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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 18, 2000

Sharif deal puts pressure on Musharraf

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistanis were taken aback last week when they unexpectedly heard that former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, in military custody since the country's bloodless coup last year, suddenly left the country for exile in Saudi Arabia.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2000

Bush's role on the Korean Peninsula

HONOLULU -- South Koreans are openly nervous about what the election of George W. Bush portends for the Korean peace process. Many also seem privately hopeful that the incoming president might, as one security analyst put it, "save us from ourselves."
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 18, 2000

Sea cucumbers: radially different

Sea cucumbers.
MORE SPORTS
Dec 18, 2000

Steelers close Three Rivers with victory over Redskins

PITTSBURGH -- Conjuring up images such as the "Steel Curtain" or "Blitzburgh," Three Rivers Stadium has been always a symbol of the Pittsburgh Steelers' strong defense throughout their 30-year history. And so it was on the last day.
COMMENTARY
Dec 18, 2000

At long last, signs of progress

During his Tokyo visit in October 1998, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and then Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi signed a joint declaration on the bilateral partnership for the 21st century. In the document, Obuchi expressed "keen remorse" and apologized for the historical fact that Japan, through...
COMMUNITY
Dec 18, 2000

Japan Prize winners picked for science

Two scientists from the United States and Canada have been named winners of this year's Japan Prize for their contributions to the development of environmentally sound materials and to marine biology.
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2000

Words in their best order

Whereas this editorial leader is at least in part calculated to obfuscate momentous contemporary issues, the better to emerge astonishingly prescient after the fact, it will deliberately adopt a stance of maximum evenhandedness, indeed obliquity, and trust an indefatigable readership to plumb, if not...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Violent movie opens despite protest

A controversial Japanese movie that features a series of fights to the death between junior high school students opened Saturday at cinemas nationwide.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Aid for crime victims inadequate, poll finds

About 76 percent of Japanese think government measures to protect and support crime victims are inadequate, according to a survey by the Prime Minister's Office released Saturday.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Japan divided over call to contribute more to U.N. peacekeeping

Japan always looks before leaping. Nearly a decade after the Persian Gulf War, the nation remains highly averse to taking risks and is even timid about participating in international peacekeeping efforts in regional conflicts.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Japan, U.S. urged to forget trade spats and rethink focus

Japan and the United States should shift the focus of their economic relationship away from coping with individual trade issues and toward creating a more business-friendly environment, according to a still-classified Foreign Ministry report.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Tokyo to open parks and zoos for New Year's holiday season

The New Year's holiday season is one of the rare occasions when the hustle and bustle of Tokyo comes to a temporary halt as dwellers of the metropolis leave in droves.
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Municipalities search for new money wells

The failure of a Tokyo ward to introduce a new tax plan appears to indicate that recent moves by municipalities to seek their own sources of revenue with unique tax measures are not without obstacles.
CULTURE / Art
Dec 17, 2000

Quiet scenes from an ordinary life

"London NW11, July 1993" (from ("Ruthbook") color photograph by Nigel Shafran If national stereotyping has not fallen completely out of fashion, it would probably be accurate to say that Nigel Shafran is the quintessential British artist. It is necessary, however, to qualify this so as to differentiate...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2000

The stage is set for genuine change

This is the final article of a 10-part series on contemporary Japan.
COMMUNITY
Dec 17, 2000

Naturalist issues guide to Tokyo wildlife

Kevin Short leads two quite distinct lives. In California, he is a husband and father, with a home, a dog and three cars. In Japan -- based in Chiba -- he is a natural history writer and environmental consultant, involved with fieldwork, writing, botanical illustration and lectures, and leading secret...
JAPAN
Dec 17, 2000

Yanaka's 'forest of stone sculptures'

Just a minute's walk from JR Nippori Station spreads a vast cemetery in Tokyo's Taito Ward that covers much of the eastern half of the area known as Yanaka and a strip of the neighboring Ueno Sakuragi area.
CULTURE / Books / POETRY MIGNETTE
Dec 17, 2000

Speaking to both the eye and the ear

Poet Keiichi Nakamura first wrote tanka, and then composed monotype lithographs after graduating from the University of Sapporo. Later he created collages in which he explored the fusion of poetry with images.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 17, 2000

Strong pound strangling British industry

BRUSSELS -- Britain's exclusion from the single European currency and the resulting high pound has led to a bleeding away of jobs in manufacturing. Day by day, the press publishes the casualty figures as stories of closures, amalgamations and redundancies, for in manufacturing the high pound is a weakness...
CULTURE / Music
Dec 17, 2000

A true match made in heaven

Wiener Philharmoniker Nov. 16, Seiji Ozawa conducting in Suntory Hall -- Symphony No. 3 in F Minor, Op. 90; Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 (Johannes Brahms, 1833-97)
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 17, 2000

All I want for Christmas is some cud to chew

Since Japan has finally started to perform organ transplants, I can finally ask Santa for what I've always wanted -- an organ. And no, I don't mean a sex change. The organ I want happens to belong to a cow. And no, I don't mean the udder. What I'd like from a cow is something that would make my life...

Longform

Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep