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COMMENTARY / World
May 29, 2000

Whose Constitution is it?

At a recent meeting of the Diet's Constitutional Review Council, Americans who participated in the drafting of the Japanese Constitution 54 years ago during the Occupation gave testimony. Their statements provided valuable clues to an understanding of the circum- stances that led up to the establishment...
ENVIRONMENT
May 29, 2000

Japan getting into some very deep water

"Deep seawater" is a magic word that seems to make consumers believe any product made with it will be healthier and of higher quality.
BUSINESS
May 29, 2000

Farmers not the only ones allowed to live off the land

On May 23, the Diet approved a series of legal changes concerning securities investment trusts, securities investment corporations and SPCs (special-purpose corporations) that will further advance securitization of real estate in this country.
JAPAN
May 29, 2000

Japan supported two Chinas for U.N., documents show

Japan was inclined in the 1960s to support China's bid to join the United Nations if Taiwan could retain its membership, despite Japan's formal opposition to China becoming a member, according to Japanese diplomatic files declassified Sunday.
COMMENTARY
May 29, 2000

Mori does Japan no favors

LONDON -- When I read the brief report in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun about Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's remarks at the meeting of the Shinto Association of Diet Members, I was surprised not to see any reports of reactions to his reported statement. I wondered whether he had been correctly quoted and whether...
SOCCER / J. League
May 28, 2000

Marinos snatch first-stage title

It happened in Italy, it happened in Germany; now it's happened in Japan.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Woman parlays her passion for tango into pro floor show

OSAKA -- Yoshiko Nishibayashi first got interested in Argentine tango after watching the movie "Evita" in 1997. Three years later, she returned from Buenos Aires as a professional tango dancer -- the first in the Kansai region with an Argentine partner.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Osaka homeless have nowhere else to go, World Cup eviction or no

OSAKA -- In the back streets of Osaka's Nishinari district, thousands of elderly men loiter, stopping only to eat at a 100 yen ramen stand or join in a yakuza-run floating craps game.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Miyazawa prayed at Yasukuni

Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa broke the taboo of worshipping at Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japan's war dead, in 1992 or 1993 when he was prime minister, sources close to family members of the war dead told Kyodo News on Saturday.
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Kansai's largest windmill gives town, tourism energetic spark

KIBI, Wakayama Pref. -- On top of a 586-meter-high mountain here, white blades of a wind turbine rotate in the strong wind.
COMMUNITY
May 28, 2000

Conductor says yes to noh style 'Don Giovanni'

Theaters in Nagoya were aghast when Yoko Matsuo came calling. Even though she was born in the city and is conductor and director of the Aichi Prefecture Symphony Orchestra, her plan to stage Mozart's opera "Don Giovanni" in the style of Japan's most revered and challenging dramatic form, noh, created...
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2000

Reinventing the art of exhibition making

Harald Szeemann's recent visit to Japan, at the invitation of the Benesse House on Naoshima Island and Kanazawa City's museum construction office, was a rare chance to hear the freelance curator's views on exhibition creation.
MORE SPORTS
May 28, 2000

Japanese soccer finished, or glory days still ahead?

This past week the lists of the top income taxpayers in Japan were announced and bantered about in all the media. And, as this country loves youth like just about no other, 17-year-old singing sensation Hikaru Utada and 19-year-old Seibu Lions pitching phenom Daisuke Matsuzaka garnered more attention...
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Drunk-driver mows down six people

A 28-year-old man drove his car onto a crowded sidewalk near the Roppongi Intersection in Tokyo's Minato Ward early Saturday morning, plowing into pedestrians, a confectionary shop, a taxi and injuring six people, police said.
CULTURE / Art
May 28, 2000

Blastoff for the outer limits of art

A soft blowup globe projected on a small TV screen, which spins on an axis inside three aluminium rings, and seven 15-cm plastic satellites perched on a white table can be seen at Gallery Side 2, in two exhibits by England's Steven Pippin and Japan's Taro Shinoda.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 28, 2000

Only yesterday

Sometimes this column is credited with far more than it can do. It cannot turn back the calendar to long gone days and bring back the past, except to present it in the form that whatever-it-was has now assumed. Take, for example, traditional Japanese architecture, the lovely old houses we once could...
COMMENTARY / World
May 28, 2000

The U.N.'s impossible task

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone has drawn criticism from many commentators. While much of this may be justified, there is a danger of missing the forest for the trees. The specifics of what went wrong and what could have been done better and how are important. However, the more critical...
JAPAN
May 28, 2000

Seven nations prepare for Rimpac 2000

About 22,000 military and coast guard personnel from seven countries will take part in Rimpac 2000, a series of military drills in waters off Hawaii that start Tuesday and continue for about a month.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 28, 2000

Gaj Singh

JODHPUR, India -- Mehrangarh Fort dominates the skyline of this walled, gated, desert city in Rajasthan, India. Five hundred years ago a hermit chose this imposing site for the fort, which commands the wide stretch of land below. Huge spikes were erected on massive barrier gates to counter the charges...
CULTURE / Music
May 28, 2000

Gergiev faultily great with the Rotterdam Phil

Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
EDITORIALS
May 28, 2000

Say it with buses

Some Tokyo residents have been grumbling or sneering (or both) in the past few weeks about the latest head-turning novelty on the capital's streets: those giant moving billboards that used to be just plain old green-and-cream buses.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Visitors to Japan reach record 4.4 million

The number of visitors to Japan hit a record high of 4.44 million in 1999, up 8 percent from the pervious year, mainly due to the economic recovery in Asia following the 1997 financial crisis, according to a government tourism report released Friday.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Oldest international school's closure leaves many questions

One of Japan’s oldest international school closes its doors today, leaving behind a 99-year legacy that started as a result of nationalist upheaval and ended under a cloud of bitter protests and suspicions of greed.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Dai-ichi Hotel files for 125.5 billion yen bankruptcy

Dai-ichi Hotel Ltd. effectively failed Friday morning when the Tokyo-based hotel chain and its four group firms filed with the Tokyo District Court for protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Anti-stalker insurance on market

Sumitomo Marine & Fire Insurance Co. will start selling insurance policies for women from next month that will entitle policyholders injured by stalkers to receive twice the standard benefit, the company said Friday.
JAPAN
May 27, 2000

Fuji mayor urges ministries to dissolve Honohana cult

The mayor and assembly chairman of Fuji city, in Shizuoka Prefecture, on Friday asked the government to dissolve the Honohana Sanpogyo religious cult, which is headquartered in the city.
BUSINESS
May 27, 2000

Sega president to step down over weak business showing

Major video game console maker Sega Enterprises announced Friday that President Shoichiro Irimajiri will step down as of June 1 to take responsibility for the firm's poor business performance.
BUSINESS
May 27, 2000

Government says EPA not pressured

The Japanese government on Friday denied a foreign newspaper report that hinted the Economic Planning Agency manipulated gross domestic product data for the October-December quarter for political reasons.

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’