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CULTURE / Music / PLAY BUTTON
Jul 9, 1999

'Showa 64' puts reverse spin on club scene

With his goatee and finely pointed ears, James Vyner has a puckish quality that makes it difficult to imagine him, bewigged, in Her Majesty's court. In an alternative life, yes, Vyner was a barrister.
JAPAN
Jul 7, 1999

Ishihara to ban Aum members from facilities

Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara told the metropolitan assembly Wednesday that he will not allow members of Aum Shinrikyo to use Tokyo's public facilities.
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jul 7, 1999

Technoborrrring

With rare exceptions, no one likes being called a Luddite. Steve Talbott, the thoughtful, somewhat skeptical philosopher who writes the Netfuture e-mail newsletter, for example, takes offense at being labeled "pessimistic." I thought it was a fair beef, but he devoted considerable space in his last missive...
EDITORIALS
Jul 4, 1999

Stone the crows!

Tokyo, Scene 1: A man is waiting patiently for a bus in Roppongi, thinking about nothing, minding his own business. Suddenly, out of a clear blue sky, a bomber-shaped bird watching from atop an adjacent building delivers its payload. Splat! Dabbing at the white mess dripping down his jacket, the victim...
CULTURE / Music
Jul 2, 1999

Sleater-Kinney rocks solid, but dig that crazy backbeat

Is Janet Weiss the best rock drummer in the world? That question crossed my mind last January when I saw her and her ex-husband Sam Coomes, collectively known as Quasi, open for Elliott Smith. Though Coomes is the focus of the duo since he writes and sings almost all the songs, Weiss's contribution was...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 1999

France's right on the run

PARIS -- The French political scene is presently -- and probably for sometime to come -- dominated by the results of the European parliamentary election held June 13. Many commentators spoke of an earthquake. Here are the reasons why.
JAPAN
Jun 29, 1999

Diet begins deliberating flag and anthem bill

Diet debate on a government-proposed bill to recognize the Hinomaru as the national flag and "Kimigayo" as the national anthem began Tuesday with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi telling a Lower House plenary session that legal recognition would give the Japanese people the correct understanding of the national...
JAPAN
Jun 29, 1999

Telecom Realignment: Rival carriers prepare to combat Goliath

Second in a five-part series on reorganizing the domestic telecommunications industry
CULTURE / Books
Jun 29, 1999

American haiku now holds its own

THE HAIKU ANTHOLOGY, by Cor van den Heuvel. W. W. Norton, pp. 363, $27.50. Cor van den Heuvel is the most important anthologist of haiku composed in English in North America. He has published three collections, all simply called "The Haiku Anthology" and all through prominent commercial houses: Doubleday,...
CULTURE / Books
Jun 29, 1999

A century after emancipation, buraku issue still haunts Japan

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BURAKU ISSUE: Questions and Answers, by Suehiro Kitaguchi. Translation and introduction by Alastair McLauchlan. Richmond, Surrey: Japan Library, 1999, pp. 211, 35 British pounds (cloth). This is the translation of a number of important articles by Suehiro Kitaguchi in which he...
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 23, 1999

On the fringe of the fray

I had dinner with two friends last week and eventually the conversation came around to the Web (I generally try to avoid the topic in polite conversation but what can you do?). Anyone overhearing our conversation might have thought we were a trio of hopeless geeks, or digerati wannabes, but the truth...
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 1999

No strong message from Cologne

The leaders of the world's eight major powers, in their annual three-day summit that ended Sunday in Cologne, Germany, pledged to strengthen and broaden their close partnership in settling the exigent issues that are unsettling the international community. Because it came in the wake of the Kosovo conflict...
JAPAN
Jun 17, 1999

Prudential to step into Japanese pension market

Staff writer
LIFE / Digital / CYBERIA
Jun 16, 1999

Vocal as we wanna be

"The process of tying two items together is the important thing," wrote Vannevar Bush in a seminal essay titled "As We Think," published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1945. Bush described a hypothetical device that would allow the storage and retrieval of data, the memory of mankind. It would be constructed...
EDITORIALS
Jun 12, 1999

