Beautiful. Below, a color photograph of -- it has to be said -- a truly dishy Japanese 29-year-old clad in whiter than whites with a long striped apron.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Diplomat in spy scandal leaves Japan

A Russian military attache at the Russian Embassy in Tokyo left Japan on Saturday after a senior officer of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force was arrested early Friday for allegedly passing defense secrets to him.
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2000

Cambodian art regains its youth

"It's my everyday passion," says Phloeun Prim, the 24-year-old commercial manager of Les Artisans d'Angkor, a Siem Reap-based school which is training young people in skills such as silk weaving and stone carving.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Sep 10, 2000

Chris McDonald

To commemorate his having lived for 50 years in Japan, Chris McDonald produced an engaging book of memories. In it he wrote: "If I were asked to single out one aspect of Japan that I have found more rewarding and enjoyable than any other, I would not hesitate to answer quite simply: 'Its people.' From...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 10, 2000

High costs a barrier for foreign students

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- An editorial in The Japan Times a few weeks ago focused on the Japanese government's efforts to increase the number of foreign students in Japan. No one would disagree with the government's dual aims of assisting in the development of human resources of poorer Asian countries...
CULTURE / Art
Sep 10, 2000

A philosopher behind the video camera

Hitherto, people confronted by "video art" would mentally steel themselves to be bored by an alienating experience that excluded rather than included. This is the reason why an artist such as Pipilotta Rist, originally a rock-video director, has gained such enormous popularity for being the easy and...
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2000

Unemployment adds to Miyake Island evacuees' woes

With an end to the volcanic activity on Mount Oyama nowhere in sight, evacuees from Miyake Island are facing an uphill battle in trying to secure sources of income upon settling into temporary housing in the Tokyo metropolitan area.
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.
JAPAN
Sep 9, 2000

Criminal accusation filed against Mitsubishi Motors

The Transport Ministry lodged a criminal accusation Friday with police against Mitsubishi Motors Corp. for allegedly concealing approximately 1,700 user complaints last year -- a scandal that prompted MMC President Katsuhiko Kawasoe the same day to announce his intention to step down.

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’