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BUSINESS
May 16, 2000

M2 indicator grew 2.9% in April

Japan's key indicator of money supply grew 2.9 percent in April from a year before, an acceleration from the 1.9 percent gain in March, the Bank of Japan said Monday in a preliminary report.
CULTURE / Books
May 16, 2000

Asia's storm clouds haven't dispersed

ASIAN STORM: The Economic Crisis Examined, by Philippe Ries. Translated by Peter Starr. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2000, 2,800 yen. The economic typhoons that swept though Asia in 1997 capsized regional economies, sent the misery index skyrocketing, wiped out colossal amounts of wealth, swept away an aging dictator...
JAPAN
May 16, 2000

Medics add doubts to Aoki takeover

Remarks made by the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's doctors since his death Sunday are increasing suspicions among opposition parties concerning Chief Cabinet Secretary Mikio Aoki's claim, reiterated Monday, that Obuchi asked him to step in as acting prime minister.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 16, 2000

Enchi's made-up 'monogatari'

A TALE OF FALSE FORTUNES, By Fumiko Enchi. Translated by Roger K. Thomas. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2000. Unpriced. The late Fumiko Enchi was, besides being a well-known novelist, a major scholar of Japanese literature. Like her father, Kazutoshi Ueda, she was a classicist. Her 1972-3...
CULTURE / Music
May 16, 2000

A natural woman, yes, but a soul singer?

One of the more thought-provoking critical observations I've come across lately (Amy Linden's, to be exact) is the claim that the current crop of young black singers could learn something from the 22-year-old singer-songwriter Fiona Apple about soul. That's "soul" as in Soul, as in Gladys and Nina, as...
CULTURE / Music / FUZZY LOGIC
May 16, 2000

Blood and gore all over the floor

"Everyone thought I'd fallen on some broken glass by accident. But . . . I just couldn't stand myself anymore, so I went behind the amps with this piece of broken glass, having decided to cut my jugular vein. I just didn't have the guts, though . . . I was aiming for the vein, but I just couldn't make...
JAPAN
May 16, 2000

New ministry targets quality of life

The new ministry to be created in January by a merger of the Construction and Transport ministries and the National Land and Hokkaido Development agencies will strive for public safety, environmental preservation and economic health, according to a draft policy.
JAPAN
May 15, 2000

Probe demanded of Korean activist's killing

OSAKA -- A Japan-based citizens' group that aids North Koreans is demanding a full police investigation into the slaying of a 51-year-old Korean activist for human rights in North Korea at his home in Hyogo Prefecture, the group said Sunday.
BUSINESS
May 15, 2000

Manufacturers dying for new blood

Japan's manufacturers have a staunch ally in Tokai University Professor Hajime Karatsu.
JAPAN
May 15, 2000

Future of transport just round the corner

It's a sunny morning in the spring of 2013. As you ride a commuter train, an information panel on the wall announces a 30-minute delay caused by an accident. With your cellular phone, you search for an alternative route and make a reservation to get to your destination.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2000

Fix the mood, fix the economy

The United States has been urging Japan to expand domestic demand, as if that was the only policy Japan could implement to help promote recovery of the global economy. Washington repeated that demand at the recent Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers and cen- tral bankers.
COMMENTARY / World
May 15, 2000

China: an emerging partner or threat?

Is China a rising colossus that intends to bully its neighbors and dominate Asia? Should Washington adopt a more hardline policy toward China on trade, human rights and national security issues? Or is China a country that has already moved far along the road to a market economy and a more open society...
BUSINESS
May 15, 2000

Female condoms perfect fit for Japanese market

Amid rising concern over the spread of AIDS throughout Asia, The Female Health Company of Chicago has begun shipping the first of 2.5 million female condoms to Japan through local partner Taiho Pharmaceutical.
JAPAN
May 15, 2000

A leader with an uncommon touch

Few leaders have made the prime minister as accessible as Keizo Obuchi did during his 20 months in office.
EDITORIALS
May 14, 2000

The rites of spring

Anyone poking about in newspapers or on the Internet lately might have come across a couple of essays expressing a view that seems to pop up seductively in public discourse whenever the weather turns warm. Like a view of cool woods from the window of a stuffy classroom in spring, this idea offers the...
JAPAN
May 14, 2000

Banned gray whale meat sold in Japan: N.Z. researchers

Kyodo News In the report, researchers at the University of Auckland determined that the meat, sold in August and October as minke whale at shops in Taiji and Nachikatsuura, both in Wakayama Prefecture, was in reality gray whale.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2000

Fight against pirates slowed by China

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- After dark on April 21, two boats carrying 20 pirates armed with cudgels and metal rods slipped up alongside a Russian freighter called Forest-1 in the port of Chittagong, Bangladesh.
JAPAN
May 14, 2000

30% fear Japan may be involved in war: poll

About 30 percent of Japanese who answered a government survey said Japan may be involved in a war in the near future, according to the poll results, released Saturday.
JAPAN
May 14, 2000

Planned Middle East environment conference in danger of cancellation

An international conference on the Middle East's environment, scheduled for the end of this month in Tunisia, will almost certainly be canceled due to a slower pace of progress in the revived regional peace process than initially expected.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2000

Awaiting Putin's policy plans

With great fanfare, Vladimir Putin was inaugurated as president of Russia May 7 in the gilded splendor of the Kremlin, the former residence of the Russian czars.
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2000

Myanmar's Karens fight for freedom

MAE SOT, Thailand -- Theirs is the longest-running insurgency in Asia, against a regime widely recognized as one of the world's most repressive. And yet the Karen National Union, which launched a guerrilla war in 1949 to secure a homeland for the Karen ethnic minority in eastern Myanmar, is anything...
CULTURE / Art
May 14, 2000

Triumph or disaster in Trafalgar Square

LONDON -- The jury for Trafalgar Square was still out when Prue Leith got stuck in her traffic jam. The debate had shifted elsewhere, to other public art projects that had similarly raised hackles or won praise, like Anthony Gormley's "Angel of the North." This 20-meter-high statue erected in 1997 above...
BASEBALL / MLB
May 14, 2000

Buffaloes trample Fighters

Norihiro Nakamura and Tuffy Rhodes both connected for solo homers Saturday as the Kintetsu Buffaloes pounded out 18 hits en route to a 12-7 victory over the Nippon Ham Fighters at Tokyo Dome.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
May 14, 2000

Etienne Taenaka

When he was growing up in California, Etienne Taenaka wanted to be an architect. As he watched his mother, a hairdresser, at work, he made an imaginative leap between architecture and "hair-chitecture." "Creating styles, form following function, building shapes and achieving balance," he said. "My mother...
COMMENTARY / World
May 14, 2000

Winds of change on Korean Peninsula

Following the June 12-14 North-South Korea summit in Pyongyang, there will be one sure way to tell if the proceedings have been even moderately successful.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE
May 14, 2000

Adjusting traditions

Before we get too far from the holidays, I wonder how many of you were aware of yet another dilemma for Japanese trying to follow traditions in a world where they no longer fit. Among the most spectacular sights of Golden Week that we are suppose to see are the carp streamers hoisted on long poles and...
COMMUNITY
May 14, 2000

Ex-garbage man bags career as pro caddie

If Jeff Mulberry has any aspirations beyond the odd hole in one, it is to lead as uncomplicated a life as possible. His needs are modest and his interests narrowing down as he focuses on pro golf. Not that he has his eye set on being a winning player, but rather on being the best caddie that friendship,...

Longform

Once smoky, male-dominated spaces, today's net cafes, like Kaikatsu Club, are working to make their operations more attractive to women customers.
The second life of Japan's net cafes