The prospect of peace in Kosovo

The proper response to the Kosovo peace accord agreed to last week by NATO and Yugoslavia is caution. Caution because agreement is easy, and implementation is not; the lesson of Bosnia is that making an enduring peace is a long and tedious process. Caution because Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic...
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 11, 1999

How to play Hamlet, that is the question

"There are few rules about playing Shakespeare, but many possibilities," said Shakespearean director, educator and theoretician John Barton, in his edifying book "Playing Shakespeare."
JAPAN
Jun 10, 1999

LDP OKs Hinomaru, 'Kimigayo' bill

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party approved a Cabinet plan Thursday to adopt a bill today to legally recognize the Hinomaru as the national flag and "Kimigayo" as the anthem.
JAPAN
Jun 9, 1999

C&W wins IDC stakes

Toyota Motor Corp. and Itochu Corp. on Wednesday announced their decisions to sell their 17.7 percent stakes in International Digital Communications Inc. to Britain's Cable and Wireless PLC.
EDITORIALS
Jun 8, 1999

Help for battered wives is overdue

With a series of shootings apparently related to an underworld gang battle taking place in various parts of the Kanto area and a constantly rising volume of illegal stimulant drugs to deal with, Japan's police forces would seem to have a busy enough summer ahead of them. That may be why some observers...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 8, 1999

The darkest shores of the soul

SHIPWRECKS, by Akira Yoshimura, translated by Mark Ealey. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996, 180 pp., $21. Though Akira Yoshimura, born in 1927, is the author of some 20 novels, this is the first to be translated into English. Perhaps the reason for the delay is that he is better known as a historian...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 8, 1999

Recovery hinges on fast action

Following U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's comments suggesting a change in U.S. monetary policy, the surging U.S. stock market has apparently entered an adjustment phase. To prevent the booming U.S. economy from overheating, it is necessary to fine-tune monetary policy.
JAPAN
Jun 4, 1999

Ex-LTCB execs face criminal charges

The nationalized Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan filed a criminal complaint Friday against its former top executives, accusing them of falsifying the bank's balance sheets and illegally paying dividends to shareholders without earning enough profit.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 1999

Both sides to blame for Sino-U.S. troubles

HONG KONG -- As the United States debates the security implications of the Cox report on Chinese spying in the U.S., and as China continues to deny the spying and to denounce the NATO attack on the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, it is easy to lose sight of a basic reality: There is a remarkable symmetry...
CULTURE / Music
Jun 4, 1999

An audience with the Tokyo culture king

Moichi Kuwahara's office occupies a crumbing apartment building in Tokyo's Yutenji district. The warren of small rooms resembles an art squat -- packed full of editors, graphic designers, writers and other creative types who provide the artistic fodder for Club King, a company whose products, magazines,...
EDITORIALS
Jun 3, 1999

A new world for Japanese business

The latest earnings reports from Japanese corporations listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange provide a running commentary on their predicament. Reflecting a drawn-out recession, both sales and profits plunged in the year to March 1999 (fiscal 1998). On average, sales in all industries except financial services...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 2, 1999

France's Corsican question

PARIS -- "France," according to one of its best-known poets and political thinkers, Paul Valery, "is the most heterogeneous country that ever existed." The present tragedy in Kosovo makes this sound hyperbolic, yet there is an element of truth in it. The French who live on the shores of the Mediterranean,...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 2, 1999

Among the ruins of the Mayan Paris

You wouldn't have wanted to watch a ball game at the close of the season in the ancient Mayan city of Copan.
COMMENTARY
May 28, 1999

A step in the right direction

Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi agreed with U.S. and South Korean officials in Tokyo Monday on the need to continue trilateral cooperation in their policies toward North Korea. It is highly significant that Obuchi's agreement with U.S. policy coordinator William Perry and South Korean Unification Minister...
JAPAN
May 25, 1999

New Defense Role: Next step is to free up SDF

Staff writer
EDITORIALS
May 22, 1999

Red alert for the Loonies

There was gloomy news last week in the sphere of international politics -- so gloomy, in fact, that had it not been for Israel's spirited rejection of its most unhelpful prime minister ever, Benjamin ("Turn-the-clock-back Bibi") Netanyahu, monitors of social progress everywhere would now be inconsolable....

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji