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COMMENTARY
Jul 5, 2000

Advancing smartly backward

LONDON -- It is an old American saying that "the pioneer is the one who gets the arrow in his back." So when President Jacques Chirac of France recently proposed a "pioneering" project to bring France and Germany still closer together at the political level and, as he put it, to "move further and faster...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 5, 2000

Migrants and vagrants under Teuri's crags

An hour and a half west of the small harbor town of Haboro, which is just three hours north of Sapporo, lie two small islands: Teuri and Yagishiri. Teuri is easy to visit and has fascinating seabird colonies and good walking. There is a ferry from Haboro, which goes via Yagishiri, and although there...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
Jul 5, 2000

Sometimes too late

Several readers have asked me to repeat my favorite column. That is quite difficult. Actually, there would be two but neither was ever written. There are many questions that are never selected to be in a column.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2000

A Japan-U.S. alliance for an altered world

The world is still trying to grasp the meaning of the summit between the two Koreas. Many are euphoric; wiser heads counsel that there is a long way to go before there's real peace on the Korean Peninsula. Nonetheless, if reconciliation and, eventually, unification do come about, the effects will be...
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 2000

A step toward financial stability

The Financial Agency, which was launched Saturday in a major move to integrate the operating and planning roles of financial policymaking bodies, started actual operations on Monday. The new financial-watchdog body combines the Financial Supervisory Agency and the Finance Ministry's Financial Planning...
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 4, 2000

Japanese, Koreans study cohosting at Euro 2000

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands -- Senior officials from both the Japanese and Korean World Cup organizing committees said Saturday they expected to learn many things from the cohosted Euro 2000 Soccer Championship, but emphasized that the 2002 World Cup was a different kettle of fish with its own attendant problems....
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Bacteria outbreak at Osaka hospital claims lives of seven elderly patients

OSAKA -- Seven elderly patients at a hospital in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, died between May 7 and Saturday after contracting serratia bacteria -- apparently inside the facility, officials said Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Strong quakes continue to jolt Izu isles

Nine fairly strong earthquakes, all registering 4 on the 7-point Japanese intensity scale, jolted the islands of Niijima, Kozu, and Miyake in the Izu chain Monday, the Meteorological Agency said.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Diet members earn more despite slump

The average income among Diet members in 1999 was 30.44 million yen, up 1.94 million yen from a year earlier, according to a report released Monday.
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Loto-Six -- win, lose or carry it over

The lottery association has announced it will start selling tickets for the highest prize-money lottery, Loto-Six, on Oct. 2.
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
Jul 4, 2000

Festival fun for the young and those who just wish they were

The main excuses I've heard for not attending one of this summer's two international rock festivals in Japan are: "None of my favorite bands are coming" and "there's hardly any big names."
JAPAN
Jul 4, 2000

Japanese photographer documents lives of Korean A-bomb survivors

Images of Korean survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima who later returned to live in South Korea will be displayed in Japan this summer.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 4, 2000

Timeless jabs at the ordinary

LIGHT VERSE FROM THE FLOATING WORLD: An Anthology of Premodern Japanese Senryu, compiled, translated, and with an introduction by Makoto Ueda. Columbia University Press, 273 pp., 1999. My employer, a Japanese trade agency, holds an annual New Year senryu contest. One entry back in 1992, when Bill Clinton...
COMMENTARY
Jul 4, 2000

Japan is financially and morally bankrupt

Japan faces the danger of moral bankruptcy. It is difficult to rebuild a morally bankrupt nation, although it is possible to save a financially bankrupt nation with a package of drastic policy measures that could impose economic hardship on the public.
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2000

Detention of ex-minister Nakao extended

The Tokyo District Court has decided to allow former Construction Minister Eiichi Nakao to be detained for another 10 days through July 11, sources said Sunday.
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2000

Snow Brand shuts down factory after low-fat milk infected

OSAKA -- The Osaka Municipal Government ordered Snow Brand Milk Products Co. to halt operations at its Osaka factory, where processed low-fat milk has been found responsible for sickening nearly 7,000 people.
BUSINESS
Jul 3, 2000

Election results mean Diet must heed fickle workforce

The tripartite coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party have managed to win an "absolute comfortable" majority that will enable them to control all standing committees in the powerful Lower House and chair them as well.
EDITORIALS
Jul 3, 2000

Mr. Mugabe's choice

Zimbabwe is beginning a new era. Last week's elections mark an end to the unchallenged rule of President Robert Mugabe. The president now must make a historic choice. He can either be remembered as the man who led his country into independence or he can aspire to be the man who did that and led his country...
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2000

Japan looks to cleaner sources of energy

Tokai disaster prompts nation to take a new look at alternative power Staff writer
JAPAN
Jul 3, 2000

Repairs begin as Kozu quakes

Restoration work began Sunday as aftershocks continued to rattle the island of Kozu following a 6.4-magnitude earthquake Saturday afternoon that killed one local resident.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2000

Australia warily watches arc of insecurity

SYDNEY -- Once the world romanticized about the South Pacific paradise. Today, Australia is guardedly debating the Balkanization of the South Pacific.
SOCCER / World cup
Jul 3, 2000

Okano says Troussier's his man

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands -- Japan Football Association president Shunichiro Okano confirmed on Saturday that Philippe Troussier will stay on as manager of the Japan national team until the 2002 World Cup, pending contract negotiations.
COMMUNITY
Jul 3, 2000

It's a drink and a snack: black soybeans

Japanese health enthusiasts are pursuing another lead in their quest for healthi er living. Following the green-tea boom, they are now drinking a much darker "tea," prepared not from tea leaves but from black soybeans.
EDITORIALS
Jul 2, 2000

Dumb and dumber

There is a wonderful anecdote about Oscar Wilde in Richard Ellmann's monumental biography of the Victorian wit, aesthete and playwright. In 1882-3, Wilde undertook a North American lecture tour, with the aim of bringing the gospel of beauty to the New World. A highlight of the tour was his stopover in...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 2, 2000

Hanshin pinstripes a good fit for Franklin

Micah Franklin shakes hands with Hanshin Tigers official Katsuyoshi Nozaki during a press conference Thursday at the club office in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture. I'd like to think Micah Franklin took my advice.
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2000

Milk production line found contaminated

OSAKA -- Bacteria has been discovered on the production line of a Snow Brand Milk Products Co. factory here that processed low-fat milk believed to have made nearly 5,000 people ill, the company's president said Saturday.
COMMUNITY
Jul 2, 2000

Noh master calling U.K. college alumni

There was some initial confusion when Naohiko Umewaka requested help in finding graduates of Royal Holloway. What was he talking about? The only Holloway known to this Londoner is the district north of the River Thames best known for the prison of the same name. Now here was a story! Japan's best known...
JAPAN
Jul 2, 2000

Text drafts say less on wartime aggression

Textbook publishers have devoted less space to Japan's history of wartime aggression in Asian countries in their drafts of new textbooks submitted to the Education Ministry for screening, ministry sources said.
COMMUNITY
Jul 2, 2000

His first dance with the bulls

Last October, one Japanese graced the covers of several local newspapers in Huelva, Spain. Taira Nono made headlines in his debut fight by kneeling on the ground and confronting the bull. It was a breathless moment for 2,000 spectators. The newspapers praised the Asian bullfighter's bravado and discussed...

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’